Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. President Trump has threatened Nigeria with military action to tackle what he's claiming is targeted attacks on Christians.
They're killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria and they have other countries very bad.
Also.
You know that that part of the world they killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. Not gonna allow that to happen.
Nigeria's government has said the claims do not reflect reality, as Nigerian assets tumbled in the aftermath of Trump's threats.
It's impossible for there to be a religious persecution that can be supported in any way, shape or formed by the government of Nigeria at any level.
On today's podcast, we're discussing why Trump is focusing on Nigeria, where the false idea of a genocide against Christians is coming from, and why Nigeria might have to think carefully about how to respond. I'm Jennifer's Abasaja and this is the Next Africa Podcast, bringing you one story each week from the continent, driving the future of global growth with
the context only Bloomberg can provide. And joining me this week is Neil Munchi Bloomberg's deputy Managing editor for the Middle East and Africa and are a Buja based reporter Nduka or Jinmo. Thank you both for joining us this week. Appreciate you both being here. And Duka, let's start with you because there's quite a bit to unpack with the story.
But we heard earlier.
Those comments from President Trump on Air Force One over the weekend. We'll talk shortly about where some of those claims that he's making are coming from. But let's just start with what the President actually said, what the action is that he's threatening, and whether or not we've gotten any indication that he's going to follow through on this.
Can you can you break that down for us?
Yeah, let let's start from Friday. Then Trump posted on the Truth social he's on platform, that thousands of Christians have been killed in Nigeria, and then he blamed the radical Islamistic for being responsible for that mass mother then he went further, and that's simplest to designate Nigeria a country of Particular Consent, which is usually reserved for countries that show clear and consistent patterns of religious discrimination or persecution.
On Saturday, Trump then went further and directing the Department of War, so prepare for possible military action in Nigeria. He studied with Nigera government continue to allow the clean of Christians, the US will immediately stop all aid and assistance of Nigeria and me very well to use his own words, now go into that. Now these based country cons are blazing. Then on Sunday, he was asked, you know, whether he might callin st rights or sending ground troops,
and he said a lot of things. At a moment, we haven't seen any movements to indicate that any of that is happening. He just still feels like it's the usual Trump retoric. He hasn't really escalated to the points where he's sending either the ground troops is talked about, or you know, sending in any carriers into the West African coast. So not in so fine in terms of the military action, just talk from Trump and from niger government, which we'll get into later.
And the timing of this is quite interesting, of course, because we just saw the president during his Asia trip. Now he starts to make these claims. Let's dig into the claims a bit. Neil, if you can jump in here, what do you make of the timing of this and why President Trump is starting to focus on Nigeria now.
In a sense, it is sort of a matter of time, right. So this kind of conspiracy theory around either persecution of Christians in Nigeria or a genocide against Christians in Nigeria has been circulated right wing Western circles and evangelical circles for years, and you know, Trump dipped into it a little bit in his first term when he similarly declared Nigeria a country of particular concern by an administration pulled them off that list. But in recent months you've seen
it kind of gaining steam. So you know, Senator Ted Cruz A. Trump Bali introduced a bill to protect Nigerian Christians. There was a sort of lesser known Republican congressman who did something similar, and you've heard more and more chatter about this, and so in a way, it was kind of the way Trump often does, kind of pick up on conspiracy theories that are floating among his base and then elevates them. That seems to be what happened here, and you can see it. It's broken out of the
kind of traditional right wing spheres. In the case of say the comedian Bill Maher who has a show on HBO every week, and I think we have a clip of him talking about it too.
If you don't know what's going on in Nigeria, your media sources suck. You are in a bubble. And again I'm not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria. They've killed over one hundred thousand since two thousand and nine. They've burned eighteen thousand churches. These are their Islamis Bokoha rama. They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country. Where are the kids protesting this?
So Bill Maher talking about this on his HBO show. What do we know about the actual picture in Nigeria on the ground there, Neil?
First off, you know in that clip he says they're trying to systematically wipe out the entire Christian population of Nigeria. That's just absolutely, factually inaccurate. You know, Nigeria is a country of two hundred and thirty million people. It is split roughly evenly between Christians and Muslims. It is also a country that has been racked by violence for decades that impacts all communities and all people across Nigeria. The way this violence has manifested over the last fifteen years
is kind of falls into a few buckets. One is Jihadis and Islamists in the northeast, Ookalham being the most famous one, attacking villages, army convoys, churches and Muslims too. In the northwest it's armed gangs and bandits who are criminals who have kidnapped and massacred thousands over the past ten years. And then in the middle of the country you have long running conflict between largely sedentary and Christian
farmers and nomadic cattle herders who are mostly Muslims. And there is where you see it shade most into religious violence. But again most of the violence of the country is concentrated in the north, which is prenominantly Muslim, So just kind of based on that, the proportion of victims, it's higher in the Muslim community than it is in the Christian community. But that is all to say that violence
impacts everyone in Nigeria and it is non denominational. As the bokalhorm phenomenon and the kind of Jihadis phenomenon has scaled back, the armed gang's bandits riding around on motorcycles with AK forty sevens ramped up and I think it should still be true today. But for a long period, we're responsible for much more violence in the country than
Jihadis or Islamists. So you know, in these groups are groups of guys with guns and motorcycles who live in the forest and attack villages, mostly in the Muslim North, massacre and kidnap for and some across the country. So
that kind of puts it in perspective. It's as if the folks were saying Boco Haraam's killing one hundred thousand Christians across the country are living in a world that kind of Bocohran wished existed fifteen years ago, that they were able to have done that, But that is what happened.
Stick with me, both of you.
When we come back, we'll talk about what the reaction has been to some of the comments President Trump has made and what we're likely to see moving forward from the US president but also from the Nigerian government.
Welcome back today.
We're looking at President Trump's threat to deploy the military to Nigeria to tackle what he's called, without evidence, systemic attacks on Christians on Nigeria. Nduka or Jinmo and also Neil Munchi are joining us this week. So Nduka, what have we heard from the Nigerian government so far?
Those in statements from President boat Sin and he basically said, look, Nigeria is a country that guarantees the religious liberty of citizens, you know, Christians, we are not being persecuted and the many points that Christians and Muslims you know, have been targeted by these extremist groups, you know, by these armed gangs in Nigeria and those sparing the war across religious lines.
I thought it was a very measured response. I thought they really falling through the trap of going going with Trump, you know, almost marching fire with fire, because Nigeria still needs to kind of support that the US can providing terms of providing military equipment, in terms of providing aid, in terms of providing the kind of economic support that you need to really keep the Goldment's reforms going. So I thought it was a measured, measured response by the governments.
We've heard that there are shadowed talks between Nigeria's foreign minister and officials in Washington. The fermis that you know told me that two weeks ago that they are constantly talking with officials in Washington, and that's the only same pitch. But that was before from me those statements. Anyway, things might have changed a little bit. But the impression I got from speaking on the foreign means that was that there are talks on going between both.
Sides, and some people are making the comparison to President Trump's allegations about South Africa and what he said about white africaner farmers and potentially sort of the tussle that we saw between President Ramaposa and President Trump. Eventually Neil, what's the risk here if we take a look at President Tinubu's response, as Nduka just pointed out, quite measured. What is the risk here though, especially if we look at the current situation that he's dealing with domestically.
Yeah, I think, you know, to that point, the measured response is kind of the only play with Trump, because he's shown, you know, for a long time that he doesn't back down from a claim once he's made it,
no matter what evidence is shown to refute it. So the example of South Africa, where he claims there's a genocide against white people against all the available evidence, is kind of exactly the situation Nigeria is finding itself in now, and it's going to be tricky, and I don't think South Africa has fully figured this out yet, and you know,
we're many months in to their situation. To placate Trump, communicate to your people and the world that this is not true, and maintain relations in a way that Trump is able to save face and probably continue to repeat these false claims. I don't think it's going to be easy for them to navigate, but I think this metric response is kind of the only way to do it.
And I think, you know, Tanubu's pretty well placed to talk about religious pluralism in Nigeria because he's a Muslim who was governor of Lago State in the predominantly Christian South. He's married to a Christian woman who is also a pastor. You know, for all his faults in tackling insecurity in Nigeria, he kind of embodies the religious pluralism in many ways.
That's that's really fascinating. So then what what do we watch out for now? As you mentioned, South Africa is still trying to figure it out, and maybe you can start for us. What what are you paying close attention to.
Well, and if for the escalations, we've seen meetings. Yesterday the Nine Giant president had the cabinet meetings and that was followed viola meeting by his national security advisor and the service chiefs that he had just recently appointed. I wouldn't necessarily conside that that's a response to trom sweatrics. Well,
we'll be looking for any any for the escalations. If perhaps the US decides to begin moving military assets towards the West African coast, then that will be a pointing plan when we can then sy a where this is really getting serials. I do not think we'll get to that points. I think it's it's Trump's rhetorics, and I think that in the transactional nature of politics and Washington these days, there can be some trade off between the
nine drug government in and and folks in Washington. Nigeria refused US application to take in some of the illegal my Grand's control is going to send that would be back on the cards now. Nadia has some minerals that that Trump might be eyeing. So these are things that really used to to have peace, do not Trump. But I don't think there'll be the kind of military escalation that Trump passed them as hinted.
Perhaps there's a resource transaction in the pipeline.
Neil I kind of would say the same thing. If we see aircraft carriers and that kind of thing in the Gulf of Guinea, will know that he is taking this. As far as he has. The Venezuela situation, I don't think that's in the cards either because I don't think it. It's sort of at the heart of US policy or his policy, the way that Venezuela and the drug trade are. I think, yeah, the most likely is in the months to come, as we see kind of trade deals and
that kind of thing. You know, the Nigerian government could say we're very happy to accept US help and tackling the scourge of Islamism, which, to be fair, like US troops have been training Nigerian troops for years, that's been ongoing. And you know, on the other side, maybe they can offer US companies access to their largely untapped lithium reserves or other minerals in the country.
And you can read Neo Munchi and Duka or Jinmo's report on Bloomberg platforms.
Now we'll put a link to that in the show notes.
Here are some of the other stories from the region we've been following this week. Guinea's military leader Mamadi Dumbuya will stand as a candidate in the country's first presidential elections since he sees power in a coup four years ago. And AI powered fintech firm Optasia Group rallied and it's stayed you on the Johannesburg burse that marked the nation's
biggest initial public offering this year. Optasia's successful debut could set a trend for other fintech firms considering borse listings and help re energize market sentiment on the JS and You can find these stories on Bloomberg platforms now, including in the Next African Newsletter. Will put a link to that in the show notes. This program was produced by
Adrian Bradley and tiwa Adebayo. Don't forget to follow and review this show wherever you usually get your podcasts, But for now I'm Jennifer's Abasaja.
Thanks as always for listening.