Former Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, on Saturday, appealed to the Federal Government to extend its joint military operations with the United States against terrorists in the country to the North-East region.
Ndume made the appeal in a statement, commending Friday’s military attacks on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) cells in the Tangaza Local Government Area of Sokoto State.
Recently, the United States President, Donald Trump, announced that the US military launched airstrikes on terrorist targets in Northwest Nigeria.
Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Yusuf Tuggar, confirmed the development and declared that the United States military strikes were carried out with Nigeria’s full cooperation, approval, and intelligence support.
He stressed that the operation neither violated the country’s sovereignty nor targeted any religious group.
In his reaction, the former Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Army, Ndume, said that extending the joint military operations to the Northeast states would go a long way in decimating the Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Boko Haram in the Northeast region.
He said, “We welcome this cooperation between Nigeria and the United States in targeting terrorists’ hideouts.
“I am calling on them to extend it to the Northeast, where ISWAP and Boko Haram have their three known black spots: Lake Chad, Mandara Mountain, and Sambisa, 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 troops in training, intelligence, and logistics.
“They should also back it up with attack helicopter support for ground troops.”
The Senator who commended President Bola Tinubu for allocating the highest amount to defence in the 2026 budget, however, demanded accountability and transparency in the utilisation of the budget.
On the recent suicide bomb blasts in a mosque in Gamboru, Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, which left five dead and many wounded, the former Senate Chief Whip expressed his condolences to the victims and the bereaved family.
“I also sympathise with the bomb blast victims in Borno State, where many people were killed and injured. The incident in the mosque in Gamboru is a clear indication that the terrorists don’t care about religion. In this instant case, on the eve of Christmas, all the victims were Muslims. So, the narrative of Christian genocide doesn’t exist. The terrorists making life unbearable for our people are blind to religion.”
