A retired officer of the United States Army, Captain Bish Johnson, has cautioned that Nigeria’s deepening security challenges cannot be resolved through isolated military airstrikes, stressing that the country is grappling with a complex web of insecurity that demands a more comprehensive and carefully diagnosed response.
Captain Johnson made the remarks during a televised interview on Friday night with ARISE News, a Nigerian television news network based in Lagos, Nigeria, while reacting to recent airstrikes conducted by the United States military against terrorist targets in north-western Nigeria.
Okay News reports that the comments followed a Christmas Day announcement by the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, who disclosed that American forces had carried out what he described as deadly strikes against fighters linked to the Islamic State terrorist group operating in north-west Nigeria. Trump also warned that further military action would follow if attacks on Christian communities continued in the region.
In the days after the announcement, Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the federal institution responsible for managing Nigeria’s diplomatic relations, confirmed that the airstrikes were conducted in collaboration with the Nigerian government. According to the ministry, the operation formed part of what it described as “structured security cooperation with international partners, including the United States of America,” aimed at combating terrorism and violent extremism within Nigeria’s borders.
Despite acknowledging the presence of terrorist elements in parts of the country, Captain Johnson warned that focusing solely on military action against terrorism risks oversimplifying Nigeria’s broader insecurity crisis.
“If we do not diagnose our problem correctly, we are going to come up with the wrong solution,” Johnson said. “Inasmuch as there is an element of terrorism in the North-West, the problem is much more complicated than it is being simplified.”
The former United States Army officer drew attention to long-running communal violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, a central region of the country where clashes between nomadic cattle herders and settled farming communities have claimed thousands of lives over the years.
“Nobody has talked about the issue of herder-farmer clashes, which have claimed so many lives in the Middle Belt, and it is still ongoing,” he stated.
Johnson further argued that Nigeria’s security landscape includes sensitive religious and legal dimensions, referencing the implementation and enforcement of Islamic Sharia law in parts of northern Nigeria as another factor that complicates the crisis.
“So Nigeria has a multifaceted insecurity problem that this one strike cannot address,” he added.
The security consultant also cited cases of religious violence that have drawn international attention, including the killing of Deborah Samuel, a Christian student who was murdered in Sokoto State, a state located in north-western Nigeria.
In May 2022, Deborah Samuel, a second-year student at Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto State, was lynched and stoned to death by fellow students after being accused of making blasphemous comments about the Prophet Muhammad.
“Unfortunately, we saw what happened in Sokoto State, where a young lady, Deborah Samuel, was lynched and stoned to death in broad daylight by her fellow schoolmates,” Johnson said.
He noted that the absence of accountability in the case continues to shape how Nigeria is viewed internationally.
“Up till now, none of the people responsible for the death of that innocent young lady have been brought to justice,” he said. “These are some of the issues the Americans are observing, which is why they are tagging this as religious persecution.”
Johnson concluded that incidents such as the Sokoto killing make it increasingly difficult for Nigeria to challenge claims of religious intolerance and persecution abroad.
“It is difficult to convince Americans otherwise when you have situations like what happened in Sokoto, and that is not the only place where similar incidents have occurred and people have not been brought to book,” he added.
