The global stage was set for a political firestorm when US President Donald Trump issued a startling command, ordering the Department of Defence to prepare for “possible action” in Nigeria. The provocation? Trump's fiery claim that Nigeria was failing to halt the “killing of Christians.” This explosive, faith-based framing immediately drew sharp pushback from Nigeria’s federal government, which insisted that insecurity is a national scourge impacting all communities, not a targeted religious campaign.
Now, one of Nigeria's most influential and authoritative voices, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, has decisively weighed in, offering a profound caution against the global distortion of local realities.
The Heart of the Critique: Separating Politics from Faith
Speaking on Democracy Now, Soyinka articulated a powerful warning: Trump’s sweeping claims risk catastrophically inflaming deep-seated religious tensions that already run deep. He argues that the crisis in Nigeria is being dangerously misdiagnosed, insisting that the crisis is not accurately framed as a "Christians versus Muslims" conflict. For Soyinka, the division is fundamentally structural and political, not theological.
He emphasized that the dichotomy of "Christian–Islam, or Islam-versus-the-rest" has existed for decades, but it only became truly "horrendous when politics got mixed up with religious differences.” He firmly stated, “We must separate Nigeria’s long-standing internal problems from President Trump’s recent response.” He stressed that by reducing a complex political and social breakdown into a simple religious war, the international narrative risks empowering the very extremists it seeks to condemn.
The Legacy of Impunity
The celebrated playwright placed the core of the blame squarely on Nigeria's political class. He argued that for too long, politicians have actively weaponized religious differences for power while simultaneously failing to hold violent extremists accountable, thus creating an atmosphere where impunity thrives.
He recalled a particularly horrific case: the lynching of a female student accused of blasphemy, whose killers were brazen enough to be caught on camera boasting of the act, yet were allowed to walk free. Such failures, Soyinka noted, fuel the dangerous perception that a brutal, organized war is raging between faiths. The truth, he asserted, is that Nigeria is battling political Islamists, notably groups like ISWAP and Boko Haram. These groups have successfully leveraged ties with global terror networks to gain advanced weaponry that often challenges the nation's own security forces.
Soyinka warned that when powerful entities issue "sweeping statements like Trump’s," they only serve to "expand the regions of hostility" and make peaceful resolution far more difficult and complex for those on the ground.
The Personal Retort: A Comparison to Idi Amin
The literary giant concluded his critique with a sharp, personal revelation: his own US visa was recently revoked, a move he strongly suspects is a direct consequence of his sustained and unflattering public criticism of the Trump administration.
With characteristic acerbic wit, Soyinka doubled down on his critique of the former President. "I have a feeling that I haven’t been flattering Donald Trump, and I see no reason to do that,” he remarked. He even suggested, with heavy irony, that Trump should feel "flattered" that he once compared him to the notorious former Ugandan ruler, Idi Amin.
Soyinka drew a direct, unsettling link between the rhetoric of the two powerful figures, quoting Trump himself: “Trump has said he likes war, I’m quoting him. Idi Amin was a man of war and brutality,” he concluded, sealing his argument that the rhetoric emanating from the White House was both dangerously misleading and personally targeted.