Nicki Minaj Nigeria comments

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Nicki Minaj was invited to address the UN on Tuesday, publicly backing Trump’s allegations that Christians face persecution in Nigeria.

Rapper and singer-songwriter Nicki Minaj was invited to address the United Nations on Tuesday, delivering a warning about Christians being attacked and killed in Nigeria. The move publicly backs President Trump’s allegations that Christians face persecution in Nigeria.

Earlier this month, Trump posted on his Truth Social that he would send troops into Nigeria “guns-a-blazin’” if its government “continues to allow the killing of Christians.”

The Nigerian government has pushed back on these claims, calling them a “gross misrepresentation of reality,” while an official said that terrorists are attacking “all who reject their murderous ideologies—Muslims, Christians, and those of no faith alike.”

Analysts say that armed groups, including jihadists, have waged campaigns of violence that affect “all communities in the West African nation, regardless of background or belief.”

According to the BBC, this week alone, two people were killed in an attack on a church in Kwara, while a group of 25 girls, who are reportedly Muslim, were abducted from a school. Two of the girls later managed to escape, but a teacher and a security guard—both of whom were Muslim—were also killed in the attack.

Organizations monitoring political violence in Nigeria say that most victims of the jihadist groups are Muslim. Notably, the country’s 220 million people are roughly split evenly between Muslims and Christians, with Muslims in the majority in the north, where most of the attacks have taken place.

But far-right campaigners and politicians in Washington, D.C., have been alleging for months that Islamist militants have been systematically targeting Christians in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, Nicki Minaj said at an event organized by the U.S. embassy to the UN in New York that calling for the protection of Christians in Nigeria was “not about taking sides or dividing people, but about uniting humanity.”

“This is about standing up in the face of injustice. It’s about what I’ve always stood for,” she said. “Churches have been burned, families have been torn apart… simply because of how they pray.”

On Wednesday, Nigerian police in Kwara confirmed a deadly attack at a church in the town of Eruku, where gunmen opened fire on worshippers the previous day, killing two people and abducting several more.

In a statement on Wednesday, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said he was “fully apprised of the recent uptick in violent extremism” across the country, which had left him “depressed.” He postponed his trip to the G20 summit in South Africa, and directed security agencies to respond with “urgency, clarity, and decisive action.”