Speaking with journalists in New York, Chair of the African Union Commission, Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, said, “There is no genocide in northern Nigeria.”

Recall that Trump threatened to carry out an armed intervention in Nigeria, saying radical Islamists were killing “Christians in very large numbers.”

The US leader said Christianity was “facing an existential threat” in the West African nation, adding that if Nigeria does not stem the killings, the United States will attack, and “it will be fast, vicious, and sweet.”

Youssouf said, “The first victims of Boko Haram (the most prominent jihadist group in the region) are Muslims, not Christians.”

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Nigeria, the continent’s most populous country with 230 million inhabitants, is divided roughly equally between a predominantly Christian south and a Muslim-majority north.

The Boko Haram jihadist insurgency, active since 2009, has killed more than 40,000 people and forced more than two million to flee their homes, according to UN figures.

Source: Punch