US Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, met with Nigeria’s National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, and urged Africa’s most populous nation to take steps to curb violence against Christians, the Pentagon said on Friday.

Hegseth called on Nigeria to “take both urgent and enduring action to stop violence against Christians,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement, adding that Washington wants to work with Abuja “to deter and degrade terrorists that threaten the United States.”

The Thursday meeting between Hegseth and Ribadu at the Pentagon came after US President Donald Trump said Christianity was “facing an existential threat” in the West African nation, warning that if Nigeria does not stem the killings, the United States will attack and “it will be fast, vicious, and sweet.”

Nigeria, home to 230 million inhabitants, is divided roughly equally between a predominantly Christian south and a Muslim-majority north.

It is the scene of numerous conflicts, including jihadist insurgencies, which kill both Christians and Muslims, often indiscriminately.

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.

However, experts say the conflict in northcentral Nigeria is primarily over land, which is being squeezed by expanding populations and climate change. (The PUNCH)