Washington Weighs Up Military Action in Nigeria to “Save Christians”

08-11-2025: US President Donald Trump, the decidedly non-Orwellian renamed Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth and conservative media pundits Alex Jones and Laura Loomer have issued cries about the persecution of Christians in Nigeria. On Truth Social media, Trump warned that if the Nigerian government continued to allow the killing of Christians, the USA would stop all aid and assistance and go in “guns-a-blazing” to wipe out Islamic terrorists who are committing atrocities. At the end of October, Trump had redesignated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act.[1] It is estimated that nearly 56 000 people, almost all Christians, have been slaughtered in Nigeria over the last four years. The toll for just this year is reported to be around 7000.[2] Statistically, this means around 35 people per day are killed in Nigeria, 30 of whom are Christian.[3] Under any metric, this qualifies as straight-out genocide.

Boko Haram

The main culprit is Boko Haram, but they are joined in the killing spree by the Islamic State of West Africa (ISWA) and Fulani herders driven by jihadist ideologies. The Fulani herders drive southwards, clashing with settled Christian farming communities.[4] Nigeria has a predominantly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south. Boko Haram’s official name is Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, which translates from Arabic as “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad”. In 2012, the Nigerian Tribune reported that Boko Haram’s funding had been traced to the United Kingdom (UK) and Saudi Arabia, specifically from the Al-Muntada Trust Fund.[5] However, Boko Haram has arguably received much more assistance from NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) with its 2011 destruction of Green Libya. NATO’s war on Libya also spawned Al Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM) and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

At the time, NATO Commander James Stavridis openly acknowledged the presence of Al Qaeda fighters amongst those seeking the overthrow of Libya, and since then the terror groups have filtered across the Sahel towards north-eastern Nigeria and neighbouring Mali. Their identifiable Toyota Hi Lux trucks fitted with mortars, machine guns, anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons have been seen throughout Nigeria.[6] Al Qaeda, ISWA and Boko Haram are among the cutthroats working together in conducting gruesome massacres of Nigerian Christians and even other moderate or Shia Muslims, as well as anyone else who stands in their way. Ostensibly, Boko Haram (Western education or Western values are ‘haram’, something to be shunned) wants to establish an Islamic Caliphate in Nigeria and take the country away from corrupt Western influence. It hit the headlines in 2014 when it kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in Borno state, sparking the international Bring Back Our Girls campaign.[7] In reality, Boko Haram is strongly suspected to be a set up of Western imperialism, seeking a justification for an intervention to Balkanise Nigeria and drive back the ever increasing trade and cooperation between many African nations and the socialistic People’s Republic of China (PRC).

AFRICOM

The rhetoric from Washington about saving Christians in Nigeria is fantastical. Unfortunately, imperialism is more than willing to sacrifice the lives of hundreds of thousands of Nigerian Christians to further their geopolitical war aims against the PRC, and also the influence of the Russian Federation throughout Africa. In fact, this is basically the rationale for AFRICOM (US Africa Command), which was founded in 2007 but is not even based in Africa but in Stuttgart, Germany. The Trump Administration is currently proposing that AFRICOM be merged into the crosstown headquarters of EUCOM (European Command),[8] figuring that the EU (European Union) states can coordinate military actions from their side. There are at least 10 nations with significant US military bases in Africa, including Dijbouti, Kenya, Somalia, Mali, Ghana, Senegal, Cameroon, Chad and Morocco.[9] However, there are of course political limitations with directly using US troops for military operations across Africa. Hence, covert US deep state arming and funding of terror militia such as Boko Haram and ISWA take precedence.

There are credible claims from some Nigerians that Israeli foreign intelligence unit Mossad, the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency of the US) are behind the funding and arming of Takfiri/Wahabist terrorists, with some degree of complicity from the Nigerian state. This is what Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) has risked his life to bring to light. The IMN has had cordial relations with Christians, has given charity to needy Christians, and the IMN even had a Christian board member who served as a liaison between Christians and Muslims.[10] Sheikh Zakzaky is Shia, while Boko Haram and ISWA are extreme Sunni Wahabists who can attack other Muslims, let alone Christians and others they view as “infidels” – with the knowledge of their imperial benefactors.

AFRICOM is also desperate to combat the newly formed AES – Alliance of Sahel States. The AES comprises Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, and is gaining huge popular support across Africa.[11] The youthful and charismatic Burkinabe leader Ibrahim Traoré gains the headlines, but the AES has come about to enhance cooperation in regional security, economic integration and political sovereignty without relying on centuries of Western imperialism. The AES states are confronting the same danger of Boko Haram, ISWA and Al Qaeda terrorists cutting a swathe across their territories, as is Nigeria. With military support from Russia, the AES has managed to expel almost all French troops from “Francafique” (French Africa). The AES has also withdrawn from ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), which was used by imperialism as a proxy force policing Africa. The Nigerian state is a key member of ECOWAS, but it proved unable to militarily intervene into Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali to prevent the AES from getting off the ground.

Target China

While Nigerian President Bola Tinubu tries to assuage Washington by heading up ECOWAS, he is aware that Nigeria’s only option for economic development is extensive co-operation with Red China. Nigeria and the PRC have 50 years of strong diplomatic relations, but currently Nigeria is the PRC’s largest engineering contract recipient and the second largest African export market, after South Africa.[12] Nigeria joined Beijing’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2018. Infrastructure projects resulting from these links include the Lekki Deep Sea Port, the Lagos-Ibadan Railway, the Abuja Metro Line and the Zungerus Hydropower Plant. In addition, the Chinese state run Export-Import Bank of China is financing 85% of the cost of the $5.8 billion Mambilla hydroelectric plant, which will be Nigeria’s largest power plant upon its scheduled completion in 2030.[13] This infrastructure greatly enhances Nigeria’s trade, connectivity, industrialisation and energy capacity. This has allowed a $22 billion trade between the PRC and Nigeria in the year 2023 alone.[14]

To top it off, in January this year Nigeria was accepted as a partner member of the non-imperialist BRICS bloc. As Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation, its addition to BRICS means that the Global South led formation now covers 54.6% of the world’s population and 42.2% of world GDP (Gross Domestic Product) when measured in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).[15] BRICS has ten full members – Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, United Arab Emirates and Indonesia and ten partner members – Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Nigeria and Vietnam.[16] There are many more states of the Global South that are lining up to join BRICS. Rather than just being led by Russia and China, the BRICS bloc is almost the world minus the old Western imperialist powers of Europe, the US and their allies.

In its efforts to blunt growing multipolarity, imperialism has the aim in Nigeria of setting Christian against Muslim, driving it deeper into conflict – which then provides a pretext for Western intervention. Hence the recent statements of the Trump Administration. The fact that Washington and its allies are prepared to arm and fund death squads to eliminate tens of thousands of innocent people, and Christians at that, in order to block Global South cooperation with Russia and China – speaks volumes. Workers of the world have a vital interest in defending Nigeria and Africa from the overt and covert violence orchestrated by the same empire which is driving them through a dire cost-of-living crisis, a housing crisis, the virtual obliteration of free speech and elementary democratic rights, and much else besides. Marxists have the responsibility to alert the masses to the intrigues of world capitalism in its epochal decline, and to build the vanguard parties which can light the path towards socialism.

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[1] https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/11/alleged-christian-genocide-were-preparing-for-action-in-nigeria-us-war-secretary/ (04-11-2025)

[2] www.ewtn.co.uk/article-56000-killed-in-nigerias-ethnic-and-religious-violence-christians-disproportionately-affected/ (04-11-2025)

[3] www.wng.org/sift/over-7-000-nigerian-christians-killed-since-january-watchdog-says-1755194642 (04-11-2025)

[4] www.organiser.org/2025/06/15/297118/world/fulani-islamic-terrorists-kill-100-christians-in-benue-state-nigeria-escalates-ongoing-genocide/ (04-11-2025)

[5] www.globalresearch.ca/is-boko-haram-an-intelligence-asset-terror-attack-in-nigeria-opens-door-to-africom/5381612 (04-11-2025)

[6] www.globalresearch.ca/covert-ops-in-nigeria-fertile-ground-for-us-sponsored-balkanization/30259 (04-11-2025)

[7] www.indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-global/trump-nigeria-christians-boko-haram-10342429/ (04-11-2025)

[8] www.stripes.com/theaters/africa/2025-03-20/africom-eucom-consolidation-17204753.html (04-11-2025)

[9] www.africanexponent.com/top-10-african-nations-with-the-most-u-s-military-presence-and-the-possible-impacts-of-trumps-administration/ (04-11-2025)