LAGOS: Nigeria’s president is hoping to meet with US counterpart Donald Trump, an aide told AFP on Sunday (Nov 2), after the US leader threatened to send the military into Africa’s most populous country, over what he has described as a threat to Christians by jihadists.
In an explosive post, Trump said on social media on Saturday that he asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack in Nigeria, one day after warning that Christianity was “facing an existential threat” there.
Nigeria, which is almost evenly divided between a Muslim-majority north and a largely Christian south, is embroiled in numerous conflicts that experts say have killed both Christians and Muslims without distinction.
Nigeria would welcome US assistance in fighting Islamist insurgents as long as its territorial integrity is respected, a Nigerian presidency spokesperson said.
“FORCE A SIT-DOWN”
In his post, Trump said that if Nigeria does not stem the killings, the United States will attack and “it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians”.
A senior aide to Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s, Daniel Bwala said to AFP: “We know that Donald Trump has his own style of communication,” suggesting it was a way to “force a sit-down between the two leaders so they can iron out a common front to fight their insecurity”.
Earlier, Bwala had suggested in a post on X that the two leaders could meet soon.
“As for the differences as to whether terrorists in Nigeria target only Christians or, in fact, all faiths and no faiths, the differences, if they exist, would be discussed and resolved by the two leaders when they meet in the coming days, either in State House or White House”.
Bwala, who was speaking on the phone from Washington, declined to disclose details of any potential meeting.
Trump posted on Friday, without evidence, that “thousands of Christians are being killed (and) Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.”
Nigeria has denied that Christians have been targeted by jihadist attacks more than other faiths.
“The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality,” Tinubu said on social media Saturday.
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