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Award-winning rapper Nicki Minaj has publicly supported President Donald Trump’s claims that Christians are being persecuted in Nigeria.
“Christians are being targeted in Nigeria,” Minaj said at a U.S.-hosted event on Tuesday, adding, “churches have been burned and families have been torn apart.”
Analysts say jihadists and other armed groups have waged a campaign of violence that has affected all communities in the West African country, regardless of background or beliefs.
This week alone, two people were killed in an attack on a church in Kwara, and according to the BBC, 25 Muslim girls were kidnapped from their schools.
The two girls later escaped from their kidnappers. The attack on a secondary school in the northwestern province of Kebbi also left a teacher and a security guard, both Muslims, dead.
Earlier this month, President Trump said he would send troops to Nigeria if the government continues to allow the killing of Christians.
Minaj, whose real name is Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty, said at an event hosted by the U.S. Embassy in New York that calling for the protection of Nigerian Christians is “not about taking sides or dividing people… but about uniting humanity.”
“This is about standing up against injustice. It’s something I’ve always stood for,” she added.
The 42-year-old Trinidadian rapper, who grew up in the United States, has previously spoken about his Christian faith. She thanked Trump “for prioritizing this issue and for his leadership.”
The Nigerian government refuted these claims, calling them “serious distortions of reality.”
“Terrorists attack anyone who rejects their murderous ideology, including Muslims, Christians and the non-religious,” one official said.
Other groups that monitor political violence in Nigeria say most victims of jihadist groups are Muslims.
The population of 220 million is roughly evenly split between followers of both religions, with Muslims being the majority in the north, where most attacks occur.
On Wednesday, police in Nigeria’s southwestern state of Kwara confirmed a shooting at a church in the town of Eruku, killing two people and kidnapping several others the day before after gunfire opened fire on worshipers.
Local media said armed men, identified by residents as robbers, stormed into the Christ Apostolic Church during an evening program on Tuesday evening, shooting the pastor and detaining believers at gunpoint.
Images and short video clips, believed to have been taken from the church’s CCTV cameras, have been widely circulated online and show terrified people, including an elderly woman, desperately trying to escape gunmen struggling for safety.
President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday confirmed that jihadist forces had killed a senior army officer captured in an ambush.
The Islamic State West Africa Province (Iswap) said on Monday its fighters killed Brigadier General Musa Uba in the northeastern state of Borno.
The Nigerian military previously denied that the officer was kidnapped and killed.
The attacks have sparked frustration and anger across Nigeria, with many lamenting the endless wave of unrest affecting rural communities, churches, schools and major transport routes.
“I am fully aware of the recent rise in violent extremism across the country,” Tinubu said in a statement Wednesday, adding he was “depressed by this surge.”
He directed security agencies to respond with “urgent, clear and decisive action” to attacks by “heartless terrorists”.
He also postponed a trip to the G20 summit in South Africa to deal with a wave of attacks.
Minaj described Nigeria as “a beautiful country with a deep religious tradition” and even acknowledged her fans in the West African country, the “Beautiful Barbez.”
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz thanked the rapper for “using his massive platform to highlight atrocities against Christians in Nigeria.”
For months, right-wing activists and politicians in Washington have claimed that Islamist militants are systematically targeting Christians in Nigeria.
However, the BBC found that some of the data it relied on to reach these conclusions was difficult to verify.
Analysts say deadly conflicts often arise over essential resources such as land and water, or are driven by ethnic rather than religious tensions.
Last year, Minaj publicly stated that she still does not have American citizenship, despite moving from her native Trinidad to New York at a young age.
Her appearance at the United Nations on Tuesday is her most high-profile political intervention to date.
She made headlines during the pandemic for sharing false information about the side effects of Covid vaccines. Her cousin’s friend claimed that when he received the injection, his testicles swelled and he became impotent.
“His friend was just weeks away from getting married, and now the girl has called it off,” Minaj wrote online.
Her comments drew criticism from Britain’s chief medical officer at the time, and then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson jokingly commented, “I’m not as familiar with Nicki Minaj’s work as I probably should be.”
In recent months, his years-long feud with fellow New York rapper Cardi B has escalated into insults to each other’s careers and families.
Additional reporting from BBC’s Chris Ewokor in Abuja
