The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has issued a powerful and public demand to the Nigerian Federal Government, urging it to move swiftly beyond neutralising foot soldiers and instead eliminate the sponsors and financiers of terrorism across the country. The call, made during the November Holy Ghost Service on Friday, comes amidst a heightened geopolitical crisis following a direct threat of military intervention from President Donald Trump.
Adeboye’s urgent plea is framed by the shadow of a potential foreign intervention. The cleric was reacting to a post by President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform, where he warned that if the Nigerian government “continues to allow the killing of Christians,” the U.S. would “immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’” to wipe out Islamic terrorists.
The cleric emphasised that the government, led by President Bola Tinubu, must act "fast, diplomatically, and wisely." He cautioned that if the US were to intervene, other world powers like China or Russia would only offer condemnation, not military support, leaving Nigeria isolated.
To drive home the urgency, Pastor Adeboye advised President Tinubu to issue a three-month (90-day) ultimatum to the newly appointed service chiefs. This deadline would require them to not only eliminate frontline terrorists but crucially, to “wipe out the terrorists and their financiers, no matter how influential they may be.” Adeboye suggested that failure to meet this target should lead to their resignation.
This recommendation echoes a similar, private counsel the cleric once gave a former administration, which he noted was not followed through to its conclusion.
In parallel with his domestic ultimatum, Adeboye urged the Nigerian government to use diplomatic channels to appeal to President Donald Trump. Specifically, he asked President Tinubu to plead for a 100-day window of grace to tackle the insurgency. This move, he argued, would buy critical time for the nation to show decisive progress before any potential sanctions or military actions are enacted by a future U.S. administration.
“This is not the time for arguing... The point is, people are dying. Innocent people are dying,” Adeboye stated, underscoring that the pervasive killings, whether of Christians or Muslims, by terrorist or bandit groups, demand a unified, non-partisan, and radical approach centred on severing the financial and logistical backbone of all violent non-state actors.
