A former Governor of Sokoto state, Aminu Tambuwal has called on the federal government no to ensure that its anti-terrorists strikes are expanded beyond the state.
Tambuwal spoke on Arise Television on Friday, a few hours after the United States missile strike on some terrorists targets in the state. The US President, Donald Trump said he ordered the strike against ISIS-linked terrorists, saying many of them were killed by the missiles launched by the US United States Africa Command, AFRICOM, in Djibouti.
In a post on social media, Trump said he’d directed a “powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria,” who he said had been killing innocent Christians. He later told Politico that he delayed the strikes a day so they fell on Christmas.
“They were going to do it earlier,” Trump told the news organization. “And I said, ‘nope, let’s give a Christmas present.’ … They didn’t think that was coming, but we hit them hard. Every camp got decimated.”
The state, has in the past few months, experienced deadly attacks from Lakurawa terrorists believed to be associated with ISIS, and are mostly active in Tambuwal Local Government where the former governor hails from.
According to the US Leader, the strikes were conducted with the approval of the Nigerian Government. Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar confirmed to journalists that President Bola Ahmed’s Tinubu’s approval was sought before the US launched the strike.
Speaking on the strike, Tambuwal said the strike should be expanded to include some states where the terrorists are very active, including Zamfara, Borno, Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, among others, describing those states as “areas of more concerns” that his state.
The Senator representing Sokoto South in the National Assembly also urged the federal government to seek help beyond the US, because according to him, the problem of terrorism extends beyond Nigeria.
Tambuwal: “Areas of concern like Borno, Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, and a host of other parts of the country should be covered by this operation so that we do not have a situation where a particular part of the country that has not been as widely reported but is having such major security challenges as these other states would not be part of the narrative.
“I believe that the Nigerian government should seek greater collaboration with many more countries, including the US and others that are willing to support this fight; after all, it is a transnational issue.”
Apart from Sokoto state, explosions were also heard in Kwara state following the US strike, according to eyewitnesses who claimed that some shells from the missiles landed in some communities in the state .
The federal government said on Friday that the strikes touched the two states.
Discover more from The Source
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
