In early November, United States President Donald Trump declared that “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria”. In a series of posts on his Truth Social platform, he accused “radical Islamists” of “mass slaughter” and warned that the US “may very well go into that now disgraced country, guns-a-blazing“.
The claim rested on a familiar assumption: that violence in Nigeria is driven by religious ideology, with Christians targeted by Islamist militants.
In mid-November, a new wave of school abductions revealed how perilous parts of northern Nigeria have become for children of all faiths. On November 17, armed men raided Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, Kebbi State, killing a vice principal and abducting 25 students. The school was state-run, and the victims were Muslim girls. One escaped, and the remaining 24 were later rescued.
Days later, in the early hours of November 21, gunmen stormed St Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary School in Papiri, Niger State, abducting pupils and teachers. While some captives later escaped or were released, many remained missing into mid-December, leaving families in agonising uncertainty. Parents continue to wait without answers, their desperation and anguish hardening into anger as official assurances fade.
Taken together, these attacks do not reflect a campaign of religious persecution. They follow a pattern that has become increasingly familiar across northern Nigeria: mass kidnapping for ransom, striking opportunistically rather than along religious lines.
