Claims of a "Christian genocide" in Nigeria have been pushed in recent years by separatist groups in the southeast.
The Nigerian government on Tuesday said it does not tolerate religious persecution, responding to US President Donald Trump’s threats of military intervention over the killing of Christians by Islamists in the country.
In the first comment by a senior Nigerian government official following Trump’s weekend threats, Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar said the country’s constitution did not allow religious persecution.
“It’s impossible for there to be a religious persecution that can be supported in any way, shape or form by the government of Nigeria at any level,” Tuggar said at a press conference in Berlin.
Trump said on social media that he had asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack because Islamists are “killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers”.
Nigeria ‘committed to religious freedom
But Tuggar said Nigeria has a “constitutional commitment to religious freedom and rule of law”.
Africa’s most populous country, which is roughly evenly split between a mostly Christian south and Muslim-majority north, is home to myriad conflicts, which experts say kill both Christians and Muslims, often without distinction.
But claims of Christian “persecution” in Nigeria have found traction online among the US and European right in recent months.
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Flanked by his German counterpart Johann Wadephul, Tuggar warned against any attempts to divide Nigeria along religious lines, as he drew parallels with Sudan.
“What we are trying to make the world understand is that we should not create another Sudan,” he said.
“We’ve seen what has happened with Sudan with agitations for the partitioning of Sudan based on religion, based on tribal sentiments and you can see the crisis even when the partitioning was done according to religion or according to tribe,” Tuggar said.
Trump has not suggested any division of Nigeria along religious lines but said without evidence that “thousands of Christians are being killed (and) Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter”.
Nigeria has denied that Christians have been targeted by jihadist attacks more than other faiths.
‘Christian genocide’
Before Trump’s threat, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu had said that religious tolerance was “a core tenet of our collective identity”.
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Claims of a “Christian genocide” have been pushed in recent years by separatist groups in the southeast.
US-based firm Moran Global Strategies has been lobbying on behalf of separatists this year, advising congressional staff on what it said was Christian “persecution”, according to lobbying disclosures.
The word “genocide” has also been used by some individuals in the central parts of the country who are frustrated by the escalating violence there, though typically in ethnic, not religious terms.
Muslim victims too
Nigeria also faces a long-running jihadist conflict in its northeast and “bandit” gangs in the northwest who stage kidnappings and village raids and killings.
The north’s population is mostly Muslim — meaning most of the victims are, too.
Some analysts suggest that Washington’s amped-up rhetoric could be related to Abuja rejecting demands to accept non-Nigerian deportees expelled from the United States as part of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
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