The Nigerian government on Tuesday said the constitution did not allow religious persecution after US President Donald Trump’s threatened military intervention over the killing of Christians in the country.
“There can’t be a religious persecution that can be supported in any way, shape or form by the government of Nigeria at any level,” Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar said at a press conference in Berlin.
The comment was the first by a senior Nigerian government official following Trump’s threats on Sunday.
Trump said on social media over the weekend that he had asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack because “they’re killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers”.
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.
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.
Nigeria’s foreign affairs ministry, two days ago, said Nigeria’s constitution defends all citizens irrespective of religion.
“Nigeria opposes religious persecution and does not encourage it. Nigeria is a country with constitutional guarantees to protect citizens of all faiths,” Nigeria’s foreign Affairs spokesperson Kimiebi Ebienfa said in a statement.
Ebienfa reaffirmed that Nigeria remained committed to defending all citizens “irrespective of race, creed or religion,” adding, “Like America, Nigeria has no option but to celebrate the diversity that is our greatest strength.”
