Why US Struck Sokoto, Not Sambisa: The Security Shift Nigerians Aren’t Seeing Yet

On Boxing Day, Nigerians woke up to a headline we are more used to seeing in the Middle East: an American strike, a missile-launch clip, and a wave of questions about what exactly happened on Nigerian soil. 

President Donald Trump first announced it, braggadociously as usual, and conveniently failed to mention that it was done in collaboration with the Nigerian government. But the presidency immediately followed with a confirmation, emphasising that it was the result of “structured security cooperation” and intelligence sharing that led to the “precision hits on terrorist targets” in the Northwest.

Then comes the splintered public discourse. While some people focused on the language of “precision”, the sense of a distant superpower reaching into Nigeria’s airspace, and the politics of who gets called a terrorist and when. Others focused on FG’s confirmation of coordination, the sharing of intelligence, and that the strike occurred with Nigerian approval.

The bigger story, though, is the geography – why Sokoto (northwest) and not Borno (northeast)?

For many Nigerians, counter-terrorism has a fixed map. When you hear “terrorists”, your mind goes to Borno. To Sambisa. To the Northeast, where the pain is older, deeper, and too familiar. The assumption is that if America is going to strike anywhere in Nigeria, it should be there.

That instinct is understandable. It is also incomplete.

Because the real meaning of this moment is not just that the US struck a target; it is that Nigeria’s security story may be changing shape, quietly, and faster than most people have noticed.

The Argument Nigerians are Having

People asking “Why not the Northeast?” are, perhaps, asking something else underneath. What is Nigeria’s priority list, and who is deciding it? They are also reflecting a long-running frustration that, after years of headline-grabbing attacks, mass displacement, and military operations in the Northeast, the crisis still feels unresolved, while new hotspots keep opening elsewhere.

So when a strike happens in the Northwest, many Nigerians read it as a misplaced priority. Are we now pretending the epicentre is not the Northeast? Not quite.

A more objective way to see it is this: Nigeria is now dealing with two overlapping problems.

1. A long-running insurgency in the Northeast that remains deadly and deeply entrenched.
   
2. A northwest conflict that began as banditry and criminal violence but is showing signs, at least in parts, of becoming something more complicated, more cross-border, and more challenging to box into old categories.

If the Northeast is the war Nigeria has known for years, the Northwest may be the war Nigeria cannot afford to let mature.

Why Sokoto Matters More Than People Think

The Northwest has often been treated, in public conversation, like a separate file – kidnappings, ransom negotiations, rustled cattle, ambushes on highways, villages raided at night. Yes, criminal violence is brutal, but it’s still something people assume can be solved with stronger policing, better local intelligence, and a more aggressive security posture.

The concern security watchers have been raising, sometimes too quietly, is that the Northwest is not just a domestic crime theatre. It is also a border belt. And border belts behave differently.

Sokoto and Kebbi sit on a corridor that touches the wider Sahel security ecosystem. The same region where armed groups in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso have learned to survive pressure by moving, regrouping, blending into communities, and feeding off weak state presence.

That’s why the word “stick” is key.

When analysts say “ISIS-linked cells stick”, they are not describing one dramatic attack. They are describing durability – a group that can keep returning, recruiting, taxing, settling disputes, and forcing local compliance until it is no longer “around” but “inside”.

And once that happens, the state is not just chasing criminals. It is competing with a shadow authority.

What Changes When a Group Stops Raiding & Starts Settling

A raiding group shows up, hits, and disappears. A group that is settling does something else: it starts to shape daily life. It decides who moves on the road, who pays, who gets punished, who is spared, and who is “protected”. It turns fear into a system.

That shift is what makes any extremist-linked presence in the Northwest alarming, not because it replaces banditry, but because it can merge with bandit economies and make them harder to dismantle.

A few changes follow when that happens:

First, the war becomes cross-border by default. A group that can step over a border to regroup is harder to contain with purely Nigerian operations. If the networks feeding it run through frontier communities, you are no longer fighting one battlefield; you are fighting a moving corridor.

Second, the conflict gains ideology and the ability to recruit differently. Bandits recruit with money and coercion. Extremist groups can recruit with grievance, identity, and the promise of belonging, along with fear. That combination can be more durable than cash alone.

Third, the security cost spreads into markets and livelihoods. When armed actors begin to “tax” communities, the effect shows up in food prices, transport routes, market attendance, and the willingness of farmers to return to land. This is how insecurity starts to feel like inflation.

For the average Nigerian, those consequences matter more than anything.

So Why Strike in the Northwest When Boko Haram is Still in the Northeast?

This is the heart of the controversy, and it deserves a fair answer.

The first point is uncomfortable but true. Strikes happen where intelligence is actionable.
A modern “precision” operation depends on a clearly identified target and a moment that is clear enough to act. This is an operational reality. If the information, timing, and feasibility line up in one location, that location becomes the strike point.

The second point is strategic. Early disruption is cheaper than late containment. The Northeast is what an entrenched insurgency looks like. It is long, complex, and difficult to unwind fully. If there is credible concern that extremist-linked actors are planting roots in the Northwest, building a pattern of presence rather than a pattern of raids, then preventing that entrenchment becomes urgent.

That does not mean the Northeast is “less important”. It means Nigeria may be trying, belatedly, to avoid repeating the same mistake elsewhere, which is waiting until a crisis becomes permanent before taking it seriously.

The third point is political. Perception can undermine strategy. Even if the operational reasons make sense, Nigerians will still ask: “Why do we see decisive action here, while the Northeast still bleeds?” That question cannot be solved by military logic alone. It is solved by trust, transparency, and a visible national plan that does not leave one region to suffer while another is prioritised.

So, objectively, both sides of the narrative hold weight:

• Those arguing “it should have been the Northeast” are speaking from history, trauma, and a sense that Nigeria’s biggest terror wound remains open.
  
• Those defending “why the Northwest matters” are speaking from the reality that new threat structures, especially cross-border ones, can become tomorrow’s forever war if ignored today.
  

A serious country can hold both truths without turning it into a regional shouting match.

The Part Many People are Missing

Here is the harder truth Nigeria keeps circling back to: firepower does not fill governance gaps.

The Northwest crisis has thrived where the state is thin, where rural policing is weak, where communities are left to bargain with armed men, where roads become no-go zones, and where local economies collapse into survival mode.

In that environment, any armed group that can offer “order”, even a brutal order, can start to look like a solution to desperate people. It is one of the oldest traps in fragile security zones. The protector arrives, people tolerate them, and then they become the new predator.

That is why the “Sahel front” idea is so dangerous. Sahel-style militant ecosystems do not survive only because they have weapons. They survive because they build relationships through fear, coercion, incentives, and the vacuum of services.

If Nigeria does not rebuild its presence in the Northwest—justice systems, local intelligence networks, roads, schools, livelihoods—then strikes alone will not change the story. They will simply force the story to move.

Signal for Nigeria’s Future Security Partnerships

Another reason this strike has unsettled Nigerians is what it implies, a deeper level of operational coordination with foreign partners.

In the short term, there are obvious benefits. Intelligence sharing can tighten targeting. Surveillance can reduce guesswork. International coordination can disrupt networks that cross borders.

But there are also risks that Nigerians are right to interrogate:

• Will this kind of cooperation come with clear public accountability, especially around civilian protection?
  
• Will it strengthen Nigeria’s capacity, or gradually replace it?
  
• Will it become politically weaponised, either by those who want to frame Nigeria as “outsourcing its security,” or by those who wish to use foreign action to validate simplistic narratives about religion and conflict?

These are not arguments for or against partnerships. They are arguments for clarity.

Nigeria cannot afford a situation where the public learns about major security developments through foreign political messaging before hearing a coherent explanation from Abuja.

The Question Nigerians Should be Asking Next

The Sokoto strike debate will eventually cool off until the next flashpoint reignites it. The deeper issue is whether Nigeria is prepared for the security map it is sliding into.

If the Northwest is becoming more entangled with the Sahel’s extremist ecosystem, then the country’s choices must evolve beyond reactive operations. Nigeria will need:

• Stronger border intelligence and enforcement that is built for mobility, not just checkpoints;
  
• A rural security model that prevents communities from bargaining with armed groups as the default;
  
• And a credible plan that treats the Northeast as the unresolved national emergency it remains, while also preventing the Northwest from becoming the next entrenched insurgency theatre.

Not that the Northeast no longer matters. Far from it. But Nigeria may be staring at a future where it cannot afford to fight one war at a time.