Nearly one month after United States airstrikes in Nigeria, the continued silence of President Bola Tinubu, ECOWAS, and the African Union is drawing renewed criticism from civil society groups.
The criticism was voiced during a webinar hosted by the Conflict Research Network (CORN) West Africa alongside The Africa Disruptions Lab (TADLab) on Wednesday, January 21, 2026.
At the session monitored by Pan-Atlantic Kompass, speakers warned that the lack of official statements by authorities risks setting a troubling precedent for foreign military actions in the region.
Discussions centred on Nigeria’s security architecture and the implications of the U.S Christmas Day air strike in Sokoto on Christmas Day, December 25, 2025.
While the strike was said to have hit ISIS terrorists’ enclaves in Sokoto State, the number of terrorists killed remains sketchy as of press time.
Speaking during the webinar, Prof Chidi Odinkalu, a Nigerian human rights activist, lawyer, and writer pointed to what he described as a “conscious choice” by Tinubu to ignore the incident.
He contrasted the President’s silence on the U.S airstrikes in Nigeria with his quick public condolence following a recent accident involving boxer Anthony Joshua.
He also wondered why the details of the strike remain shrouded in confusion. He stated that while debris has been reported in Kebbi, Sokoto, and Niger States, there are growing suggestions within the security sector that the epicenter may have actually been in the Niger Republic.
Odinkalu said: “When Anthony Joshua had an accident, Tinubu condoled with him, and it was a public statement. The President issued a public statement. So, it is not as if during that period, he was not conscious.
“He was conscious, he made choices. And he made a choice not to acknowledge this incident. That tells me we have a president who does not care. Now, in that period, he’s also acknowledged foreign tragedies, as a matter of fact.
“Right? But not to acknowledge, perhaps, the most significant thing that has happened in the country over the past year, because if we try to unbundle the significance of what has happened, it is extraordinary.
“And the fact that a conscious commander-in-chief cannot allocate bandwidth to address it, and address the country with a sense of accountability on the subject matter suggests to me, quite evidently, that he absolutely does not care.
“There are reports of debris in Kebbi State, Sokoto State, and Niger State. None of the state governors has said a word.
“And of course, they will not say a word if the presidency is not saying anything.
“Secondly. There is debris reported in the Niger Republic, off-record, as a matter of fact.
“There are suggestions within the Nigerian security sector that the epicenter of the strike may well have fallen in the Niger Republic. There is a suggestion, if you speak to some of the cognoscenti off record, that actually the strike landed in the Niger Republic, and some of that material may come out over the next month.
“And then what Nigeria experienced was, in fact, debris. There is also a different set of reporting, indicated by New Humanitarian, for instance, that actually there were casualties on the Nigerian side of up to 200 people. And as a matter of fact, several, several suspected Lakurawa elements have gone missing since that incident happened.
“But interesting, I think there is a consensus that there was debris in the Niger Republic. The Niger Republic has said nothing.
“Third, there are suggestions that the strikes themselves, the payload that landed in Nigeria, took off or was launched from within the territorial waters of an ECOWAS member state. That member state has said nothing.
“Number 4, the strike was on the territory of an ECOWAS country. ECOWAS is a collective security agreement, at least for those of them who are still within ECOWAS. ECOWAS has said absolutely nothing.
“Number 5, the member state struck is a member of the African Union, which, if you read the constituent act, seeks to, amongst other things, safeguard the sovereignty of African countries and their territorial integrity, which is why Nnamdi Kanu is in jail in Sokoto. The African Union has said nothing.”
Adding a layer of international tension, Professor Mojubaolu Okome criticized the lack of transparency from both the Nigerian and U.S governments.
She noted that while the American press has extensively covered political unrest in Venezuela, the “Christmas Day” strikes in Nigeria have received almost no coverage.
Okome stated: “I also want to extend this beyond the President and presidency, and say the National Assembly is signaling that they don’t care. And by this, I mean the two houses.
“Because nothing has been done by them. The key institutions in Nigeria that had the constitutional responsibility to be concerned and to put foremost the interest of the Nigerian people and their security and well-being have shown us through their silence that they don’t care.
“Now, let me also say that there’s been no transparency on this issue, anywhere, whether it’s in the US or in Nigeria.
“It breaks my heart. Everybody is talking about what happened with Venezuela, which happened after Nigeria. You see it in the press a lot.
“But there’s been very, very little coverage in the American press of what happened on Christmas Day in Nigeria.
“Nigerians themselves have not shown concern. I haven’t seen serious media engagement. I haven’t seen key institutional engagement. There has been no announcement. Are there casualties? What is really the target? They said it’s Sokoto.
“If you look at the material put out by the people who came to bomb, they even mis-spelled Sokoto. Then, we heard that 4 unexploded warheads hit civilian areas.
“Nobody has really been clear in an objective way about what damage this did. How come all this precision was not so precise?.
“Are people just supposed to be treated as collateral damage in the usual way?
That happens when America sends its precision bombs into Global South locations.
“Then, who’s been held responsible? Nobody. No investigations, as I said before, no damage assessments have been done, or they haven’t made it public.
“And this pattern is not actually new. It’s about impunity. In countries where there is American impunity, where it thinks that people are inconsequential.
“And we know all the rhetoric about Nigeria and Africa by the U.S. President. He said they are shithole countries, among other things.
“So, in the Nigerian situation. This is us, if nobody else cares, we should care. There should be a general outcry. Do you know that there are still demonstrations and protests in Venezuela today?
“But Nigerians are sitting quietly. The Christians are very happy because they see President Trump as their saviour, he has come to save them.”
Pan-Atlantic Kompass reports that this is coming after Trump announced that the U.S military carried out deadly strikes against Islamic State terrorists in northwestern Nigeria.
Confirming the strike, the Federal Government said it gave the U.S support and that the strikes were carried out on targeted areas being used by the terrorists.
Giving more information about the nature of the U.S strikes, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, clarified that the mission was the result of months of intelligence sharing aimed at neutralizing transnational threats.
He confirmed that the strikes were not random but specifically targeted terrorists’ enclaves within the Bauni forest axis of Tangaza LGA of Sokoto state.
He added that intelligence confirmed that the locations were being used by foreign ISIS elements infiltrating Nigeria from the Sahel region, in coordination with local affiliates.
Idris said the enclaves served as assembly and staging grounds for planning and executing large-scale terrorist attacks within Nigerian territory.
