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The United States (US) Christmas Day bombing of ISIS-linked terrorist camps in Sokoto State has opened a vista of complicated issues and a deepening world –wide intervention that will likely employ extreme measures against the terrorists’ sympathisers, financiers, ideologues and enablers in Nigeria.
A source who works with the United States intelligence network told our correspondent that Nigeria has attracted a global gaze to itself and will henceforth be the epicenter of a complex and intricate web of systemic counter terrorism war that may shape the future of the country in a way that may not be altogether positive.
US President Donald Trump has framed his intervention on the pretext of a campaign to stop the “Genocide of Christians” perpetrated by terrorist Jihadists, who have also inflicted massive deaths and destruction on innocent Muslims across northern Nigeria.
As polarising as this narrative could be, it has stirred discussions and predictably triggered divisive comments across different spectrums in Nigeria along religious lines. Be that as it may, the “strategic messaging” from Trump has raised the discourse around the protracted issue of terrorism in Nigeria.
The US and allies, the source said, have mapped out strategies to employ “pinpoint assassination plot” to eliminate members of the elite and other influential people that have entrenched themselves in government, especially the security circles and backing the terrorists ravaging Nigeria.
The source also said that Trump and his allies will employ the method used to eliminate terrorists elsewhere in the world on the Nigerian backers of terrorists as a list of the “evil doers” are on the table of President Trump.
According to the source, who wishes to remain anonymous, the US intelligence has intercepted messages, calls, financial dealings; channels through which weapons are distributed to terrorists on the field, the chain of commands, secret memos and other clandestine materials that fuel terrorism in Nigeria.
The most dangerous part of the unfolding scenario is perhaps the alleged involvement of the State of Israel in the fight against terrorism in Nigeria. This has indeed changed the dimension as Israel, through its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said repeatedly that US, Israel and allies will make concerted efforts to stop the killing and persecution of Christians in Nigeria and other parts of the world.
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Netanyahu in his Christmas message lamented the killing of Christians in Nigeria, which he vowed “must stop now”. He has since followed it up with another statement during his recent meeting with Trump in the US.
He said “We are conscious of the fact that Christians are being persecuted in Nigeria and across Africa. We are joining in the effort to support a United Nations of countries that support Christian communities, throughout the world to assist beleaguered communities that deserve our help. This is the greater part of our agenda and it is going to continue with greater force and greater might in this year.”
The airstrike in Sokoto on 25 December was as symbolic as it was a statement of intent about the determination of the US to redefine the security narrative of Nigeria, which the Nigerian government appeared to have lost in recent times.
The counter terrorism effort is looking like an amorphous congregation of global powers in Nigeria, whose interests that the country is yet to comprehend even if the Nigerian government had claimed that it is in collaboration with the US to dislodge terrorists wherever they are found.
Analysts believe that Nigeria has entangled itself in the global chessboard as the country no longer operates in isolation on counter terrorism politics and the intense pressure from big powers following a vacuum of authority that was exposed when the Nigerian government failed or allegedly became complicit in the terror scourge ravaging the country.
The US and great powers strategy have converged because the Nigerian state lost control of the security narrative and the Americans and allies have stepped in to define and act on it. Whether this intervention will lead to the end of terrorism in Nigeria still remains within the bowels of time.
However, reality has hit Nigeria hard as it has become a center of global power play, whose future is pregnant with uncertainties, while citizens can watch with a certain degree of curiosity.
