Former Senate Chief Whip, Senator Ali Ndume, has said the comment by United States President Donald Trump on alleged Christian genocide in Nigeria was based on ignorance.
Senator Ndume said President Trump was uninformed about the country’s security situation.
Trump had in a post on his Truth social media platform, claimed that Christians were being massacred in Nigeria, announcing that he had redesignated the country as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) and threatened military action against“ terrorists attacking Christians.
Reacting to this during an interview on ARISE Television, on Tuesday, Senator Ndume said Trump’s statement showed lack of understanding of Nigeria’s complex insecurity challenges.
He said, “This is not to say Christians are not being killed. What we’ve been saying is that it’s not only Christians — Muslims are also being killed too,”
“This has been confirmed by both religions, there’s a lot of killings going on in Nigeria for the past 16 years and more from the Boko Haram insurgency in 2009. Nobody can deny that.
“But to say exclusively that the Christians are being targeted depends on where the event happens. If it happens in Plateau or a Christian dominated area, naturally it is the Christians that will be the victims as it is now in Benue and Plateau.
“If you go to other areas that are Muslim dominated, depending on the type of criminality that is going on there, the victims are naturally going to be the Muslims.
“If a church is attacked, the victims will be Christians, and if it’s a mosque the Muslims will be the victims. This is what’s going on in Nigeria right now.
“If a church is attacked, the victims will be Christians, and if it’s a mosque, the Muslims will be the victims. That’s the reality,” Senator Ndume stated.
He said for the US President to make such a claim was borne out of ignorance. “Donald Trump himself is ignorant about what is happening in Nigeria.”
Ndume recalled a motion recently sponsored by him in the Senate to address what he called “misconceptions” surrounding Nigeria’s security crisis, and to urged the US government to reconsider its classification of Nigeria as a CPC.
He further recalled that Nigeria was previously removed from the list during former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration after engagements with the US government to clarify the nature of the insurgency.
According to the Senator, the violence bedeviling parts of the country has continued to affect Nigerians of all faiths and backgrounds, saying it must be addressed as a national, and not religious issue.
