The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
1st May, 2026
Dear President Donald J. Trump,
Re: The Unfinished War: Nigeria’s Deepening Security Crisis and the Urgent Need for Sustained Engagement
I write to you as Daniel Nduka Okonkwo, Publisher of Profiles International and a human rights advocate based in Abuja, Nigeria. I do so not in anger, but in urgency, and with the deepest respect for the office you hold and the weight of responsibility it carries.
On Christmas Day, December 25, 2025, the United States military, in a joint operation with Nigerian forces, carried out airstrikes targeting Islamic State-linked militants and Lakurawa bandits in the Bauni Forest area of Sokoto State, along the Nigeria-Niger border. You described those strikes as a “Christmas present” to the people threatened by extremist violence. It was estimated that over $30 million in military assets were deployed in that operation. Multiple militants were reported killed. For a brief moment, millions of Nigerians, particularly those in the ravaged Northwest and Northeast, dared to breathe again.
Mr. President, four months have passed. The war has not ended. If anything, it has intensified.
Despite the December strikes, banditry, insurgency, and farmer-herder conflicts continue to claim lives across Nigeria with devastating frequency. Communities in Zamfara, Sokoto, Kaduna, Borno, Katsina, Kwara, Benue, and Adamawa States remain under persistent threat. Farmers cannot return to their fields. Schoolchildren have been abducted. Entire villages have been displaced. Churches, mosques, and markets have been attacked. The humanitarian consequences are staggering, with hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons, food insecurity in multiple states, and a traumatised civilian population with little faith that help is coming.
These are not abstract statistics. These are human beings, men, women, and children living in fear in communities that have become killing fields.
The following incidents are documented by credible international organisations, Nigerian government officials, and verified media reports. They represent only a fraction of the violence recorded since the December 2025 airstrikes:
3 January 2026, Kasuwan Daji, Niger State: Gunmen abducted 57 people during an attack on the Kasuwan Daji community in the Borgu Local Government Area.
3 February 2026, Woro and Nuku, Kaiama LGA, Kwara State: In what has been described as the deadliest jihadist attack in Nigeria in a decade, extremist militants stormed the predominantly Muslim villages of Woro and Nuku, killing at least 162 residents, with the toll later rising to over 200 as bodies were recovered from surrounding bushland. Victims included the Chief Imam of Woro, a school principal, a headmistress, and schoolchildren. Many had their hands bound before being executed. The attackers also abducted dozens and set fire to homes and businesses.
3 February 2026, Doma A and Doma B, Faskari LGA, Katsina State: At least 24 people were killed and several others injured in a simultaneous armed attack. The assault reportedly followed the collapse of a fragile local truce. Eyewitnesses reported that the attackers operated unhindered for approximately three hours, shooting villagers and burning homes, shops, and vehicles.
3 February 2026, Abande Community, Kwande LGA, Benue State: At least 17 people, including a Mobile Police Force Unit Commander, were killed in an attack on a market day. Assailants looted shops, stole millions of naira from traders, and partially set the market ablaze.
3 to 4 March 2026, Ngoshe, Gwoza LGA, Borno State: Boko Haram fighters launched a coordinated assault on a military forward operating base and civilian settlements, killing soldiers and civilians, burning homes, and abducting more than 400 residents, predominantly women and children. As of the time of writing, 404 abductees remain unaccounted for, with Boko Haram having issued a ransom demand of five billion naira for their release. A total of 12,402 individuals fled the area and remain displaced in Pulka, many sleeping on roadsides and in school buildings.
19 March 2026, Kumbul Forest near Mafa, Borno State: Boko Haram fighters abducted over 100 people in an attack on displaced persons who had been farming in the Kumbul Forest area.
22 March 2026, Kachia LGA, Kaduna State: Thirty people were abducted by gunmen who attacked three churches in a coordinated assault.
21 April 2026, Pubagu, outskirts of Sambisa Forest, Borno State: Islamic militants killed 11 people in a remote village on the edge of Sambisa Forest.
27 April 2026, Guyaku, Gombi LGA, Adamawa State: The Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on a village football pitch where residents had gathered, killing at least 29 people and injuring several others. Assailants also set homes ablaze before fleeing.
In total, Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper calculated that 1,258 people were killed due to violence between January 1 and February 10, 2026, alone. Amnesty International has reported that no fewer than 1,100 people were kidnapped within just the first three months of 2026. These are not war zones in any conventional sense. These are farming communities, markets, churches, mosques, and schools.
Mr. President, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation and its largest economy. It is also a critical partner in West Africa’s fragile security architecture. When Nigeria bleeds, the entire sub-region destabilises. Ungoverned spaces attract global terror networks. Displaced populations create migration pressures that ripple beyond West Africa’s borders. The entrenchment of IS-affiliated groups in Nigeria’s Northwest and Northeast, if left unchecked, poses a long-term threat not only to regional stability but also to broader international security interests that the United States has consistently sought to protect.
The December airstrikes demonstrated what targeted, intelligence-driven, Nigeria-led cooperation with the United States can achieve. That cooperation must not be a one-time gesture.
With full respect for Nigerian sovereignty and the primacy of Nigerian-led solutions, I appeal to your administration to consider the following:
First, the United States should sustain and deepen its intelligence-sharing partnership with Nigerian security forces, equipping them with the tools and information necessary to dismantle terror networks at their roots.
Second, robust military training and capacity-building programmes should be accelerated, particularly for frontline troops operating in high-risk rural terrains where the Nigerian military is stretched thin.
Third, the United States should support diplomatic and development-focused interventions that address governance failures and economic exclusion, which serve as drivers of extremist recruitment. Security operations alone cannot resolve a crisis sustained by poverty and institutional neglect.
Fourth, where credible evidence exists of individuals or entities financing or facilitating terror activities that have resulted in the deaths of civilians, the United States should consider all appropriate and lawful tools available under its foreign policy framework to hold such actors accountable.
Mr. President, the people of Nigeria are not asking America to fight their battles for them. They are asking that the world’s most powerful democracy not look away. The Christmas strikes sent a message that the United States stands against terror wherever it thrives. We ask that this message be sustained through partnership, presence, and the kind of principled engagement that has historically defined America at its best.
The innocent deserve better than silence.
Respectfully,
Daniel Nduka Okonkwo
Publisher, Profiles International
Human Rights Advocate
Abuja, Nigeria
dan.okonkwo.73@gmail.com
