By WSJ-EB –
President Trump wanted the attention of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, and he’s got it. On Friday Mr. Trump designated Africa’s most populous nation a “country of particular concern” for religious persecution. And on Saturday he wrote that if Nigeria fails to protect its Christians, the U.S. may go in “‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”
Christians account for nearly half of Nigeria’s population, and they’ll welcome Mr. Trump’s attention. Open Doors International, which tracks religious persecution, says more Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world.
Jihadists have slaughtered more than 7,000 Nigerian believers since last December, according to Intersociety, an African NGO. During a single massacre in June, Islamist militants set fire to buildings where Nigerian Christians slept and attacked those escaping with machetes, murdering as many as 200.
Mr. Trump’s critics say Nigeria’s problem is terrorism, not religious persecution, but the issues overlap. The Islamist militant group Boko Haram gained global notoriety in 2014 for kidnapping 276 mainly Christian Nigerian schoolgirls. Affiliates of Islamic State and al Qaeda terrorize Nigeria’s Christians and moderate Muslims. In a statement Saturday, Mr. Tinubu said his government “continues to address security challenges which affect citizens across faiths and regions.”
But much of the violence against Christians is carried out by the nomadic Fulani people. And Nigeria has “totally lacked any indication of political will” to go after Fulani militias, which are backed by the country’s powerful cattle breeders, says Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute.
The recent radicalization of Fulani herdsmen is part of a broader regional trend. Africa’s Sahel, which stretches from Senegal to Sudan, has become the “global epicentre of terrorism,” says the Institute for Economics and Peace. The think tank’s latest report says terrorism deaths in the Sahel rose nearly tenfold between 2019 and 2024, with the region now accounting for 51% of the global total.
Mali is a regional terrorist stronghold, as is Niger, which shares a porous border with Nigeria. In 2024 the Biden Administration withdrew U.S. troops from Niger, creating a vacuum that jihadists have exploited. That also meant the loss of an American drone base for counterterror efforts in the region.
Leaning on Mr. Tinubu to protect Nigeria’s Christians from the jihadists is a start toward correcting those mistakes. Under the International Religious Freedom Act, designating a country of particular concern can trigger sanctions and other U.S. inducements to address religious persecution. The Biden Administration lifted Mr. Trump’s earlier designation of Nigeria, relieving some of the external pressure.
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The plight of Africa’s Christians seems like a world away from America First policy. But U.S. moral interests include humanitarian concerns, and in this case they coincide with the fight against radical Islam. Credit to Mr. Trump for showing he understands and may be willing to act on those interests.
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Read full article: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/nigeria-persecuted-christians-terrorism-bola-tinubu-donald-trump-64ee568f?mod=MorningEditorialReport&mod=djemMER_h
