•Says effective action requires assistance of Nigeria’s military 

•Tuggar:  Narrative of Christian killings fuelled by misinformation

•Declares talks with US progressing, insists Nigeria must lead any military action 

•Seeks fair hearing in planned Congress hearing on Thursday

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

A Fitch Solutions Company, BMI, has argued that despite the recent Face-off between Nigeria and the United States, both nations are unlikely to experience a breakdown in bilateral relations.

On October 31, 2025, US President Donald Trump announced that Nigeria would be placed on a Department of State list of ‘Countries of Particular Concern’ over claims that Christians in the country were being persecuted.

Other countries on the list include Mainland China, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan and Russia, among others. Trump subsequently suggested that the US could carry out airstrikes or even deploy troops in defence of Christians in the country.

But in its forecast, the Fitch company compared Trump’s current position on Nigeria with the alleged killing of Afrikaners in South Africa, highlighting the pushback by Nigeria that nothing of such was happening.

Nonetheless, it projected that it might further push West Africa’s most populous country to cement its relations with Mainland China, especially if the planned strikes are carried out in a non-cooperative manner.

“We had already been flagging a likely deterioration in US-Nigeria relations over claims of religious persecution. At this stage, we maintain our view that a complete break with the US is unlikely.

“Nigerian officials have welcomed the prospect of US assistance in fighting Islamist insurgents ‘as long as Nigeria’s territorial integrity is respected’. However, any announcement of US sanctions on the country would likely prompt the Nigerian authorities to further bolster relations with Mainland China.

“Any US move to carry out military action in a non-cooperative way would have a notably negative impact on Nigeria’s political risk profile and undermine investor sentiment, with a knock-on impact on growth projections.

“As with Trump’s comments regarding Afrikaners in South Africa, claims about the targeting of Christians in Nigeria are strongly contested by local officials, who insist that violence in the country is driven by criminal and terrorist groups rather than state-sponsored religious persecution,” the organisation stated.

Quoting research from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) group, which suggests that, of 1,923 attacks on civilians in Nigeria so far this year, just over 2.5 per cent involved the targeting of Christians because of their religion, Fitch explained however that this is unlikely to derail the narrative being promoted by right-wing elements in the US.

“At this stage, it is unclear what the next steps by the US administration will be. One possibility is that a potential $346 million arms sale to Nigeria approved by the US State Department in August 2025 does not receive Congressional approval.

“However, this would likely be counterproductive. US airstrikes would need to target small groups located across a large territorial area, and would be complicated by the withdrawal of US troops from neighbouring Niger in September 2024. Effective action would therefore require the assistance of the Nigeria-based military,” it maintained.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Foreign Minister, Yusuf Tuggar, has stated that the country is in talks with the United States following Trump’s threats of military intervention over the killing of Christians by jihadists in the country.

Tuggar told AFP on Monday that the notion that Christians were being specifically targeted by the terrorists was fuelled by misinformation.

“What we are discussing is how we can collaborate to tackle security challenges that are in the interest of the entire planet,” Tuggar said in an interview in the capital, Abuja.

Trump at the start of November said he had asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack in Africa’s most populous nation because radical Islamists are “killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers”.

Asked whether he thought Washington would send the military to strike, Tuggar said: “No, I do not think so.” “Because we continue to talk, and as I said, the discussion has progressed. It’s moved on from that,” he added.

Trump had said that Christianity was “facing an existential threat” in the west African nation. The US leader warned that if Nigeria does not stem the killings, the United States will attack and “it will be fast, vicious, and sweet”.

Nigeria, home to 230 million inhabitants, is divided roughly equally between a predominantly Christian south and a Muslim-majority north. It is the scene of numerous conflicts, including jihadist insurgencies, which kill both Christians and Muslims, often indiscriminately, the AFP report added.

“We accept, we admit, we have security challenges due to factors, many of them beyond our control,” Tuggar said.

But the foreign minister also argued that the narrative about Christian killings in Nigeria was being fed by misinformation. “People have been misinformed. There’s a drive towards creating these false narratives in order to, I suppose, debilitate Nigeria,” he said.

The US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa will hold an open hearing on Thursday to examine Trump’s recent redesignation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern over the violation of Christian religious freedoms.

“Our hope is that Nigeria will get a fair hearing when they’re having their public hearings, instead of just listening to one side,” said Tuggar.

He insisted that the government had worked to tackle Nigeria’s multiple security crises, including the criminal gangs known locally as bandits. “What exists is a government that has been fighting insurgency, that has been fighting terrorism in our region,” he added.

“Sometimes with a lot of success, sometimes we have setbacks due to exogenous factors, not due to something that we’re doing wrong,” Tuggar told AFP.

Tuggar insisted that if the US or any other country wants to partner Nigeria to help with the security issues, “we more than welcome it”. “But Nigeria and Nigerian security and Nigerian troops, Nigerian military, has to be the one to take the lead,” the foreign minister added.

Nigeria has faced a jihadist conflict in the northeast that has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced around two million since it broke out in 2009, the report said. The violence has spilt over into neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting the creation of a regional military force to fight the jihadists, it emphasised.

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