Backing the wife of Nigeria’s President Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu’s advocacy for further aistrikes by the United States to target terrorists in the North of Nigeria, pro-democracy and civil rights advocacy group HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) described her position as logically sound and overwhelmingly popular amongst millions of Nigerians.
During a visit to the United States of America, Nigeria’s first lady was interviewed by Fox News during which time she said the US strikes were a ‘blessing,’ welcomes collaboration with Trump.
She said: “America’s Christmas Day strike on Islamist militants in northwest Nigeria was a “blessing,” Tinubu said, signaling that her husband’s government welcomes further U.S. involvement as it confronts insurgents and criminal gangs.
“The intervention of the U.S. was quite a welcome development,” Tinubu told Fox News Digital during a week-long visit to Washington, D.C.
“Nigeria is looking forward to collaboration” with the U.S. on security issues. “We are expecting that there will be more.”
Welcoming the call for more US strikes on terrorists in the North of Nigeria as made by the Wife of President Tinubu, HURIWA in a press statement signed by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko, argued strongly that only follow-up strikes on terrorists camps by the United States could deliver the kind of successful result that would cause massive damage to the infrastructure of Islamic terrorists in Nigeria.
The rights group said the unprecedented and massive scale of civilian casualties caused by the terrorists demands that sustained strikes by the United States has the capacity to cripple the operational capability of the terrorists. HURIWA said the heinous crime of the terrorists should be met with decisive airstrikes to neutralise and degrade the terrorists.
HURIWA recalled that Nigeria has ranked sixth in the 2025 Global Terrorism Index, with a score of 7.658, moving up from eighth place in 2023 and 2024.
According to the 2025 report released on March 5, the country recorded 565 terrorism-related deaths in 2024, indicating an increase in fatalities over the previous two years.
“…Deaths in Nigeria peaked at 2,101 in 2014, before dropping to 392 in 2022, the lowest level since 2011. However, fatalities increased by 34 per cent in 2023 to 533, and further to 565 in 2024.”
The report further explained that IS-Sahel has expanded its reach beyond its primary area of operation in the Liptako-Gourma region, which spans the borders of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria. In 2024, the group launched a series of attacks across several countries, including Nigeria (16 attacks), Niger (12 attacks, Mali (6 attacks), and Burkina Faso (1 attack).
Based on these statistics, HURIWA is therefore calling on the US president to order more airstrikes targeting terrorists in Nigeria.
