Nigerians across the religious spectrum pushed back on Monday on US President Donald Trump's threats of military intervention over the alleged persecution of Christians in the country.
Nigeria, which is roughly evenly split between a mostly Christian south and Muslim-majority north, has witnessed wide-ranging conflicts, which experts say kill both Christians and Muslims, often without distinction.
But claims of Christian "persecution" in Nigeria have found traction online among the US and European right in recent months.
"Christians are being killed, we can't deny the fact that Muslims are (also) being killed," Danjuma Dickson Auta, a Christian and community leader, told AFP.
Trump says he envisages 'a lot of things'
Trump said on social media over the weekend that he had asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack.
Asked by an AFP reporter aboard Air Force One if he was considering putting US troops on the ground or using air strikes, Trump replied: "Could be, I mean, a lot of things… I envisage a lot of things."
"They're killing the Christians," he said on Sunday. "We're not going to allow that to happen."
Pushing back on the accusations, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said religious tolerance was "a core tenet of our collective identity."
Live side by side
Auta, 56, hails from Plateau state, where Christians and Muslims have long lived side by side.
Claims of a "Christian genocide" meanwhile have been pushed in recent years by separatist groups in the southeast.
Nigeria also faces long-running terrorism in its northeast and "bandit" gangs in the northwest who conduct kidnappings and village raids. The north's population is mostly Muslim, meaning most of the victims are, too.
"Even those who sold this narrative of Christian genocide know it is not true," said Abubakar Gamandi, a Muslim who heads a fishermen's union in Borno state, the epicentre of the Boko Haram terrorism.
Hardline diplomatic strategy
Oxford Economics political analyst Jervin Naidoo said that "while the terrorism threat is real", Washington's amped-up rhetoric could be related to Abuja rejecting demands to accept non-Nigerian deportees expelled from the United States as part of Trump's immigration crackdown.
Trump previously attacked South Africa over what he called a "genocide" against its Dutch-descended Afrikaner community and has offered them refugee status.
Critics of the president said the rhetoric was part of Trump's hardline diplomatic strategy.
Tinubu spokesman Daniel Bwala noted that "Donald Trump has his own style of communication", suggesting to AFP on Sunday that Trump's post was a way to "force a sit-down between the two leaders so they can iron out a common front to fight their insecurity."
