Fresh reports of United States airstrikes targeting terrorist elements in northern Nigeria have raised questions over why Sokoto State—rather than the country’s worst-hit terror zones—was chosen as the initial target.
According to Emmanuel Ogebe, an international human rights lawyer and bilateral affairs expert, the location of the strikes appeared to reflect strategic familiarity rather than the scale of violence.
Ogebe, according to News Express, noted that Sokoto had previously been the site of a U.S. military operation during former President Donald Trump’s first term, when American special forces rescued U.S. citizen Philip Walton from kidnappers in 2020, killing six terrorists in the process.
