The United States has redesignated Nigeria as a country of particular concern after President Donald Trump expressed concern that Christianity faces an existential threat in the West African nation, with a lot of Christians being killed.

The redesignation came after a wave of campaign by American and European far right politicians and commentators that claimed that there was Christian genocide in Nigeria.

Trump said that he is focused on changing the situation in Nigeria.

“Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter. I am hereby making Nigeria a “COUNTRY OF PARTICULAR CONCERN” — But that is the least of it,” Trump said on Friday.

But the Nigerian government has insisted that Christians are not being singled out for attacks while also acknowledging that it has security challenges.

“We are not denying or asking for denial of Nigeria’s security challenges—which we, under President Tinubu’s leadership, are dealing with boldly and decisively,” Nigeria’s information minister Mohammed Idris said days before Trump’s announcement.

“Instead we are asking to be fully understood and respected as a multi-religious country that is united against terrorism, banditry, extremism and other forms of insecurity.”

Nigeria was on the CPC list during Donald Trump’s first term as US president in 2020 but his successor Joe Biden removed the designation the following year.

On Friday, Trumped insisted that “when Christians, or any such group, are slaughtered like is happening in Nigeria (3,100 versus 4,476 worldwide), something must be done.”

As such, Trump said he is asking Congressman Riley Moore, together with Chairman Tom Cole and the House Appropriations Committee, “to immediately look into this matter.”

He stated that the United States cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria and numerous other countries.

“We stand ready, willing, and able to save our Great Christian population around the World,” he added.

Nigeria is almost evenly divided between a Muslim-majority north and largely Christian south.

Its northeast has been in the grip of jihadist violence for more than 15 years by the Islamist Boko Haram group, which has claimed more than 40,000 lives and displaced two million people.

At the same time, large parts of the country’s northwest, north and center have been hit by criminal gangs known as “bandits” who attack villages, killing and kidnapping residents.

Homes are regularly ransacked then torched, with no apparent religious motive.

Clashes are also frequent between mostly Muslim herders and mainly Christian farmers over land and resources, particularly water, giving the conflict an air of religious tensions in a region that has seen sectarian violence in the past.

However, experts say the conflict in north central Nigeria is primarily over land, which is being squeezed by expanding populations and climate change.

AFP contributed to this post.