The Nigeria Police Force has acknowledged having information on the United States airstrikes against terrorists in Sokoto State but said it will not make such details public.
Force Public Relations Officer Benjamin Hundeyin made the comments on Tuesday during Channels Television’s Politics Today, stressing that the police would not comment on the operation.
“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 operation involved cooperation with other agencies but should be addressed by defence authorities. “There was cooperation, but we would rather leave it as a defence matter that the defence would talk about,” he stated.
The remarks follow US airstrikes carried out in Sokoto State on December 25, 2025. The US Department of Defense said the strikes killed “multiple ISIS terrorists” and were conducted at the request of the Nigerian government.
US President Donald Trump announced the operation on his Truth Social platform, stating: “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.” He added that the militants had been “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians,” warning that “if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was.”
Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, later confirmed on Boxing Day that the Nigerian government approved the operation and provided intelligence that enabled the strikes. He said the action was part of counter-terrorism cooperation and not driven by religious considerations.
“It’s Nigeria that provided the intelligence. I spoke extensively with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and we agreed that I would speak with President Tinubu for approval,” Tuggar said. “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, citing threats to Christians he described as “genocide,” a claim rejected by the Nigerian government.
