The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) has urged former U.S. President Donald Trump to collaborate with Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu in addressing insecurity and targeted killings rather than threatening military action against the country.
PFN President, Bishop Wale Oke, made the appeal during an interview on Channels Television’s breakfast programme, The Morning Brief, on Thursday.
“Whatever needs to be done should be done to stop the killings. The life of every Nigerian is precious, and the targeted attacks against the church should stop,” Oke said. “If the President [Bola Tinubu] wants to ask for training in counter-terrorism, or wherever they know that America has expertise, let them ask for it.”
He emphasised that the Church in Nigeria was not calling for foreign invasion but for genuine collaboration. “For us, we do not want an American invasion of Nigeria. We want Donald Trump to work with our President and to hold our President accountable to stop the targeted killing and kidnapping of our members. That is what we want,” the cleric added.
His remarks followed Trump’s online statement threatening to take military action in Nigeria over what he called the “mass slaughter of Christians.” The former U.S. President had posted on his Truth Social platform that Nigeria faced an “existential threat to Christianity” and declared it a “country of particular concern.”
“Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter,” Trump claimed. He said the situation demanded urgent intervention, noting that Nigeria accounted for the majority of Christian killings worldwide.
In a follow-up post, Trump directed the U.S. Department of War to “prepare for possible action” in Nigeria, warning that any response would be “fast, vicious, and sweet.”
Reacting, Nigeria’s Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, dismissed Trump’s claims of a Christian genocide, calling them “false, baseless, and divisive.” He maintained that Nigeria’s security challenges cut across religious lines and that portraying them as targeted persecution was “inaccurate and harmful.”
The Nigerian government reiterated its commitment to tackling insecurity and said it welcomed international cooperation and technical assistance in that effort.
Bishop Oke, while urging calm, called on the Tinubu administration to intensify actions to end the killings nationwide. “We don’t want revenge. We only want peace and justice. Every Nigerian — Muslim or Christian — should be able to live and practice their faith freely anywhere in this country,” he said.
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