Nicki Minaj just added another side quest to her resume.
The rapper made an unexpected appearance at the United Nations Headquarters on Tuesday, Nov. 18, using her time at the podium to call attention to what she calls growing “extremism” toward Christians in Nigeria.
“I would like to thank President Trump for prioritizing this issue and for his leadership on the global stage in calling for urgent action to defend Christians in Nigeria,” she said in her four-minute speech. “Today, faith is under attack in way too many places in Nigeria. Christians are being targeted, driven from their homes, and killed. Churches have been burned, families have been torn apart, and entire communities live in fear constantly simply because of how they pray.”
Before Minaj spoke, UN Ambassador Mike Waltz set the tone by repeating claims of Christian persecution and thanking the rapper for stepping up to “demand action.” Her speech kicked off a panel titled “Combating Religious Violence and the Killing of Christians in Nigeria.”
This speech comes on the heels of Nicki’s recent posts on X, where she boosted Trump’s claim that Christianity in Nigeria was facing an “existential threat.” She also shared a pro-MAGA video from the White House synced to her song, “Beez In the Trap,” as well as another clip filled with xenophobic and transphobic messaging about Trump’s second-term achievements, which ended up costing her over 100,000 followers.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that Christians in Nigeria are being “persecuted” and killed by “radical Islamists,” threatening to invade the country “guns-a-blazing to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” per Rolling Stone. In September, Senator Ted Cruz introduced a bill targeting what he described as persecution of Nigerian Christians.
Organizations including the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project and the Council on Foreign Relations have pushed back on that narrative, saying the situation is far more complicated.
In an Al-Jazeera op-ed, Gimba Kakanda, Senior Special Assistant to Nigeria’s president, wrote, “Every region of Nigeria has both Christians and Muslims living side by side, and conflicts typically unfold along community or regional lines rather than strictly religious ones.” Bulama Bukarti, a conflict researcher and human rights lawyer, told ABC News the violence is “indiscriminate,” and an Imam in the same report said, “The kind of pain we’ve gone through for the past years — this issue affects both faiths.”
Despite those sentiments, Minaj echoed Trump and other conservatives by suggesting Christians specifically are being targeted.
“This is about standing up in the face of injustice,” she said. “It’s about what I’ve always stood for my entire career, and I will continue to stand for that for the rest of my life. I will care if anyone anywhere is being persecuted for their beliefs.”
