Why The U.S. Conducted An Air Attack On Nigerian Soil
Did the Nigerian Government really approve of the raid?
“The forces that unite us are intrinsic and greater than the superimposed influences that keep us apart.” –Kwame Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite, 1963.
On December 25th, at approximately 10 p.m., the United States launched an aerial attack on Islamic jihadis in Sokoto State, located in the northern part of Nigeria. According to Donald Trump, Islamic terrorists have been engaged in what he loosely characterizes as a terrorist campaign, resulting in the wholesale slaughter of Nigerian Christians. Trump said that ISIS has been viciously killing primarily innocent Christians at levels not seen in many years.
“Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria,” said Trump. “Thousands and thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.”
However, as Nigerians, including both Christians and Muslims, have previously pointed out, there is no solid evidence that Islamic terrorists are specifically targeting Christians for killing.
While it is true that Islamic extremists such as Boko Haram are waging a terror campaign in the northern parts of Nigeria, their violence is not solely aimed at Christians. These terrorist groups are also targeting Muslims. According to Gimba Kakanda, Senior Special Assistant to the President of Nigeria on Research and Analytics in the Office of the Vice President, the situation is much more nuanced.
“In reality, Nigeria’s conflicts are multifaceted, driven by ethnic rivalries, land disputes, and criminality, with religion often secondary. Boko Haram, which emerged in Maiduguri, Borno State, in 2009, positioned itself against the Nigerian state as an apostate entity, not against any single religious group. Most of its victims have been Muslims. “Similarly, banditry in northern Nigeria often pits Fulani herders against Hausa communities, both predominantly Muslim, a stark example of Muslim-on-Muslim violence.”
Kakada noted that every region of Nigeria includes both Christians and Muslims, and conflicts usually occur along community or regional lines.
While I highly doubt that either Trump or Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fully understood this nuance or the internal geopolitics of the region when they launched their assault on a small patch of farmland in Nigeria’s Sokoto State, a choice that puzzled some Nigerian experts.
Mustapha Gembu, a security analyst, told The Financial Times that the choice of Sokoto was “highly questionable.” According to him, Sokoto was more a victim of banditry than of terrorists targeting Christians, who were almost nonexistent in the state. It was not what he called one of the country’s “terrorist hotspots” but rather a “predominantly Muslim enclave and the historical seat of the Sokoto Caliphate, a spiritual center of Islam in Nigeria.”
Gembu is not the only expert questioning why the U.S. chose to target Sokoto. Aaron Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, shares Gembu’s skepticism.
“As far as we know, the Islamic State does not control any territory in northwest Nigeria. It’s more of a transient area between that part of the country and other conflicts in neighboring countries like Niger and Mali. On the other hand, in northeastern Nigeria, the Islamic State does control territory there.”
Zelin acknowledges that Islamic terrorists have killed Christians; he doesn’t believe that the number of Christians killed justifies calling it genocide.
“There’s definitely some attacks by the Islamic State against Christians,” Zelin said in an NPR interview, “but they also are attacking Muslims, as well, that don’t believe in their extremist worldview.” Plus, much of the Christian population in Nigeria is more in the central and southern parts of the country than instead of the north, whereas the north is majority Muslim. And so, while it is true that the Islamic State has targeted Christians, people talking about a genocide from a legal definition standpoint, it doesn’t hold up.”
If what these two experts are saying is true, then why launch a military assault on Nigerian soil, and why did they pick Sokoto. More specifically, why bomb Jobo, a small town in Sokoto that hadn’t seen an attack by Islamic militants in over two years?
According to the military publication Stripes, the U.S. conducted the strikes with the full cooperation of the Nigerian government. Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the strikes resulted from intelligence sharing and strategic coordination between the two governments. Yusuf Tuggar, Nigeria’s foreign minister, characterized the airstrikes as a “new phase of an old conflict,” suggesting that more strikes were likely.
“For us, it is something that has been ongoing,” Tuggar added, referring to attacks that have targeted Christians and Muslims in Nigeria for years.
However, there are some Nigerians who highly doubt that the Nigerian government was as involved in the planning of the air strikes as the two countries would have the world believe.
Umar Ardo, an opposition politician, also said he was unconvinced that Nigeria was actively involved. “The targeting of Sokoto State with no prior established ISIS presence raises questions about whether Nigerian military authorities exercise meaningful control over the operation or they are themselves mere onlookers.”
Skepticism aside, the strike in Sokoto still begs the critical question: Why bomb Sokoto?
Nigeria has one of the largest military air forces in Africa, with air bases located all over the country. In the past, the Nigerian Air Force has conducted successful air strikes against Islamic terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the country’s northeast and northwest. These operations, often part of “Operation Hadin Kai,” target hideouts, logistics hubs, and gathering points.
As recently as August 23, 2025, the Nigerian Air Force conducted an assault in Nigeria’s northeast region that resulted in the deaths of more than 35 jihadists. Obviously, the N.A.F. is more than capable of carrying out a successful air assault on its own.
I’m no expert on military affairs, but it seems to me that if Nigeria truly needed help fighting Islamic terrorist groups, why not turn to their African neighbors, who are also fighting the same terrorist groups? That would be the Pan-African thing to do. Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali have allied for mutual defense against terrorism, launching a joint military force in late 2025, and the broader Sahel Alliance. But decades of colonialism and neo-colonialism make it extremely difficult for the pro-Western Nigerian government to cooperate with its Sahelian neighbors. Then there’s the other geopolitical issue rooted in the ongoing saga of the Cold War.
“It’s important to remember that the issue of the Islamic State is not just in Nigeria, but it’s this cross-border issue in West Africa and the Sahel in general,” said Zalin. And many of the surrounding countries of Nigeria are actually allied with Russia now, fighting against the Islamic State as well as Al-Qaida. “And so there isn’t cross-border coordination so much at this point.”
This brings me to the crux of why I think Trump decided to bomb northern Nigeria.
I believe that the aerial assault on Nigeria’s northern region has very little, if anything, to do with Trump’s concern for saving Nigerian Christians.
If Trump were truly sincere about the safety of Nigerian Christians, he could have simply sent a chartered plane to pick up all of the persecuted Christians in Nigeria who wanted to leave, flown them back to the U.S., and given them political asylum, the same way he did for the white South Africans whom he insisted were victims of a white genocide. At the very least, he could have lifted the ban on Nigerian visas and allowed these persecuted Christians into the country. But he did neither, which speaks volumes about his sincerity regarding saving Christians.
I believe Donald Trump’s aerial assault on Nigeria’s northeastern region is a precursor to the United States establishing a military beachhead in the region. Northern Nigeria borders the Sahelian country of Mali, which, again, is a part of the Sahel Alliance. It is no secret that the West, led primarily by France, the U.S, and the U.K., is at odds with the Alliance of Sahel States.
According to Western governments, the root of their issue with the Alliance of Sahel States is that it is anti-democratic, rejects Western partnership and democratic norms, and has aligned itself with Russia and China. But when you look at the cozy relationship that the United States has with authoritarian countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, or any other pro-Western authoritarian governments, that argument quickly falls apart, in my opinion. No, the West does not like the Alliance of Sahel States simply because it refuses to be a puppet of Western capitalism. They refuse to sell their natural resources for pennies on the dollar. They refuse to be told who they can or cannot do business with internationally. To put it simply, they refuse to be good neocolonial subjects, and the West is chomping at the bit to rein them in. This is where Nigeria comes in.
Since the inception of the Alliance of Sahel States, the Nigerian government has opposed it. In August 2023, Nigeria, a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) cut off power to its neighbor Niger, following a coup there. Niger depends heavily on Nigerian electricity, illustrating broader regional power struggles after Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger left ECOWAS and formed the AES bloc. AES has accused Nigeria of airspace violations amid regional instability and coups, with AES forming its own joint force against jihadists and asserting independence from West African blocs such as ECOWAS. Nigeria is also pursuing its own security ties, such as a new counterterrorism alliance with the U.S, highlighting the complexities of West African security.
The tensions between Nigeria and the Alliance for Sahel States, particularly the conflict between Nigeria and Burkina Faso, could easily be manipulated by Western powers into a full-scale war. Naturally, any war between Nigeria and the Sahel States would force each nation’s allies to join in some capacity, whether it be sending military advisors, providing weapons and intelligence, or sending troops to fight the war. With Russia and China on the side of the Sahel Alliance, while the United States, France, and England stand with Nigeria, a potential war like this could only be seen as a proxy war between the Eastern and Western bloc states. And it will be these two blocs that will gain the most from the conflicts, regardless of which country emerges as the victor.
War devastates Africa’s development by destroying infrastructure, displacing millions, disrupting agriculture and trade, diverting resources, and fueling instability. This devastation leads to massive economic losses (around 30% of GDP growth in SSA) and long-term scarring. Conflicts worsen poverty, food insecurity, and inequality, and external conflicts, such as the one in Sudan, add pressure through higher food and fuel prices and debt, thereby hampering African progress.
Wars in Africa benefit Western interests primarily by providing
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access to the continent’s vast natural resources (like cobalt, diamonds, and oil), often at exploitative rates; the arms trade; and geopolitical influence. Political instability can be leveraged for strategic positioning or to maintain economic dominance, often involving resource extraction that fuels conflict itself. Although modern wars are expensive for nations, external powers often derive substantial economic and strategic benefits. These benefits come from controlling resources and markets or establishing dependencies, particularly in the unstable environments of post-colonial regions.
There is an old African proverb that says something to the effect of, when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. Needless to say, a war between Nigeria and the Sahel States would not be good for West Africa or the continent as a whole. The two must find a way to peacefully resolve their tensions and work together so they can rid West Africa of the scourge of terrorism without the interference of foreign entities.
Finally, it is high time that continental African leadership begins the arduous task of forming some form of continental-wide alliance that eventually leads to the total unification of the African continent.
Charlie R. Braxton is a poet, playwright, and cultural critic who writes about music and politics. He is the author of three volumes of verse: Ascension From The Ashes (Blackwood Press,1990), Cinders Rekindled (Jawara Press, 2012), and Embers Among The Ashes: Poems In A Haiku Manner (Jawara Press, 2018). His latest volume of verse is entitled And The Earth Cried Blood (Jawara Press,2025) is available from Jawara Press at www.lulu.com
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