OBLONG MEDIA UNLIMITED – OP-ED
Sokoto and the Sound of a Broken Sovereignty
When American jets struck terrorist targets in Sokoto, it was not the explosion that shook Nigeria. It was the silence that followed in Abuja.
A foreign power carried out a kinetic military operation on Nigerian soil.
The announcement did not come first from the Nigerian government, the Nigerian military, or the Nigerian presidency. It came from Donald Trump loud, theatrical, deliberate.
That single fact is where the problem begins.
Not an airstrike. A
statement.
The Sokoto strike was never just about killing terrorists. Terrorists have been killing Nigerians for years with far less international urgency. This was a statement operation.
It said
Nigeria is insecure
Nigeria is overwhelmed
Nigeria is permissive
Nigeria can be bypassed
Whether the Nigerian government knew in advance, consented quietly, or was merely informed late is almost beside the point. The optics are the same. Nigeria looked like a country whose monopoly of force had been subcontracted.
That is not counter terrorism.
That is symbolic humiliation.
Did Abuja know? Almost certainly. Did Abuja lead? Almost certainly not.
Official lines insist the strike was carried out in coordination with Nigerian authorities. That phrase is doing far too much work.
Coordination is not command.
Consent is not control.
Notification is not sovereignty.
If Nigeria truly owned the operation, Nigerians would have been told first by Nigerian authorities, with Nigerian facts, Nigerian framing, and Nigerian follow through.
Instead, the country woke up to a foreign president narrating events inside Sokoto like a landlord inspecting troubled property.
That is the damage.
What this says about the Nigerian state
Country’s survive on perception as much as force. And the perception now is grim.
To ordinary Nigerians, the message is brutal
It took America to do what Nigeria could not
To terrorists, the message is more dangerous
Nigeria is weak, divided, penetrable
To the world, the message is clear
Nigerias security problem is now internationalised
That is how sovereignty erodes, not with treaties, but with precedents.
And the Nigerian military. Trapped in a system designed to fail
This moment should not be weaponised against Nigerian soldiers. They fight, bleed, and die within a structure that has been hollowed out by decades of dysfunction.
Nigeria does not lack men.
Nigeria lacks systems.
What we have instead is
Bloated personnel spending with thin capital capability
Compromised intelligence pipelines
Politicised command structures
Procurement scandals masked as security votes
An ecosystem where insecurity feeds too many mouths to be cured quickly
In such an environment, decisive victory becomes bad business.
The corruption insecurity loop
Let us be honest without being reckless.
Nigerias insecurity is not just a failure. It is an industry.
Contracts are issued
Escorts are hired
Checkpoints multiply
Ransoms circulate
Budgets expand
Results do not
From arms procurement to logistics, from intelligence leaks to political protection, insecurity has become profitable enough to resist resolution.
And when insecurity is profitable, disarmament becomes optional.
That is why the terrorists persist.
That is why the war never quite ends.
Tinubu, geopolitics, and the uncomfortable question
Does this strike intersect with Nigerias growing engagement with China and France? Possibly. But there is no hard evidence yet that this was a geopolitical punishment.
What is evident is that America wanted to remind everyone that, despite Africas shifting alliances, Washington still controls the security ceiling.
That reminder did not require regime change.
It required spectacle.
And Sokoto provided the stage.
What this means for President Tinubu
For Bola Ahmed Tinubu, this moment is politically dangerous.
Security is not just a policy issue. It is a legitimacy test.
This strike hands the opposition a devastating narrative
Nigeria is unsafe
The government is reactive
Sovereignty is negotiable
Dignity is compromised
If insecurity continues and Nigerians see no sustained Nigerian led follow up, Sokoto will not be remembered as a victory against terror.
It will be remembered as the day Nigeria outsourced its authority.
One strike will not end a presidency.
But symbols accumulate.
And this is a very powerful one.
The real danger ahead
The most dangerous outcome is not more American strikes.
It is normalisation.
Once Nigerians accept that foreign powers can conduct military action on Nigerian soil as routine counter terrorism, the red line is gone.
Today it is Sokoto.
Tomorrow it is somewhere else.
Next time, the justification may not even align with Nigerias interests.
That is how weak states become theatres rather than actors.
The Oblong Media position
This is not an anti America argument.
This is not a defence of terrorists.
This is not a call for diplomatic tantrums.
This is a call for state seriousness.
Nigeria must decide
Whether it wants to remain a sovereign power or a managed security zone
Whether it wants a military that fights wars or one that manages crises
Whether insecurity is a tragedy to be solved or a business to be maintained
Until those questions are answered honestly, no number of foreign strikes will save Nigeria.
They will only remind us again and again of what we have failed to fix ourselves.
– Oblong Media Unlimited
OBLONG MEDIA UNLIMITED 
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