Right under our nose, by Ochereome Nnanna

On Monday this week, the story of another United States military operation in Nigeria trended. Sebastian Lukacs Gorka, United States Senior Counterterrorism Director and President Donald Trump’s confidant, made startling revelations about a counter-terrorism operation in Nigeria that took place three weeks ago at an undisclosed location. According to him, he watched the operation from the White House Situation Room, during which 199 jihadist terrorists “who will not harm Americans again” were eliminated in Nigeria.

He described the kill haul of terrorists as unprecedented since 9/11. Perhaps more important than the human yield was the confiscation of such a large quantum of electronic and digital devices from terrorist camps that it took “an additional plane” to move them out of Nigeria to a safe place where American experts are studying them to better understand how Islamic State (ISIS) operatives communicate and coordinate their activities. ISIS is a frontline international jihadist terror group bankrolled by Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Having been defeated in the Middle East, it is now focused on Nigeria and the continent of Africa while also targeting the West in their quixotic ambition to bring the world under Islamic rule.

It is more than 48 hours after this story came to town. The President Bola Tinubu administration has not reacted to it, which means it must be true. This says a lot about the so-called joint US-Nigeria military cooperation against terrorism in Nigeria, which is more like a US imposition on our leaders. Since President Trump disdainfully declared Nigeria a “Country of Peculiar Concern (CPC) on 31st October 2025 following the upsurge of Christian genocides in the Middle Belt, the United States has officially conducted three military strikes.

The first was the Christmas Day 2025 Tomahawk missile bombing of a terrorist camp and ammunition dump in Sokoto. This attack surprised many Nigerians because they were expecting any such action in the Benue-Plateau theatre. Little did we know that Sokoto, the territorial domain of Sultan Saad Abubakar, was where the terrorists warehoused their arsenal for the Islamisation of Nigeria. The second strike was the elimination of ISIS’s second-in-command, Abu Bilal Al-Manuki, in the Lake Chad area on 16th May 2026. The Federal Government and the Nigerian military had falsely claimed to have killed Al-Manuki in 2024. Following the US action, the Presidency was forced to admit that the “Al-Manuki” they allegedly killed was a “mistaken identity”, and the American kill was the genuine one!

When these military operations are critically examined, one is left with the questions: between the American and Nigerian governments, which one is really doing the job of fighting Islamic terrorists in Nigeria? Which is protecting Nigerians? Clearly, the Nigerian armed forces are very heavily deployed against the terrorist jihadists operating under the covers of armed Fulani herdsmen, Fulani bandits and ISIS-affiliated Boko Haram, Lakurawa, Mahmuda, Ansaru, and others. However, in spite of routine reports of battlefield victories by our troops, the jihadist forces are steadily spreading throughout the country like a biblical plague, and in a manner that seriously suggests unwillingness or inability of the Federal Government to stop them and secure the nation’s territorial integrity as mandated by the constitution.

What would have been the situation in Nigeria today if America had not muscled its way into Nigeria’s sovereignty to fight ISIS and its phalanges? Apart from diminishing willpower to fight the Islamisers, the Federal Government and top officials of the armed and security forces have uncharacteristically, of late, started sounding rather empathetic towards the enemies, calling them “our prodigal sons”, saying that repentant Boko Haram can be president of Nigeria. If truly Nigeria had voluntarily embraced its touted joint military partnership with the United States, why did it take a United State official a whole three weeks in a media programme to unveil a major strike that decimated the enemy and probably set their evil plans over Nigeria back some months? If those confiscated equipment were successfully installed and ready to use, and if the Sokoto military arsenal were not destroyed, it would only take a snap of the finger for what took place in Iraq and Syria, where millions were slaughtered or displaced, to happen in Nigeria.

If the Tinubu administration was in a happy union with America over the military partnership, I would expect our mouth-running Presidency to be the first to announce the victorious Sokoto strike, Al-Manuki’s elimination and the latest erasure of 199 terrorists and seizure of their sophisticated devices which the Nigerian government obviously lacks. One is left with the disturbing feeling that the Nigerian authorities do not want to do their job and they also do not want someone else to do it for them. More and more, it is becoming obvious that the Nigerian people have no choice but to get directly involved to save themselves from the Islamisers.

The Nigerian State appears to have wilfully offered itself as the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for the subversion of our constitutional order and the imposition of an ISIS-ruled sharia republic. This was what the late Muhammadu Buhari wasted his eight years in power trying to do. When he failed and Southerner and non-Fulani element, Bola Tinubu, took over the presidential office, our hopes that jihadism would be defeated has been dashed. In spite of putting our military and security forces under the control of his ethnic kinsmen, the jihadists have even invaded his home geopolitical zone. Just as Buhari could not protect the North with his absolute control of the military and security forces, Tinubu appears incapable of keeping our collective enemies out of the South West.

It is a very confounding situation. Whatever America has done can only be a temporary setback to the jihadists. General Theophilus Danjuma warned us. We must rise and smell the coffee. Our future is now in our hands.

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