The unprecedented Christmas Day airstrikes by the United States military against ISIS terrorists in Sokoto State lend real firepower to President Donald Trump’s vow on November 1 to confront “guns-a-blazing” the Islamic militants slaughtering Christians in Nigeria.
In the build-up to the action, Trump had declared Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern”, the US Congress had held hearings on Christian genocide claims; the NSA, the Army chief, and other jittery top officials had met with US authorities; and US lawmakers had visited Nigeria on a fact-finding mission.
However, the decision had been taken long before; Trump does what he says he will do.
In a fiery Truth Social post, Trump declared: “Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries!”
The precision operation unleashed Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles from the USS Paul Ignatius, a guided-missile destroyer reportedly stationed in the Gulf of Guinea. The US Africa Command said that multiple ISIS militants were killed. The body count remains uncertain.
Apart from wreaking havoc in Jabo, Tambuwal LGA in Sokoto State, there was much damage over 500km away in Offa, Kwara State, an hour after the incident in the North-West. In Offa, some residents sustained injuries, while a hotel suspended operations due to the effects of the airstrikes.
However, Nigeria’s Foreign Minister, Yusuf Tuggar, quickly framed the action as a “joint operation” targeting “terrorists” with “nothing to do with a particular religion.” Without naming ISIS outright, he noted the strike had been in the works “for quite some time,” drawing on intelligence shared by Nigerian forces. He hinted at more strikes, pending “decisions to be taken by the leadership of the two countries.”
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth reinforced this on X, thanking Nigeria for its support and adding cryptically: “More to come…”
Yet beneath this veneer of bilateral cooperation lies a damning verdict: these strikes mark the first by a foreign power on Nigerian soil since independence in 1960, exposing decades of profound state failure to protect its own people.
Since 2009, Nigeria has spiralled into a bloodbath fuelled by Boko Haram, ISWAP, Ansaru, Lakurawa, Mahmud, and other Islamic militant factions, claiming over 100,000 lives by Vice-President Kashim Shettima’s own admission, while more than two million people languish in IDP camps.
The military’s impotence stems from terrorists infiltrating its ranks, tacit backing from political elites, the absence of political will to ban open grazing, and provocative policies like incorporating “repentant” insurgents into the Armed Forces, pushing Nigeria to the brink of failed-state collapse.
For too long, Nigeria’s leaders have looked away as citizens died by the thousands, living in denial, downplaying the carnage, and shielding terrorism sponsors from prosecution while chasing electoral spoils, only to plunder state coffers.
Trump’s intervention delivers a stark reality check and a landmark opportunity for President Bola Tinubu’s administration to unleash decisive reforms and crush terrorism at its roots.
Failing this, Nigeria risks becoming the next ISIS stronghold after its defeat in Iraq, Syria and Libya.
While Nigerian officials reject Trump’s “Christian genocide” framing, insisting that armed groups target both Muslims and Christians alike, the country must urgently counter any misreading of the Christian-versus-Muslim narrative that is slowly emerging to preserve the country’s fragile unity.
This US intervention, while a potential tactical win against jihadists that appears bound for escalation, exposes the abject failure of Nigeria’s government to protect its citizens. For years, Abuja has dithered while extremists rampaged unchecked.
Now, Nigeria suffers the ignominy of Uncle Sam playing sheriff on Nigeria’s sovereign soil. This is a stark reminder that when a country abdicates its duties, others will step in, often with devastating consequences.
The violence runs deep. Fulani herdsmen have slaughtered Christians in Plateau, Benue, and other states for years, with little governmental resolve. In Yelwata village, Benue State, between June 13 and 14, about 200 souls were massacred and some 3,000 displaced in a brutal raid, their homes torched.
Human Rights Watch has chronicled the horror: since 2010, Boko Haram and ISWAP have bombed or gunned down worshippers in at least 18 churches across northern and North-Central Nigeria.
On New Year’s Day in 2018, Fulani herders massacred 72 worshipers in Benue State. The 2022 Pentecost Sunday attack on St Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, claimed about 45 lives, turning a sanctuary into a slaughterhouse. During Christmas in 2023, the herders slaughtered 150 people in Plateau State.
In Maiduguri, Borno State’s epicentre of Islamic terror, HRW documented Christians being coerced into converting to Islam or facing execution.
Despite Trump’s designation of Nigeria as a CPC, the Nigerian authorities paid little heed.
The government should have crushed these threats long ago, before they metastasised into a regional cancer. Instead, under former President Muhammadu Buhari, herdsmen were cuddled with proposals like Ruga settlements and prioritising cattle herding over security. These knee-jerk responses only fuelled the killings.
Sadly, officials excel at excuses: why terrorists “can’t be bombed,” and why abductees are rescued without perpetrators facing justice. They confer chieftaincy titles on known terrorists and bandit leaders, massaging the cancer rather than excising it. This is nonsense.
America’s strikes echo a global pattern of US interventions, sometimes ending in pyrrhic victories. The Trump administration is already pummelling Venezuela, but history warns of a blowback.
In 2001, George W. Bush launched the “war on terror,” invading Afghanistan to dismantle al-Qaeda and the Taliban. After 20 years—the US’s longest war—and 2,461 American lives lost, and trillions spent, the Taliban reclaimed power in 2021 after a disorderly withdrawal by the Biden administration.
Iraq’s 2003 invasion, based on fabricated WMD claims and al-Qaeda ties, toppled Saddam Hussein but unleashed chaos; no weapons were found, and Iraq remains fractured.
In the Niger Republic, US forces supported French counterterrorism in 2013, only to be expelled by a 2023 junta, losing a massive drone base.
Somalia’s 1993 “Black Hawk Down” fiasco killed 18 Americans and hundreds of Somalis, while Libya’s 2011 NATO-led ouster of Muammar Gaddafi, followed by anti-ISIS strikes from 2015-2019, plunged the country into a civil war from which recovery remains elusive and looted weapons were scattered in the Maghreb.
Tinubu must heed these lessons. He should rally the military and intelligence community to strike decisively—seal leaky Sahel borders, monitor southward terrorist migrations post-Sokoto.
He should dust off the UAE’s 2021 list of Boko Haram sponsors; six Nigerians were convicted in Dubai for funnelling millions to fighters.
The UAE acted; Trump has struck. Nigeria must fight for itself, or risk becoming another US experiment.
Tinubu should retool Nigeria’s domestic security architecture, abjuring the long-standing denial in government that Nigeria is safe and take the battle to the terrorists.
Although Fulani herdsmen are a terror force against farming communities, the solution, ranching, is a low-hanging fruit. Yet, this needs a political will.
In this, legislate an end to cattle herding. This is the pretext that Fulani herders use to maim, slaughter, kidnap and capture ancestral lands.
In 2018, the Global Terrorism Index adjudged the Fulani herders as the third most violent terror group in the world. Nothing has changed since then. The herders remain without control.
As Lee Kuan Yew did in Singapore to end the farce of herding, Tinubu should give the cattle herders an ultimatum to ranch their animals. Upon expiration, the government should descend heavily on the violators. State governments should also toe that line.
The Tinubu administration should enunciate a new strategy against terrorism. State police must be legislated without further delay. It must be firm in implementing the withdrawal of police officers illegally attached to VIPs. Police details should be assigned only to those eligible under the constitution and judges/magistrates. All other VIPs and government officials should hire licensed private security guards.
The President should review the military setup. It is sheer folly to implement the policy of de-radicalisation and recruitment of “repentant” terrorists into the military. This must stop.
In the United Kingdom, the Terrorism Act 2000 not only criminalises support for Islamic terrorism, but it also prevents those so identified from returning to the UK. The Act strips those concerned of their British citizenship (for dual nationality) and prosecutes and monitors them. This is a lesson for Nigeria because terrorists do not repent; they only retreat to wreak more havoc.
The security agencies need to do better. The self-styled DSS concentrates on regime protection and hounding innocent journalists/citizens instead of unearthing intelligence on terrorists.
Undoubtedly, Nigeria must fix its porous borders. This is a major Achilles heel, which extremists exploit to flood Nigeria with arms and unleash terror on citizens. This includes reorganising the mining sites, driving out bandits and their international collaborators who strip valuable national resources and use the proceeds to acquire more lethal weapons that intimidate even battle-hardened troops.
Rather than fixating on 2027 politics, Tinubu should focus on doing the job he was elected to do – securing Nigerians.
On their part, state governors in the South should mount surveillance on terrorists fleeing the Trump air strikes in the North. This is the time to beef up security, use drones for surveillance and rid the forests of herders, bandits and jihadists fleeing Trump’s retribution.
