BREAKING: Tinubu’s Government Opens talks with US after Trump’s Warning of Possible Military Action

• The Federal Government under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has opened talks with the United States following President Donald Trump’s threats of military intervention over the killing of Christians by jihadists in the country. 

The Federal Government under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has opened talks with the United States following President Donald Trump’s threats of military intervention over the killing of Christians by jihadists in the country. 

Yusuf Tuggar, the foreign minister, disclosed this to AFP on Monday.

“What we are discussing is how we can collaborate to tackle security challenges that are in the interest of the entire planet,” he said.

Trump at the start of November said he had asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack in Africa’s most populous nation because radical Islamists are “killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers”.

Asked whether he thought Washington would send the  military to strike, Tuggar said: “No, I do not think so.”

“Because we continue to talk, and as I said, the discussion has progressed. It’s moved on from that.”

The US leader had said that Christianity was “facing an existential threat” in the west African nation, warning that if Nigeria does not stem the killings, the United States will attack and “it will be fast, vicious, and sweet”.

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Nigeria, a country of more than 200 million people, is roughly split between a largely Muslim north and a mostly Christian south. 

The conflict driven by armed groups has persisted for more than 15 years, mostly in the northeast and northwest.

In September, US television host Bill Maher described the situation as a “genocide,” claiming that Boko Haram had killed over 100,000 people and burned 18,000 churches since 2009. Similar figures have circulated widely on social media.

The Nigerian government has repeatedly pushed back against such assertions, describing them as “a gross misrepresentation of reality.” Officials maintain that terrorists attack “all who reject their murderous ideology — Muslims, Christians, and those of no faith alike.”

Security analysts and experts have also said that while Christians have been targeted in some attacks, there is no evidence of a coordinated campaign to exterminate them.

Many of the conflicts often portrayed abroad as religious, they add, are actually disputes over land, water, and grazing routes, worsened by climate change and weak governance.