Nigerian president hopes to meet with Trump after military threat

Nigeria’s president is hoping to meet with US counterpart Donald Trump, an aide said on Sunday, after the US leader threatened to send the military into Africa’s most populous country over what he has described as a threat to Christians by jihadists.

In an explosive post, Trump said on social media on Saturday that he asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack in Nigeria, one day after warning that Christianity was “facing an existential threat” there.

Nigeria, which is almost evenly divided between a Muslim-majority north and a largely Christian south, is embroiled in numerous conflicts that experts say have killed both Christians and Muslims without distinction.

In his post, Trump said that if Nigeria does not stem the killings, the United States will attack and “it will be fast, vicious and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our cherished Christians”.

A senior aide to Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Daniel Bwala, said that “we do not see the [post] in the literal sense.”

“We know that Donald Trump has his own style of communication,” Bwala said, suggesting it was a way to “force a sit-down between the two leaders so they can iron out a common front to fight their insecurity.”