The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has disclosed that it possesses intelligence on the recent United States airstrikes targeting terrorists in Sokoto State but has chosen not to make such information public.
The disclosure was made by the Force Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, during Tuesday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“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 on the programme anchored by Seun Okinbaloye.
“There was a cooperation, but we would rather leave it as a defence matter that the defence would talk about,” he added.
The comments followed reports that the United States carried out airstrikes against terrorist targets in Sokoto on December 25, 2025. The US Department of Defense said “multiple ISIS terrorists” were killed in the operation, which it noted was conducted at the request of the Nigerian government.
US President Donald Trump announced the strikes 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.
“May God bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues.”
The Federal Government later confirmed that the operation was a joint security effort approved by President Bola Tinubu.
Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Tuggar, speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Boxing Day, said: “Now that the US is cooperating, we would do it jointly, and we would ensure, just as the President emphasised yesterday before he gave the go-ahead, that it must be made clear that it is a joint operation, and it is not targeting any religion nor simply in the name of one religion or the other.”
“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 minister added.
The strikes followed earlier remarks by Trump condemning the killing of Christians in Nigeria, which prompted him to designate the country a Country of Particular Concern. He described the situation as an “existential threat” amounting to “genocide,” a claim the Nigerian government has firmly rejected.