US Christmas airstrike in Nigeria: Only the united action of the working people can end insecurity

This event marked a new turn in Nigeria’s seemingly unending series of crises. The increasing insecurity nightmare comes on top of the years of decline added to by most Nigerians’ sharp fall in living standards resulting from Tinubu’s neo-liberal offensive.

Against this background, Trump, for his own reasons, had previously, in late October last year, designated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” and later instructed the US Defence Department to prepare for military action to “wipe out the Islamic Terrorists” who are “killing the Christians”.

Given the failure of successive governments to tackle the monstrous insecurity ravaging the country, many Nigerians welcome the US military intervention. The ordinary masses would not bother themselves about the so-called argument of sovereignty or an abstract ‘anti-imperialism’ which are hollow in the face of a dire need for survival.

However, the framing of this intervention by President Trump and the rightwing elements in the US as being only meant to protect Christianity which purportedly faces “existential threat” in Nigeria polarizes opinion and divides the working people. It also poses the danger of compounding the crisis. For instance, if a missile mistakenly hit a Muslim community, killing people, it could be interpreted as a deliberate attack by ‘crusaders’ under the guise of protecting Christians in Nigeria, and thereby potentially setting off a conflagration of ethno-religious crisis.

In other words, a complex security crisis has been reduced or summed up by Trump and sidekicks to “Christian genocide” and thereby obliterating the suffering and plight of other sections of Nigeria who are not Christians but also victims of the seemingly intractable insecurity and violence. As Financial Times rightly put it, “Nigeria has been subject for at least a decade to overlapping security crises, in a mixture of banditry, kidnappings, clashes between herders and farmers and Islamist extremism.” (Financial Times, December 26, 2025). And, according to data compiled by independent conflict monitor ACLED, there were almost 12,000 attacks on civilians between January 2020 and September 2025, resulting in more than 20,000 deaths. Only 5% of these attacks, in which 317 Christians and 417 Muslims were killed, were classed as explicitly religiously motivated. (Bloomberg, December 30, 2025).

Where the claim of targeted killing of Christians has any shred of truth is in the Middle Belt where long-running conflict between Muslim Fulani herdsmen and Christian farmers over access to water and grazing rights has exploded in recent times into a serious humanitarian emergency. Many Christian farming communities in Plateau, Benue, Southern Kaduna and other states have been raided with hundreds massacred by rampaging Fulani Ethnic Militias (FEM). The violence has become recurrent, happening almost on a daily basis while the country’s security operatives, both the police and the army, have proved appallingly useless in curbing it, thereby raising suspicion of complicity. But even here, the motivation for the violence is not religious and there are victims on both sides including among many peaceful Fulani villages although this is often underreported.

It is clear that Trump does not care a hoot about the real situation on the ground in Nigeria and the danger posed by his characterization of the security crises. Neither is it certain that he is genuinely committed to protecting Christians in Nigeria. He is apparently more concerned about pleasing and exciting his evangelical Christian support base in the US, although these moves could also be a reaction to growing Chinese and Russian influence in Africa. Nothing buttresses these points more than the Christmas Day airstrike.

Trump described the targets of the airstrike as the Islamic State terrorists “who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.” However, the reality on the ground shows that Lakurawa, which is the terrorist group whose camps were hit by the missiles operates in communities, overwhelmingly populated by Muslims, in the northern parts of Sokoto and Kebbi states in Northwest Nigeria. As a result, it is Muslims who majorly bear the brunt of the group’s atrocities. Of course, the affected communities would be grateful to the US if the strike, in an unlikely situation, help permanently uproot the terrorist group. But given pre-existing religious division and mutual suspicion, chances also are that U.S airstrike especially in a predominantly-Muslim state like Sokoto provokes religious tension. Local Nigerian media reported how residents of the farming community of Jabo, in Sokoto where missile fragments and unexploded ordinances fell preparing to flee the area in fear of U.S motive.

The choice of Lukurawa for the Christmas Day strike could be because it was an easier target compared to Boko Haram and ISWAP which are much more sophisticated. Indeed, the group, which reportedly has links to jihadist networks in Mali and Niger, was just declared a terrorist organisation by the Nigerian government in January 2025. Though this group had been around since 2018, according to some accounts, having been invited by locals to protect them against bandits in the face of government’s failures and lack of presence. But the group after helping defeat the bandits began to impose harsh controls and Islamist orders. The Nigerian military had previously conducted airstrikes on the group a year before on Christmas Day in 2024. But it is interesting that two weeks after, there is no official detail out yet about whether the airstrike actually hit anything and if it did, what the terrorist casualty figures is etc.

However, the fact remains that Trump has repeatedly crudely shown, as now in Venezuela, that he acts to put ‘USA First’, something that in his case means the interests of US capitalists. In the case of Nigeria, this airstrike could also mean attempting to counter the increasing role of Chinese and Russian imperialism within Africa and especially in Sahel region.

Boko Haram and ISWAP

Boko Haram and its splinter group, the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP), who operate from the Northeast Nigeria, have a history of terrorist attacks on Christians, albeit more of their victims are Muslims. It is a military action on these groups among others which could bear a semblance of claims of protecting Christians. Such an action by the US is not yet ruled out as it is reported that the US had conducted surveillance flights in Northeast. For instance, according to BBC Monitoring, a pro-IS social media channel has been reporting on almost daily US reconnaissance flights in Sokoto, as well as in the north eastern state of Borno, where the Nigeria’s largest IS-linked group has its stronghold (BBC News, December 26, 2025). However, two U.S. officials reportedly told the New York Times that the Sokoto State strikes were a one-time event that would allow Trump to say that he was avenging Christian deaths. The Navy destroyer that launched the missiles has moved out of the Gulf of Guinea (New York Times, January 5, 2026).

Farmer-Herder Conflict

It is attacks by armed herders on farming communities in the Northcentral Nigeria (Middle Belt) which account for a vast majority of the deaths of Christians recorded in the security crises in Nigeria. While atrocities are committed on both sides in deadly cycles of tit-for-tat attacks, the farming communities are more at the receiving end. It is a fact that the original aggressors are herders who drive cattle to farmlands and destroy crops.  But there are also cases of cattle rustling by criminal gangs from the farming communities which also trigger a cycle of clashes or killings. The conflict which is originally over competition and struggle for an economic space (land and water sources) assumes a religious character because herders are usually Muslim while the majority of farmers in the region are Christan.

This crisis has a neo-colonial character – unresolved national question and backwardness of the capitalist class who fail to develop or modernize agricultural practices – worsened by climate change, which explains why there are similar farmer-herder conflicts and killings, albeit with varying degrees, not only in West Africa where there are Fulani herders but also in East Africa like Kenya and Tanzania where there are no Fulanis.

Unlike bandits or Islamist insurgents, Fulani militia or killer herders do not appear to operate from a permanent camp. Rather, they group temporarily for the purpose of a surprise attack on a farming community purportedly as a reprisal for murder of Fulani herder or killing of cattle and immediately disperse.   So, it is difficult for a pre-planned US missile to strike the culprits. And, any arbitrary airstrike on pastoral communities could be tantamount to attack on civilian population, something which may further exacerbate the crisis.

To begin to resolve the farmer-herder conflicts, socialists, in addition to the use of force in defense against the aggressors in the conflict, say that an alternative way of life has to be offered to undercut criminality. Thus, socialists support the establishment of grazing reserves by the government and ban of open grazing which is at the root of the conflict. This measure should be part of adequate public investment in agriculture including crop production for the purpose of modernization to guarantee food security.

As part of the use of force, socialists call for the setting up of non-sectarian, multi-ethnic, multi-religious and armed security committees which must be democratically run in communities to help nip in the bud any planned assault and quickly mobilise to confront aggressors. For instance, we reject the recent decision of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, to set up an armed vigilante group made up exclusively of Fulani to go after bandits in Kwara state. It is such senseless decision taking by political office holders that have complicated and worsened the security crisis while also provoking suspicion and allegations of state complicity.

To achieve the formation of a non-sectarian security committee as outlined above needs a conscious promotion of unity of working people, and not a sectarian approach or one-sided narrative of the crisis. So, the labour movement has to intervene by seriously campaigning for a well-articulated pan-Nigerian pro-working people solution to the conflict, and insecurity in general, especially in the face of the unresolved national question, as against bigoted views being promoted by sections of the ruling elite and middle-class people. It should be noted that Labour’s increasing inaction partly accounts for the frustration expressed in the growing insecurity of crime and clashes between different religions and ethnic groups and we warn that the security crisis could get worse if the Labour movement does not intervene with a clear program that both unites and defends the interests of working people and the poor.

US Airstrike Not a Silver Bullet

It is understandable that a section of Nigerian people has reposed illusion in the US military intervention given the failure of Tinubu government and the past administrations to end the security crises which have only continued to become more complicated in the last 16 years leading to tens of thousands of deaths and over three million people displaced. As of November 2025, according to the ACLED — which uses local news reports for its data —52,915 civilians have been killed in Nigeria through targeted political violence since 2009 (AP November 18, 2025)

However, the US military intervention against insurgency has not proved to be a silver bullet judging from different experiences of such efforts elsewhere

According to US military analysts, the Trump administration is not likely prepared to repeat in Nigeria the Iraq- or Afghanistan-style military campaigns, which despite having boots and tanks on the ground could not be said to have been a success. Indeed, the US practically handed over the Afghan people back to Taliban rule after many years of occupation.

In Nigeria, the intervention of the US would be likely limited to airstrikes, something which Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, a retired Army veteran of the war in Iraq and U.S. efforts to counter the insurgency there, told the New York Times “would be a fiasco” and likened to just “pounding a pillow.”. The paper also reported some US military officials saying that any potential effort by Trump to direct the military to target Nigerian insurgents through his preferred method — airstrikes — would be likely to cause shock and awe but not much more. They added that the US forces are unlikely to be able to end a decades-long insurgency that has claimed lives across sectarian lines (New York Times, November 5, 2025)

The pessimism over the efficacy of airstrikes on terror groups is not far-fetched. For instance, the US has launched more than 100 missile strikes in Somalia since February 2025 against Al Shabaab without having been able to significantly degrade the group. Indeed, in May, US Admiral James Kilby said Washington had launched “the largest air strike in the history of the world — a hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds from a single aircraft carrier — into Somalia”. (Financial Times, December 26, 2025)

Even the Christmas Day strike in Nigeria, while the claim of “multiple fatalities” by the US military could be true, there is no yet transparent evidence. In any case, many Lakurawa terrorists were seen on the same day converge at different communities few kilometers away from their two camps attacked by the US airstrikes having fled on motorcycles and apparently planning to regroup.

For instance, a farmer told the BBC that shortly after the strikes on Thursday [December 25] night, some fleeing militants converged on his community. “They came on about 15 motorcycles,”, explaining that there were three fighters to each bike (BBC Africa, 29 December 2025)

Instructively, according to the BBC, the villagers fear the militants will be able to regroup. They are agile and use motorbikes to move quickly across the region’s rough and rugged terrain. (BBC Africa, 29 December 2025). Truly, the group will likely move to a safer place and reestablish their operation. They may also have other camps which were not attacked by the strike. For instance, the group’s camps attacked by the Nigerian military on December 25 2024 were different from the ones struck by the US missiles a year later.

Already, few days after the strike, for instance, bandits on motorcycles, in large numbers, attacked three communities in the southern part of Kebbi state killing at least eight people. This suggests that an American airstrike in the neighboring Sokoto state did not serve as a deterrent to different terror groups in the state and indeed also in Sokoto let alone the states farther away.

Also importantly, the fact that unexploded missile heads that failed to reach the targets mistakenly hit civilian populations in two communities far way shows the danger posed by a long-range strike method that Trump has adopted. While no casualties were recorded, the strike wreaked serious havoc in Offa, Kwara State about 600km from Sokoto, injuring five people including a nursing mother and a child and destroying properties worth several millions of naira. In Jabo, a village in Sokoto, a farm was destroyed. We demand adequate compensation including payment for treatments and damages to the injured as well as replacement or renovation of the damaged properties by the government. Unfortunately, nothing has been said or planned to be done by the government in this regard. We call on the labour movement and civil society organisations to support this demand and mount pressure on the irresponsible government to accede to it.

Way Out

It is utterly absurd the suggestion by the praise singers of President Trump in Nigeria that the Nigerian state had not launched serious attacks on insurgents and different terror groups or taken seriously the fight until Trump’s threat of military intervention in Nigeria in late October last year. They have also suggested that all is needed to end insurgency and insecurity is a serious military intervention driven by the so-called political will. This is fallacious and ahistorical.

While socialists do not reject military option to prevent attacks and defend communities, we hold that without addressing the material conditions that provide a fertile ground for conflict or crime and easy recruitment into insurgency and banditry there would not be a permanent solution. For instance, according to a report by the Associated Press, data show that conflict hot spots in Nigeria have some of the country’s highest levels of poverty, hunger and lack of jobs in addition to the near absence of a state. (AP December 26, 2025).

Indeed, Nigeria’s Minister of Defense Christopher Musa was reported to have once said that military action is only 30% of what is needed to fix the country’s security crisis, while the remaining 70% depends on good governance (AP December 26, 2026). This shows that the Nigerian capitalist ruling elite know what is amiss and therefore needs to be done. But unfortunately, they don’t have the capacity to actualize it. This is not just because of lack of political will or firepower. It is primarily the incapability of the iniquitous system in a neo-colonial economy, with the worst breed of primitive and parasitic capitalist ruling elites anywhere, to develop society and provide for the needs of the vast majority despite the huge human and material resources of the country.

We welcomed the protest against insecurity organized by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in December 2025, but unfortunately the mobilization was weak. We hold that the labour leadership should sustain the campaign and do much better than the seeming lack of seriousness especially as demonstrated at December’s protest action in Abuja. Beyond the labour leadership, the campaign should be built into a mass movement that unites the working people, regardless of ethnic and religious backgrounds, and consistently mount pressure on the government to protect lives and property everywhere in the country. This should be in addition to resistance against anti-poor policies and demand for social programme which provides quality education, health care, housing and opportunities for decent jobs. However, given the inherent limitation and incapacity of the neo-colonial capitalist elite, the movement must also build a mass working people party that will struggle for power on a socialist programme in order to end the grip of capitalism and so ensure development of agriculture and industry as well as making people, and not the profits of a few, the centerpiece of governance, development and production.