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The Nigerian Police Force says it is aware of the circumstances surrounding recent United States airstrikes on terrorist targets in Sokoto State but will not disclose any information about the operation to the public.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday, the Force Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, said the police would not be drawn into public discussion of the strikes.
“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.
He added that the strikes involved cooperation with other agencies but said the matter 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.
Recall that on December 25, 2025, the United States conducted airstrikes in Sokoto State. The United States Department of Defence said “multiple ISIS terrorists” were killed in the operation, which it said was 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, saying, “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.
