The Senior Pastor of Guiding Light Assembly, Pastor Wale Adefarasin, has expressed skepticism over the United States’ renewed concern for Christians in Nigeria following former U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent remarks about alleged religious persecution in the country.
In a video that began trending on Monday, Adefarasin said the killings of Christians in parts of northern Nigeria were not new, warning against portraying the situation as genocide. He noted that religiously motivated violence had occurred intermittently for decades and should not be exaggerated for political effect.
“For 40 years that I have been a Christian, there have been killings in Southern Kaduna, killings on the Plateau, there have been riots,” he said. “Sometimes, I think it was in France that an image of Prophet Muhammad was defaced — who remembers that? And as a result, there were killings of Christians in Nigeria.”
The clergyman argued that Western narratives framing Nigeria as a place where Christians are under constant attack were misleading. “It doesn’t amount to genocide. The way the West are talking about it, it’s as if if a Christian steps on the street, his head will be blown off,” he added.
Adefarasin went on to question the motives behind the U.S. government’s growing interest in Nigeria’s internal affairs, suggesting that it may be tied to the country’s expanding economic and strategic importance.
“I’m trying to understand this sudden love for Christians,” he said. “Is it because we now have one of the largest refineries in the world and no longer have to ship raw materials abroad and bring the finished products? Or is it because of the 21st-century minerals that we now have in our earth, that are used to generate nuclear power for electric vehicles?”
He further questioned whether these developments were why “our friends are threatening to invade our country to defend and protect Nigerian Christians.”
Adefarasin’s remarks come amid heated reactions from Nigerian leaders, clerics, and civil society groups following Trump’s controversial comments, in which he accused the Nigerian government of tolerating attacks on Christians and hinted at possible U.S. intervention.
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