The 2023 presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, has expressed concern over recent comments by the United States President Donald Trump, designating Nigeria as a ‘country of particular concern’, and threatening military action.
In a statement via his X handle on Sunday, Kwankwaso said Nigeria remains a sovereign nation whose citizens face security challenges that are not defined by religion, ethnicity, or politics.
He wrote, ‘I have noted with increasing concern the heightened pronouncements on Nigeria by President Donald Trump. This follows his designation of Nigeria as a ‘country of particular concern’.
‘It is important to emphasise that our country is a sovereign nation whose people face different threats from outlaws across the country.
‘The insecurity we face does not distinguish based on religious, ethnic, or political beliefs’.
Kwankwaso noted that such complex issues require international cooperation and support, not threats of sanctions or military action.
‘The United States should assist the Nigerian authorities with better cutting-edge technology to tackle these problems, rather than posing a threat that could further polarise our country’.
The former governor of Kano State also called on the Nigerian government to strengthen diplomatic engagement with Washington by appointing special envoys to better project Nigeria’s interests abroad.
‘The Nigerian government should also consider appointing special envoys from its distinguished diplomats to engage the American government.
‘Additionally, it is necessary to appoint permanent ambassadors to represent Nigeria’s interests on the international stage.
‘To my fellow countrymen, this is an important moment where we should emphasise unity of belonging over division’, he added.
Kwankwaso is one of Nigerian leaders who have faulted Trump’s post on Saturday, which he directed the Department of War to prepare for ‘possible action’, if the killings continued.
‘If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, “guns-a-blazing”, to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.
‘I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians’, the US president wrote on his Truth Social platform, which the country’s Department of War later affirmed its readiness.
Trump’s declaration comes barely 24 hours after he designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, lamenting that Christians were facing an ‘existential threat’, in the country.
‘Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter. I am hereby making Nigeria a ‘Country of Particular Concern’.
But that is the least of it. When Christians—or any such group—are slaughtered as is happening in Nigeria (3,100 versus 4,476 worldwide), something must be done’! he wrote.
Meanwhile, President Bola Tinubu faulted the decision, describing it as a misrepresentation of the country’s religious reality.
Reacting through a statement on his official X handle on Saturday, President Tinubu said the designation was baseless and failed to reflect the country’s constitutional commitment to religious liberty.
‘Nigeria stands firmly as a democracy governed by constitutional guarantees of religious liberty. The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality’, the President said.
