•Donald Trump and screenshots from US airstrikes in Nigeria
The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) says it has information about the US strikes against terrorists in Sokoto, but won’t be releasing such details to the public.
This is according to the spokesman of the NPF, Benjamin Hundeyin, who spoke on Channels Television last night.
“We engage a lot in intelligence gathering, not just intelligence sharing. As the Police Force, we know certain things about the strikes, but we don’t want to talk about them. We decline to talk about that particular operation,” Hundeyin said.
“There was a cooperation, but we would rather leave it as a defence matter that the defence would talk about,” the police spokesman stated.
On December 25, 2025, the US launched strikes against terrorists in Sokoto. The Department of Defense said “multiple ISIS terrorists” were killed in the strikes conducted at the behest of the Nigerian government.
US President Donald Trump had announced the strikes on his Truth Social platform, where he wrote that: “The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing. Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper.
“May God bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues.”
The Nigerian government said the operation was a joint security effort that was approved by President Bola Tinubu.
“Now that the US is cooperating, we would do it jointly, and we would ensure, just as the President emphasised yesterday before he gave the go-ahead, that it must be made clear that it is a joint operation, and it is not targeting any religion nor simply in the name of one religion or the other,” Foreign Affairs Minister, Yusuf Tuggar, said on the Boxing Day.
“We are a multi-religious country, and we are working with partners like the US to fight terrorism and safeguard the lives and properties of Nigerians,” the minister said.
The strikes came in the wake of Trump’s comments and threats over the killing of Christians in Nigeria, which led him to declare the West African nation a Country of Particular Concern.
The Republican president said Christians in Nigeria faced an “existential threat” that amounted to “genocide”. But the federal government rejected the claims.
