PREVIEW
US President says any attack would be ‘fast, vicious and sweet’ after Abuja officials claim separatist lobbyists are misleading Washington
Rejecting Washington’s 31 October designation of Nigeria as a country which violates religious freedom, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said it did ‘not reflect our national reality’. He added that his government was prepared to work with the United States on the ‘protection of communities of all faiths’.
Abuja officials said the designation would have serious implications for US-Nigeria security, economic and political cooperation, pointing out that Christians make up almost half of Nigeria’s 230 million people and are well represented in government. US aid to Nigeria, running at over US$1 billion in 2023, has been reduced sharply this year to less than $400m, with most of the cuts in the health sector.
On 1 November, President Donald Trump escalated the rhetoric, posting on social media that he would send the US military into Nigeria ‘all guns blazing’ unless Tinubu’s government acted more forcefully to protect Christians against attacks from Islamist insurgents. Independent monitoring groups say that more Muslims than Christians have been killed by the insurgents who focus their operations in northern states.
The Trump administration’s designation of Nigeria as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ for violations of religious freedom follows years of advocacy by Republican senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Backed by evangelical groups, Cruz has claimed that Nigerian officials allow and possibly facilitate the jihadist murder of Christians.
Behind the diplomatic exchanges, officials in Abuja are angered by what they see as the influence in Washington of Nigerian activist groups. These include Nnamdi Kanu’s separatist Indigenous People of Biafra, the Biafra Government in Exile and its US lobbyists Moran Global Strategies, as well as other opposition groups that have won support among US evangelicals.
Last month, Abuja’s information minister Mohammed Idris told Africa Confidential that Abuja rejected Cruz’s claim that 50,000 Christians had been killed in Nigeria since 2009. He added that Cruz had received campaign donations from Elias Gerasoulis, Vice-President of Moran Global Strategies, the Biafran lobbyists (AC Vol 66 No 17, Escalating violence could reshape Tinubu’s plan for 2027 vote).
According to Idris, New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith, chair of the Africa sub-committee in the US House of Representatives and a supporter of the Biafran cause, had used flawed data documenting Christian persecution from Open Doors, an evangelical advocacy group, which calls Nigeria the ‘world’s deadliest country for Christians’.
This clash between Abuja and the US follows Tinubu’s reshuffling of the military high command and an attack on Kwara State by Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, which has gaining control of territory across the Sahel (AC Vol 66 No 21, Coup plot or not). This adds to the attacks in northern states by other insurgent militia such as Boko Haram and Islamic State West African Province (AC Vol 65 No 24, Tinubu looks to his military home boys).
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