The 2023 presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, has alleged that recent United States military airstrikes carried out in Sokoto State were conducted without the genuine consent of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
According to DAILY POST, the U.S. military launched major airstrikes targeting suspected terrorists in parts of Sokoto State on Christmas night. The operation was publicly announced by U.S. President Donald Trump and the U.S. Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, in separate social media posts on Thursday night.
Following the announcements, Nigeria’s Federal Government, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed the airstrikes, stating that the operation was carried out through cooperation between Nigeria and the United States.
However, Sowore has disputed the government’s position. In a statement posted on his official X (formerly Twitter) account, the former presidential candidate argued that Nigeria’s sovereignty was breached, insisting that the strikes were not carried out with informed consent from Nigerian authorities.
Although the government has described the operation as a joint effort involving “international partners,” Sowore maintained that the airstrikes were executed without genuine authority from what he described as a weak and ineffective leadership under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
He further claimed that the nature of the strike on a village in Sokoto showed a lack of understanding or concern for Nigeria and its citizens by the U.S. administration that authorized the operation.
Sowore expressed concern that Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, lacks the strong and sovereign leadership required to protect its people and territorial integrity. According to him, this failure has reduced the country to a passive observer while its sovereignty is allegedly violated by foreign powers.
He concluded by stating that only competent, tested, and informed leadership can truly safeguard Nigerians, rather than what he described as foreign-driven interventions directed from Washington, D.C.
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