Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Nigerian government on Sunday responded to a warning from U.S. President Donald Trump that the United States could take military action in the African nation if its government does not more to curb the persecution of Christians there by Islamic terrorists.

“We welcome U.S. assistance as long as it recognizes our territorial integrity,” Daniel Bwala, an adviser to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, told Reuters.

On Saturday, Tinubu rejected accusations of religious persecution against Christians and defended Nigeria’s “sincere efforts” to protect religious freedom.

“The characterization of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality, nor does it take into consideration the consistent and sincere efforts of the government to safeguard freedom of religion and beliefs for all Nigerians,” Tinubu said in a statement released on X. “Religious freedom and tolerance have been a core tenet of our collective identity and shall always remain so. Nigeria opposes religious persecution and does not encourage it.”

He also said Nigeria is a country that also has “constitutional guarantees to protect citizens of all faiths,” adding that his government will work with the United States on this matter.

In a Saturday post on Truth Social, Trump stated that Islamic terrorists were carrying out mass killings of Christians and that the religion is “facing an existential threat” in the West African country.

“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” the president said. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action.”

He added: “WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded to Trump’s post, writing that “the killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria—and anywhere—must end immediately.”

“The Department of War is preparing for action. Either the Nigerian Government protects Christians, or we will kill the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”

For years, human rights groups such as Amnesty International have warned that the Nigeria-based Boko Haram terrorist group and similar organizations have launched attacks and kidnappings targeting civilians namely in the northeastern part of Nigeria.

Boko Haram, which has previously explicitly stated that it is targeting Christians and churches, has killed at least 50,000 Christians in the country since its insurgency began in 2009, according to a 2023 report from the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law. Aside from Boko Haram, terrorist organization Islamic State West Africa Province has also launched attacks in the country.

Some analysts have said that Boko Haram also targets Muslims but says that it seeks to attack Christians as a cover because northeastern Nigeria is predominantly Muslim.

“Insurgent groups such as Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa often present their campaigns as anti-Christian, but in practice their violence is indiscriminate and devastates entire communities,” Ladd Serwat, senior Africa analyst at U.S. crisis-monitoring group Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), told Reuters. “Islamist violence is part of the complex and often overlapping conflict dynamics in the country” due to multiple issues, including political power struggles and inter-ethnic conflicts, he added.

Trump’s call for military action to end the persecution of Christians drew praise from some celebrities, including pop star Nicki Minaj. She released a lengthy statement on X praising the president’s promise to protect Christians in Nigeria.

Open Doors, a group that monitors the persecution of Christians worldwide, says that the worst offender is North Korea, which is run by a communist dictatorship, followed by Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and Sudan.

The Chinese communist regime also ranks high on Open Doors’ list, and the International Republican Institute recently released a report regarding religious freedom in China in mid-October, saying that “Christian ministers are imprisoned for refusing to conform to [Chinese Communist Party] ideology, and public access to the Bible is banned,” alongside the persecution of other groups such as Tibetan Buddhists and Falun Gong practitioners.

Reuters contributed to this report.