Lagos, Nigeria – For the past few weeks, Nigerian airwaves have been fixated on United States President Donald Trump’s threat to invade the country “guns-a-blazing” over allegations of a “Christian genocide”.

Nigerian Minister of Information and National Orientation Mohammed Idris Malagi has refuted Trump, telling Al Jazeera that while the country is indeed facing security challenges, most of the attacks are not driven by religious motives.

“Nigeria has a history of violent extremism that has created tension for us in the country, but I also want to point out that mostly they don’t discriminate between who is a Muslim or who is a Christian,” Malagi said.

“Christian communities and Muslim communities have been attacked by these extremists.”

Malagi explained that claims Christians are being specifically targeted reflect a “lack of proper understanding of the diversity and complexity of the situation that we have in Nigeria”.

On November 1, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, instructing the Department of Defense to prepare for possible action, to which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth replied, “Yes sir.”

“I am hereby instructing 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 post said, using the department’s rechristened name.

The day before, on October 31, Trump redesignated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), adding it back to a list of governments that the US considers to have engaged in or tolerated violations of religious freedom. Nigeria was put on the list during Trump’s first term but was removed in 2021 under the Biden administration. Global powers like China and Russia have also been on the CPC list. Being added to it can lead to serious economic consequences, including sanctions and withdrawal of aid.

Advertisement

Abuja and many Nigerians have refuted claims pushed for months by US figures like Senator Ted Cruz that the Nigerian government is enabling a “massacre” against Christians.

“Nigeria is not a violator of religious freedom. Nigeria is a very tolerant country, but we do have, and we do recognise, that we have violence,” Malagi said. The government, he added, is “going after” the perpetrators.

In the wake of Trump’s comments, the minister stated that Abuja was engaged in talks with the US over a security partnership to address Nigeria’s security challenges “once and for all”.

Overlapping crises

Armed conflict has been one of Nigeria’s biggest challenges since 2009, when various groups began waging war in the country’s north. The struggle grabbed international attention in April 2014, when Boko Haram — a group known for its violent campaign against Western education — kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from their dormitory in Chibok, Borno State.

Today, Nigeria faces overlapping security crises, including attacks by armed groups, bandits targeting farmers and rural communities, widespread kidnapping, separatist agitations, and deadly communal clashes between predominantly Muslim pastoral herders and mostly Christian farming communities of various ethnic groups.

Nigeria has a population of 235 million, with a presence of more than 250 ethnic groups. Fifty-three percent of Nigerians are Muslim, and 45 percent are Christian. Ongoing violence has severely impacted the economy and, because many farmers are unable to farm, is causing a food emergency that has left millions of Nigerians starving and displaced.

Malagi explained that while some of the violent clashes in the middle belt, or central region, involve groups motivated by criminal intent, often referred to as bandits, most are linked to competition for resources like water and land. These skirmishes occur between locals and pastoralists who migrate south for economic reasons or are forced to move due to overwhelming climate factors, such as desertification and drought.

Community-level solutions

Following Trump’s threats, the Nigerian government has also come under huge internal pressure and criticism for failing to control the violence.

In response, Malagi said Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu has ordered senior security officials to “flush out” those responsible for the attacks. Since Tinubu came to power, the minister said, more than 13,500 fighters and bandits have been killed, and some 17,000 have been captured and are awaiting trial.

Advertisement

Some Nigerians, especially those who have been directly affected by the violence, accuse the government of complacency and blame security forces for their inability to rein in the attacks.

And their concerns are not without reason. On Monday, 25 schoolgirls were kidnapped from their school in Maga, Kebbi State, in the northwest, by armed men who killed a vice principal. In the past week, the ISIL (ISIS) affiliate in West Africa Province – ISWAP – said it killed a Nigerian military general, which President Tinubu confirmed on Tuesday.

“We have shown that we want to work hard to ensure that these concerns are addressed,” Malagi said.

The minister explained that Tinubu has been mulling a national community policing programme – a move that has been rejected by previous administrations – in which police forces would be deployed into their local communities, where they understand the dynamics, rather than sending them from elsewhere.

“In the past, [community policing] has come with some scepticism,” Malagi said, referring to the concerns that state governors could exploit the forces for political gain. But a rethink is under way, the minister added, because “the government is seeing that these [security] issues are actually community-based” and need to be tackled at this level. The move still faces a lengthy legislative process.

Malik Samuel, a senior security researcher at Good Governance Africa, a research and advocacy nonprofit, believes community policing should already be in place due to the critical security situation in northern Nigeria and the middle belt.

“At this point, we should be looking at, maybe, declaring a state of emergency with insecurity, especially in northern Nigeria,” he said.

To combat violence, Malagi said the government last year went to the Supreme Court seeking a pronouncement to fiscally and politically empower local governments operating in cities, towns, and rural areas.

“Drivers of insecurity like lack of social infrastructures, such as good roads, hospitals and schools, would be taken care of” if local governments had more autonomy, said Samuel.

Malagi said the government last year deepened interfaith programmes, further supporting the work of the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council (NARIC), an association comprising Christians and Muslims to discuss ethnoreligious tensions to foster better understanding and cooperation.

Cheta Nwanze, lead partner at Lagos-based risk advisory firm SBM Intelligence, said it is crucial that programmes rebuild public trust in the government, which has eroded over decades of violence.

“There is a trust thread that has been broken … You cannot defeat an insurgency if you don’t have the trust of the local population,” Nwanze said.

Rising threat of banditry

President Tinubu also approved the creation of a national armed force to protect the country’s forests from criminal gangs carrying out attacks, extortion, kidnapping and illegal logging as the threat of banditry grows.

Advertisement

Experts have applauded the efforts, but some expressed concern about the force’s suitability. Samuel questioned their ability to fight off the violent actors who have taken over Nigeria’s forests, especially in the north and the middle belt, and have a great deal more firepower.

“These are guys that even our security forces are finding it difficult to deal with,” said Samuel. “By deploying forest guards to forests that are infested by terrorists, you will be putting the lives of those [guards] at risk.”

Banditry has been on the rise in the states of Kwara in central Nigeria and Kano in the north. In the first half of the year, bandits or armed groups killed at least 2,266 people in the north and the middle belt. Meanwhile, kidnapping by bandits and armed groups has become a million-dollar industry, netting 2.23 trillion naira ($1.55bn) last year.

“The government is also developing new strategies to defeat [the bandits] … We will continue to chase them wherever they are,” Malagi said.

But Samuel sees the September 28 killing of 15 people in Oke-Ode, a town in the central state of Kwara that has been seen as safe, as an indicator that banditry could spread further south if no comprehensive steps are taken to stop it.

Regional cooperation

As part of efforts to strengthen security agencies within Nigeria and regional partnerships to address shared threats, the country has deepened cooperation with bodies including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the African Union and the Multinational Joint Task Force.

Last year, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso — each under military governments — formally withdrew from ECOWAS, the regional bloc that Nigeria chaired under Tinubu.

The withdrawal disrupted regional military cooperation, contributing to a fragile diplomatic and security landscape across West Africa. It has also challenged the gains made in stabilising the Sahel, with the emergence and resurgence of groups like Boko Haram and multiple splinter groups.

“It is regrettable that some of our neighbours — Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger — have pulled out of ECOWAS. Nigeria has always maintained that the region is stronger when we are all together,” Malagi said.

Samuel suggested that the government should exploit the close-knit relationship northern Nigerians have with Niger to repair the relationship.

The weakening of state control, said Nwanze, has given armed groups space to recoup and recruit.

Mali’s capital, Bamako, is under siege by fighters with the al-Qaeda affiliate group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), which recently made inroads into Nigeria, launching its first known attack in the country last month.

“The bigger problem in the wider Sahel is that the [region] is full of weak states that don’t have the ability to control their entire territory, so it gives all sorts of nefarious groups a chance to trade space for time, and that is something that will affect Nigeria as well,” Nwanze said.

US security ties

To tackle the security situation, said Malagi, the Nigerian government has also reshuffled the top of its armed forces, including changes in the chief of defence staff and other service chiefs — although local media reported the changes followed a failed coup attempt in October. He did not comment on the alleged planned coup, but said a military investigation was ongoing.

Advertisement

Meanwhile, at the diplomatic level, when Tinubu took office in 2023, all Nigerian ambassadors were recalled, and none has been appointed to replace them to head the country’s embassies abroad. Experts say Nigeria’s notable absence in important rooms in Washington, for example, might have played a role in Trump’s threats.

Nwanze said if Nigeria had an ambassador in Washington, the diplomat would have requested a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio as soon as Ted Cruz and other right-wing lawmakers began making accusations.

Nigeria has yet to make a public diplomatic move.

Malagi agrees that Nigeria needs to appoint ambassadors, but says that diplomatic relations continue because the country’s embassies remain staffed.

He said talks were under way with the US to strengthen security ties.

“There are talks ongoing, diplomatic channels have not been foreclosed; they are actually active and we think that they are working,” Malagi added.

This is not the first time the countries have partnered. They have had a security partnership for the past 50 years. Nigeria buys arms from the US, receives military education and training programmes, and the countries hold joint military exercises.

In response to questions from Al Jazeera, the US State Department cited previous statements by Trump and Rubio condemning violence against Christians in Nigeria.

“The United States stands ready, willing, and able to act,” a State Department spokesperson told Al Jazeera, without addressing specific questions about a partnership to tackle insecurity.

“We urge the Nigerian government to improve religious freedom, strengthen protections for Christians, and ensure accountability for perpetrators,” the spokesperson added.

“We don’t believe [the security challenge] is an issue that can be handled by just issuing threats and also saying that the president will put boots on the ground and attack communities directly in Nigeria,” Malagi said.

“We believe that we can do better if we have better cooperation with the United States to tackle this once and for all.”