Holy Warriors and Geopolitics - Trump’s Threat Against Nigeria

Donald Trump, the dealmaker, in his own world probably already a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the man who uses war as a metaphor for strength, threatened on Saturday on his own platform to “go into the now disgraced Nigeria guns blazing” - supposedly to protect Christians. He spoke of “radical Islamists,” of “mass slaughter,” of an attack that would be “fast, vicious and sweet,” and he ordered the Pentagon to “prepare for possible action.” In Washington, such a thing is called “contingency planning,” in the rest of the world it sounds like an ultimatum. Already in the summer of 2025, our investigations revealed that Trump sees Nigeria as “a threat to global security.” We reported on this on July 9, 2025, in our article “The Invented Enemy - How an Internal Quote Exposed Trump’s Nigeria Policy” under the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/der-erfundene-feind-wie-ein-internes-zitat-trumps-nigeria-politik-entlarvt/

Such investigations have little in common with agency journalism. They do not begin with press appointments and the repetition of texts, but with hard work and persistence, with patient conversations and sources that must be protected. Whistleblowers are not information suppliers but people who have something to lose - and precisely for that reason they deserve care, not headlines.

If the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria and may well go into that now disgraced country - “guns blazing” - to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.

I hereby instruct our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet - just like the terrorist thugs attack our cherished Christians!

WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!

The background: The day before, Trump had declared Nigeria a “country of particular concern,” a diplomatic classification that accuses states of religious intolerance. For Africa, for the 220 million people between Abuja and Lagos, it is more than symbolism. It is a warning shot with global resonance. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu responded sharply. Nigeria, he said, is a country of religious tolerance. There is no state persecution, no structural discrimination. “Religious freedom and tolerance are a cornerstone of our collective identity,” he said.

The reality is more complicated. In Nigeria, religious, ethnic, and economic conflicts have for years merged into a barely decipherable war of fragmented violence. In the villages of the north, Boko Haram fights against everything that sounds Western - Christians, Muslims, children. In the center of the country, herders and farmers clash because the land is drying up and the future is vanishing. In the cities of the south, new power centers are growing, driven by poverty, corruption, and fear. There are massacres of Christians - yes. But also massacres of Muslims. The majority of the victims of Islamist groups are Muslims themselves.

The statement by Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is an official response to Trump’s accusations of religious intolerance. Tinubu emphasizes that Nigeria is a democracy with constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion. Since 2023, his government has been actively working with Christian and Muslim leaders and addressing security problems that affect citizens of all faiths.

He firmly rejects the portrayal of Nigeria as a religiously intolerant country and calls it detached from reality. Freedom of religion and tolerance are a central part of national identity. Nigeria rejects any form of religious persecution and does not promote it. In addition, the constitution guarantees the protection of all faith communities. Finally, Tinubu states that his government will continue to work closely with the United States and the international community to deepen mutual understanding and the protection of religious communities.

Trump ignores this complexity. His rhetoric follows a pattern long familiar: religion as a geopolitical tool, Christianity as a moral weapon. “Our cherished Christians,” he calls them, as if they belonged to him. The man who once courted evangelicals to win an election is once again playing the old record of Christian martyrdom. His words are not merely religiously colored - they are militarized, a rallying cry to those who see America as a divine mission.

Nigeria has learned to respond to such tones - with diplomacy, not retaliation. Foreign Ministry spokesman Kimiebi Ebienfa declared that the country would “defend all citizens, regardless of faith or origin.” Nigeria celebrates diversity as its greatest strength. And yet Tinubu knows that the threat is real. The United States has military bases in Niger, drones in the Sahel, advisers in Abuja. What begins as moral outrage can quickly become a precedent - for “humanitarian intervention,” for new proxy wars. The irony is bitter: as recently as 2023, Washington had removed Nigeria from the list of religiously problematic states in an effort to improve relations. Antony Blinken, then Secretary of State, had traveled to Abuja specifically to present America as a “better partner” - in contrast to Russia’s Wagner mercenaries, who control entire regions in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. He spoke of cooperation, of training, of shared security in the Sahel. It was an attempt to restore the trust lost after years of Western hypocrisy.

Now a president who sees religion as a weapon threatens to destroy this fragile balance. While Blinken, just a year ago, spoke of “citizens’ security” - the security of people, not governments - Trump speaks of “going in guns blazing.” One wanted partnership, the other demands submission. Africa, which has again and again been the stage for foreign wars, finds itself once more between fronts. Niger has long turned toward Russia, Mali as well, Burkina Faso followed. Nigeria, the economic heart of the continent, does not want to align itself - neither with Moscow’s orbit nor with Washington’s. Tinubu is trying to preserve neutrality, to maintain stability, while the world reorders itself. But Trump’s words shift the balance. If the United States now sanctions or isolates Nigeria, new alliances could form - and old dependencies could harden. The truth is that the Nigerian crisis cannot be solved in tweets. It is the result of decades of neglect, of an elite that lives off oil and has become estranged from its people, of a north that is drying up under climate change, and a south drowning in privilege. Between these poles live people who want to be neither martyrs nor terrorists.

Trump’s martial rhetoric shows how dangerous it is when religion becomes a geopolitical tool. Whoever confuses “holy warriors” with “God’s chosen ones” creates the next fire. And whoever says “sweet” when speaking of war reveals that he has already erased every boundary between morality and power. What is happening in Nigeria is not a battle between Christianity and Islam - it is a battle over truth, over justice, over the interpretation of violence.

To be continued .....