US President, Donald Trump escalated his criticism of Nigeria on Friday night, November 21, publicly branding the country a disgrace as he renewed accusations that the government is failing to protect Christians from extremist violence.Speaking on a conservative radio program, Trump repeated his threat to take potential military action against Islamist militants in Nigeria if the government does not take "do more" to stop attacks on Christian communities.Nigeria is a disgrace. The whole thing is a disgrace, Trump said. Theyre killing people by the thousands. Its a genocide, and Im really angry about it. And we pay, you know, we give a lot of subsidies to Nigeria. Were going to end up stopping.Trumps comments reinforce the administrations narrative that Christians in Nigeria are being uniquely targeted, a claim that has gained significant traction in right-wing circles in the US. This perspective is applied despite the country's complex history of ethnoreligious conflict in which both Christians and Muslims have suffered mass casualties from various armed groups and terrorists. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Lindaikejiblog (@lindaikejiblogofficial) The Presidents broadcast came just one day after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Nigerias National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, at the Pentagon. The high-level meeting was aimed at reinforcing the Trump administrations claim that Christians in Nigeria are facing horrific violence.Hegseth posted on X that under President Trumps leadership, the Defence Department (referred to by the administration as the Department of War or DOW) is working aggressively with Nigeria to end the persecution of Christians by jihadist terrorists.A subsequent statement from the Defence Department confirmed that Hegseth and Ribadu discussed tangible progress on curbing violence against Christians and combating jihadist groups operating in West Africa.
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