Former Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, has appealed to the Federal government to extend its joint military operations with the United States against terrorist hideouts in the country to the North-East region.
He made the appeal through a statement on Saturday, while also commending the military attacks carried out on Friday against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) cells in Tangaza Local Government Area of Sokoto State.
The United States President, Donald Trump, who broke the news of the attacks on his Truth Social platform, revealed that the Department of War executed numerous precise strikes.
Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, who later confirmed the development, stated that the United States military strikes were carried out with Nigeria’s full cooperation, approval and intelligence support, stressing that the operation neither violated the country’s sovereignty nor targeted any religious group.
Before the Friday military operations, there had been reports that US intelligence-gathering flights had been conducted over large areas of Nigeria since late November.
The former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Army maintained that extending the joint military operations to the North-East states would go a long way in decimating the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Boko Haram in the region.
He said, “We welcome this cooperation between Nigeria and the United States in targeting terrorist hideouts.
“I am calling on them to extend it to the North-East, where ISWAP and Boko Haram have three known black spots: Lake Chad, the Mandara Mountains and Sambisa Forest, which are exclusive strongholds of ISWAP and Boko Haram.
“I also want to suggest that the military cooperation with the United States should extend to ground troop training, intelligence and logistics.
“They should also back this up with attack helicopter support for ground troops.”
The federal lawmaker, who commended President Bola Tinubu for allocating the highest amount to defence in the 2026 budget, however, called for accountability and transparency in the utilisation of the funds.
On the recent suicide bomb blast at a mosque in Gamboru, Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, which left five people dead and many others injured, the former Senate Chief Whip expressed his condolences to the victims and bereaved families.
“I also sympathise with the victims of the bomb blast in Borno State, where many people were killed and injured. The incident at the mosque in Gamboru is a clear indication that the terrorists do not care about religion. In this instance, on the eve of Christmas, all the victims were Muslims. So, the narrative of Christian genocide does not exist. The terrorists making life unbearable for our people are blind to religion.”