Abuja — November 10, 2025 | Dalena Reporters
Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, has stirred fresh debate by asserting that American Christians hold a legitimate “right” to defend and assist Nigerian Christians — should they believe those communities face persecution. The remarks come in the context of escalating U.S. rhetoric, led by Donald Trump, which has threatened military intervention and aid suspension against Nigeria over alleged attacks on Christian populations.
Lawal made his statements during an interview with Channels Television, rejecting government claims of persecution while also insisting the responsibility for citizen security lies squarely with the Nigerian state. “When you talk to government, they send people to insult you and say all sorts of things,” he observed. “The government should secure us, and if they do, we can then join them to tell the Americans to stay away from our land.
In his remarks, Lawal drew on Christian theological concepts of solidarity, invoking the idea that believers must be “their brothers’ keepers” — reasoning that if communities feel incapable of self-defence, external co-religionists may step in. “If American Christians decide to come to the aid of Nigerian Christians because they are in distress, that is Biblical. They are within their right to do so if Christians feel they are unable to defend themselves,” he said.
At the same time, Lawal criticised what he described as the government’s dismissive attitude toward insecurity: citizens who raise alarm, he said, are met with public insults rather than effective protection. The former official underscored that failure to protect fundamental liberties opens room for extraneous support — regardless of national jurisdiction.
The broader context of these comments is significant. Trump’s social-media post and subsequent U.S. foreign-policy signals referenced Nigeria’s alleged failure to protect Christians, with threats to cease all U.S. aid and potential military action “guns-a-blazing” if conditions did not change. Nigerian authorities have pushed back strongly, insisting the nation operates under constitutional protection for all faiths and rejecting the description of state-backed persecution.
Legal and diplomatic observers say Lawal’s framing — that American citizens have a “right” to intervene in Nigerian affairs — raises delicate questions of sovereignty, international law and religious diplomacy. The idea of external faith-based defence complicates an already volatile security and religious-freedom landscape in Nigeria, where violent attacks by insurgent and armed-herder groups affect both Christian and Muslim communities.
This development sets the stage for heightened tension between Nigeria and the U.S., where the discourse shifts from humanitarian concern to questions of external-faith solidarity crossing national borders. It remains to be seen whether Nigeria will engage more directly with U.S. demands, whether Christian organisations abroad will act on this new interpretive framework, and how Nigerian civil society will respond to the idea that foreign Christians may deem local religion-based security inadequate.
Dalena Reporters — Abuja Bureau