Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has likened former US President Donald Trump to Uganda’s late dictator, Idi Amin, while warning that Trump’s remarks on the alleged persecution of Christians in Nigeria could inflame the country’s fragile religious tensions.
Trump had recently directed the US Department of Defence to prepare for “possible action” in Nigeria, accusing the government of failing to stop the “killing of Christians.”
Rejecting the claim, the Nigerian government insisted that insecurity affects all religious groups equally.
In an interview with Democracy Now, Soyinka said Trump’s sweeping statements distorted the reality of Nigeria’s security crisis and risked deepening divisions between Christians and Muslims.
He stressed that the violence in Nigeria should not be viewed as a religious war but as a fight against extremist groups that manipulate faith for political and economic power.
“We must separate Nigeria’s long-standing internal problems from President Trump’s recent response,” Soyinka said. “The Christian–Islam, or Islam-versus-the-rest kind of dichotomy became truly horrendous when politics got mixed up with religious differences.”
Soyinka criticised successive Nigerian leaders for failing to confront violent extremism, allowing impunity to thrive. He cited the case of a student lynched for alleged blasphemy, whose killers were never punished despite being caught on video.
“When perpetrators of such horrors go free, it strengthens the perception that a brutal war is going on between Christians and Muslims,” he said. “In truth, we are dealing with extremists — political Islamists such as ISWAP or Boko Haram — not Muslims as a people.”
He added that these groups had forged ties with international terrorist networks and acquired weapons that sometimes outgun Nigeria’s military.
Soyinka also revealed that his US visa was revoked due to his criticism of the Trump administration. “I have a feeling that I haven’t been flattering Donald Trump — and I see no reason to do that,” he said.
The Nobel laureate quipped that Trump should feel “flattered” by his earlier comparison to Idi Amin. “Trump has said he likes war — I’m quoting him. Idi Amin was a man of war and brutality. He even called himself the last king of Scotland and claimed he would liberate Scotland from the British.”
