LAGOS, Nigeria: Nigeria’s president is hoping to meet with US counterpart Donald Trump, an aide told AFP on Sunday, 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 militants.
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 is embroiled in numerous conflicts that experts say have killed both Christians and Muslims without distinction.
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, told AFP that “we do not see the (post) in the literal sense.”
“We know that Donald Trump has his own style of communication,” Bwala said, told AFP, 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.”
Nigeria has denied that Christians have been targeted by militant attacks more than other faiths.
“The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality,” Tinubu said on social media Saturday.
