Dare Babalola
The Nigeria Police Force has acknowledged awareness of the recent United States airstrikes conducted against terrorists in Sokoto State, but will not disclose further information, according to Police Spokesperson, Benjamin Hundeyin.
The Force Public Relations Officer, on Tuesday during Channels Television’s Politics Today, said, “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.”
He added that the operation involved cooperation with other agencies, but should be addressed by defence authorities.
“There was a cooperation, but we would rather leave it as a defence matter that the defence would talk about,” he stated.
The comments followed United States airstrikes carried out in Sokoto State on December 25, 2025.
The US Department of Defence said “multiple ISIS terrorists” were killed in the strikes, which it said were conducted at the request of the Nigerian government.
US President Donald Trump announced the operation on his Truth Social platform, saying: “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.”
Trump said US forces had carried out “a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria,” adding that the militants had been “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.”
“I have previously warned these terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was,” he wrote.
Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, later confirmed on Boxing Day that Nigeria approved the operation and supplied the intelligence that led to the strikes.
He stated that the action was part of counter-terrorism cooperation between the two countries and was not driven by religious considerations.
“It’s Nigeria that provided the intelligence. I was on the phone yesterday for 19 minutes with Secretary of State Marco Rubio of the United States. We spoke extensively, and we agreed that I was going to speak with President Tinubu for President Tinubu to give the go-ahead,” Tuggar said.
He added, “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 strikes came after Trump redesignated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, claiming Christians faced an “existential threat” amounting to “genocide,” a position rejected by the Federal Government.
