First Lady Remi Tinubu, during her visit to the U.S., dismissed the campaign over alleged Christian genocide in Nigeria as hype targeted at bringing down her husband, President Bola Tinubu’s government.

Mrs Tinubu, a pastor at The Redeemed Christian Church of God, told The Free Press on Thursday that her visit to the U.S. was to “make some clarifications about recent hype in the social media that there is Christian genocide.”

The first lady said the Christian genocide campaign erupted just after her husband’s government navigated the country out of economic turbulence characterised by soaring food prices and a declining naira.

“We went through a very dark tunnel. Food prices were up. Exchange rates were up. We went through a lot,” Mrs Tinubu said.

“And now, when the world is saying, ‘Oh, Christian genocide…’” Mrs Tinubu said, trailing off before continuing: “They’ve tried a lot, you know, to bring this government down. But now we are out of the tunnel,” she went on. “Nigeria is growing steadily. A lot of reforms are being made.”

The campaign on the killing of Christians predated Mr Tinubu’s government. In 2014, Mr Tinubu, as an opposition politician, said in a post on X: “The slaughtering of Christian worshippers is strongly condemnable. It calls to question the competence of Jonathan to protect Nigerians.”

In another interview with The Hill during her visit to the United States, Mrs Tinubu said “global concern about persecution of Christians in the country is based on ‘propaganda.’”

However, she called for more U.S. military strikes targeted at terrorists and bandits in the northern region of the country, describing the Christmas Day military strikes ordered by Mr Trump as a “blessing” to the West African nation.