Jerusalem: Nigeria, 127 other countries ignore Trump; vote against U.S.

Nigeria on Thursday joined 127 other countries to back a UN resolution which effectively called on the U.S. to withdraw its recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

A total of 128 countries approved the non-binding resolution. Nine countries voted against it, 21 did not turn up to vote, while 35 abstained.

Togo was the only African country that voted against the resolution. The other eight that voted against the resolution were the U.S., Israel, Guatemala, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, and Palau.

Apart from the U.S., all the other four permanent Security Council members voted in support of the resolution on Thursday.

The vote comes a day after President Donald Trump threatened that the U.S. could withdraw funding from countries that back the resolution.

“They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us,” the American leader told reporters at the White House.

“Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday.

That threat did not, however, deter countries like Nigeria, Egypt and several others who despite receiving millions of dollars of American aid every year, chose to stand by majority of the world in condemning the U.S. decision.

The solution adopted by the UN General Assembly states that any decisions regarding the status of Jerusalem are “null and void” and must be cancelled.