On 25 December 2025 (Christmas Day), the US launched air strikes targeted at ‘Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria’. The Nigerian government’s Information Minister Mohammed Idris announced that 16 ‘precision strikes’ were conducted ‘in coordination’ with the US, using guided missiles launched from Reaper drones, with the ‘full involvement of the Armed Forces of Nigeria’ and the ‘explicit approval’ of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. On 1 November, US president Donald Trump had threatened to send the military into the ‘now disgraced country’ ‘guns-a-blazing’ unless the government intervened in a ‘Christian genocide’ in Nigeria. Trump claimed that ‘They’re killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria…We’re not going to allow that to happen’. US War Secretary Pete Hegseth replied: ‘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.’
Nigerian journalists at HumAngleMedia.com indicate the US strikes were ‘performative’; no ‘terrorists’ were killed and no ‘terrorist hubs’ were hit. US officials told the New York Times it was a ‘one-time event intended to appease Christians’, and that the warship responsible for launching the strikes had since been withdrawn from the Gulf of Guinea. Trump certainly intended to appease his right-wing Christian supporter base, while also asserting US dominance of the most populous country in Africa as well as testing the waters for further military adventures such as the 3 January bombing of Venezuela.
Bogus claims of a Christian genocide have been circulating among some Nigerian and US reactionary Christian groups since 2009, when Islamist military group Boko Haram began its insurgency. These ideas were picked up by right wing circles close to the US administration. In December 2020, during his first presidential term and after lobbying by right wing ‘religious freedom’ and evangelical groups, Trump designated Nigeria as a County of Particular Concern (CPC). Democrat President Joe Biden subsequently removed Nigeria and India from the list in November 2021, whilst adding Russia. Trump’s redesignation of Nigeria as a CPC in November 2025 – which allows the US to impose sanctions on Nigeria – shows that this is a politicised list that has little to do with protecting religious freedom and everything to do with political and economic interests.
Roots of the insurgency
Nigeria’s security crisis has been ongoing since 2009 when Boko Haram began its insurgency in Borno state in the northeast. In 2008, a year before, 34% of school age children were not enrolled in school, over 8.4 million children. By 2010 it had risen to 10.5 million primary school-age children (UNESCO), 60% of them were in the north. The northern states were amongst the states with the highest rates of unemployment in 2009: Borno state (where Boko Haram is based, 27.7%), Adamawa (29.4%), Bauchi (37.2%), Yobe (27.3%), Sokoto (bombed by Trump in 2025; 22.4%), Kano (where Boko Haram was founded, 27.6%) (National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)). The northern area also had appalling rates of poverty with the Northeast having the highest levels in the country. The NBS records 71.5% of the population in the ‘absolutely poor’ bracket in 2012, while 51.5% found it difficult to feed daily.
In the above context, religious movements stepped in to provide social and economic services where the state is absent. Boko Haram was the most prominent example and found a ready pool of willing recruits for its anti-corruption, jihadist message. While Islam is the dominant religion in the Northeast, there are also many Christians in the region. Of the 250 ethnic groups that make up Nigeria, more than 100 ethnicities are from the northeast, making it one of the most multicultural parts.
Nigerian security crisis
The violence disproportionately affects northern states. In 2025, the International Organisation for Migration reported over 3.5 million Nigerians internally displaced, around 2.3 million in the Northeast. Unknown numbers, certainly tens of thousands, of people have been killed. In 2024, 9,662 people were killed, with 86% of these deaths in the northern regions. The violence impacts both Christians and Muslims, fuelled by kidnappers, bandits, and terrorists. Not only is there no evidence of a ‘genocide’ – a systematic religious or ethnic targeting, but the specific religious targeting accounts for a small minority of the overall violence. Recent five-year data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project 2020 to 2024 revealed almost 24,000 recorded violent attacks, of which religious targeting accounted for only 4.3% (1,000 incidents). Even the abductions of school children which tends to be picked up by national and international media, are economically-motivated crimes for ransom, rather than religiously motivated attacks.
The Nigerian government’s policy of implementing IMF reforms: removal of fuel subsidy, devaluation of the national currency and massive levels of theft, has contributed to an estimated 139 million people (61% of the population) living below the poverty line in 2025. The UN World Food Programme reported that nearly 35 million people could go hungry in 2026. Almost six million people lack basic minimum food supplies in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states. The US bombing may have been a coded threat to the progressive alliance of Sahelian states, an appeasement of Christian extremists, or a bit of both; but it had nothing to do with stopping any ‘Christian genocide’. Nor did it do anything to protect Nigerians from the poverty and oppression they face daily.
