Nigeria’s presidential spokesperson welcomes US help ‘so long as it recognises our territorial integrity’.
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Nigeria says it will welcome help from the US in preventing armed teams so long as its territorial integrity is revered after US President Donald Trump threatened military action within the West African nation over what he claimed was persecution of Christians there.
In a social media put up on Saturday, Trump stated he had requested the Division of Protection to arrange for potential “quick” navy motion in Nigeria if Africa’s most populous nation fails to crack down on the “killing of Christians”.
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A spokesperson for Nigeria’s presidency, Daniel Bwala, instructed the Reuters information company on Sunday that the nation would “welcome US help so long as it recognises our territorial integrity”.
“I’m certain by the point these two leaders meet and sit, there can be higher outcomes in our joint resolve to combat terrorism,” Bwala added.
In his put up, Trump stated the US would instantly minimize off all help to the nation “if the Nigerian Authorities continues to permit the killing of Christians”.
Earlier, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu pushed again towards claims of spiritual intolerance and defended his nation’s efforts to guard non secular freedom.
“Since 2023, our administration has maintained an open and lively engagement with Christian and Muslim leaders alike and continues to deal with safety challenges which have an effect on residents throughout faiths and areas,” Tinubu stated in an announcement.
“The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously illiberal doesn’t mirror our nationwide actuality, nor does it take into accounts the constant and honest efforts of the federal government to safeguard freedom of faith and beliefs for all Nigerians.”
Nigeria, a rustic of greater than 200 million folks, is split between the largely Muslim north and largely Christian south.
Armed teams have been engaged in a battle that has been largely confined to the northeast of the nation and has dragged on for greater than 15 years. Analysts stated that whereas Christians have been killed, a lot of the victims have been Muslims.
‘No Christian genocide’
Whereas human rights teams have urged the federal government to do extra to deal with unrest within the nation, which has skilled lethal assaults by Boko Haram and other armed groups, specialists say claims of a “Christian genocide” are false and simplistic.
“All the information reveals is that there isn’t a Christian genocide happening in Nigeria,” Bulama Bukarti, a Nigerian humanitarian lawyer and analyst on battle and growth, instructed Al Jazeera. That is “a harmful far-right narrative that has been simmering for a very long time that President Trump is amplifying immediately”.
“It’s divisive, and it’s only going to additional improve instability in Nigeria,” Bukarti added, explaining that armed teams in Nigeria have been focusing on each Muslims and Christians.
“They bomb markets. They bomb church buildings. They bomb mosques, and so they assault each civilian location they discover. They don’t discriminate between Muslims and Christians.”
Ebenezer Obadare, a senior fellow of Africa research on the Washington, DC-based Council on International Relations, agreed and stated the Trump administration ought to work with Nigerian authorities to deal with the “frequent enemy”.
“That is exactly the second when Nigeria wants help, particularly navy help,” Obadare stated. “The flawed factor to do is to invade Nigeria and override the authorities or the authority of the Nigerian authorities. Doing that can be counterproductive.”
