Violence is once again scorching Nigeria. On Sunday, gunmen killed three people and took several hostages, including a Catholic priest, during an early morning attack in the northern state of Kaduna. The attack came days after jihadist fighters killed over 150 people in two majority-Muslim villages in the western part of the country, allegedly for villagers’ refusal to attend prayers led by the insurgents.
The escalation has not gone unnoticed in the United States, which last week quietly deployed a small special forces team to Nigeria. While there are few details about the size and scope of the mission, it follows a meeting last month in Abuja of the inaugural Nigeria-US Joint Working Group to boost cooperation, and came weeks after joint US airstrikes on Islamic State targets in the northwest part of the country in December. The strikes were reportedly timed to take place on Christmas Day to send a message to Christians who Trump claims are victims of “genocide.”
While Abuja shares the concern for terrorism, it does not share Washington’s framing. Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar said the December strikes targeted “terrorists” and had “nothing to do with a particular religion” – something both the facts and analysis bear out.
The root cause of Nigeria’s violence. The crisis began with a violent insurgency led by the Islamic jihadist group Boko Haram nearly twenty years ago. Founded by religious leader Mohammed Yusuf in 2002, its ultimate goal is to overthrow the Nigerian government, abolish secular education and Western influence, and establish an Islamic state governed by strict sharia law.
After Yusuf’s death in police custody in 2009, the group splintered due to power struggles between factions, with Islamic State-linked groups widening operations and targeting military installations and civilian communities. What was once a local-level insurgency has become much more diffuse, with violence killing tens of thousands and displacing millions across northeastern Nigeria and neighboring states.
Trump takes up the Christian “genocide” cause. Trump has framed Nigerian violence as a mass slaughter of Christians after concerted pressure by Christian activists and conservative lawmakers in the US. Republican Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Riley Moore, for example, have urged for stronger intervention to protect persecuted Christians for years – framing the violence as an existential threat. Last October, Washington designated Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” for religious freedom, citing attacks on Christian communities.
That framing appeals to Trump’s evangelical base, but oversimplifies the nature of the conflict, according to Eurasia Group Africa analyst Amaka Anku, who noted that the most recent mass slaughter involved Muslims. While it is true that many victims in central and northeastern Nigeria are Christian, many are targeted due to disputes over land, cattle grazing, ethnicity, and local power.
According to Anku, the “deeper problem of insecurity won’t be solved until Nigeria addresses its structural issues — governance gaps, local grievances, and the lack of civilian security capacity.” The country has only 30,000 police to provide security for 230 million people, emboldening insurgents to attack undefended communities of either faith.
Nigeria’s strategic response. Nigerian officials initially rejected claims of a “genocide” of Christians in the country. Last September, the government in Abuja called Trump’s claims “a gross misrepresentation of reality.” But that pushback soon faded. Abuja appears to have calculated that maintaining the relationship with Trump outweighs the need to set the record straight.
For years, the country has struggled to tackle violent extremism, in part due to weak governance and corruption in the security sector. When it comes to the US, Nigerian officials want partnership, especially in the ability to buy military supplies, share intelligence, and receive training. In August of last year, for example, the US State Department approved $400 million in weapons sales to Nigeria, following a $1 billion arms deal in 2022. The US is also Nigeria’s largest foreign investor, with two-way trade surpassing $13 billion in 2024.
Because of this, Nigeria has a great interest in cooperation – but not at any price. According to Anku, the Nigerian government views the US military partnership with a mix of welcome and caution. “It’s very important that any partnership preserves Nigerian sovereignty. The people don’t want Nigeria to be the theater for an anti-American militant struggle,” she notes. “If they feel like the US is being imperialist, this could attract jihadist fighters from all over the world to fight the ‘imperialist US.’”
What Washington wants. While protecting Christians may be the official reason for action in Nigeria, the reality is that a strong relationship with Nigeria is in the US’s long-term interest. Nigeria’s GDP has surged from $118 billion to $423 billion between 1990 and 2023, representing a fifth of sub-Saharan Africa’s total economic output. Its population is expected to surpass 400 million by 2050, making it the world’s third-most populous country and the preeminent player in Africa, a key source of the critical minerals coveted by the world’s major powers.
However, Washington’s security goal in Nigeria also might be in conflict. The Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy identifies “resurgent Islamist terrorist activity” as a threat in Africa, but at the same time, wants to avoid “any long-term American presence or commitments” on the continent. Because the fighting in Nigeria has metastasized, eliminating extremism could require more than targeted airstrikes and intelligence sharing – making it unfeasible for Washington to maintain a light footprint.
