United States saying it's launched
air
strikes at Islamic State militants in
Nigeria with defense secretary Pete
Hexith warning over more to come. The US
President Donald Trump said the strikes
were targeting what he called terrorist
scum accusing is of killing innocent
Christians. More on this. We're joined
by Dangabala, a special adviser to the
Nigerian president Bolatonubu. Uh good
to see you. I appreciate you uh sharing
your time with us today. Thank you for
your time. We we've heard these these
two statements and read these two
statements on social media from Donald
Trump and Pete Hexath as well. Since
then, relatively little information from
the perspective of the United States.
What can you tell us from your
perspective?
>>
Well, uh thank you for having me and
good evening to the viewers. Uh the
conduct of the operation is joint. uh
because if you recall that um we have
over the last few weeks developed uh
good collaborative relationship with the
US government where our delegation
visited DC and there on visited Nigeria.
So it's part of the ongoing joint
intelligence sharing and joint
collaboration for the fight against
terrorism. So the uh operation that took
place yesterday was actually a joint
operation.
>>
A joint operation that the the physical
strikes appear to have been conducted by
the United States. What what exactly was
the the role that Nigeria played in
this?
>>
The role that Nigerian plays is
intelligence sharing. uh when something
is said to be a joint operation, my
understanding is that it involves
investigation, surveillance,
intelligence sharing and the final stage
of the operation itself and all of these
processes were conducted alongside with
the Nigerian counterpart and then uh of
course the the the the result was the
strike that we saw yesterday. There was
a communication before the strike
between the foreign secretary of the
United States Marubio and the foreign
affairs minister of Nigeria. And shortly
after the conduct of the strike, there
was also a phone call and the
communication to that effect. This is in
spite of the fact that uh defense
ministry as well as the department of
war have been in collaboration and uh
communication long before now. And we
are hoping that this is not an operation
that will end now, but it will be part
of the ongoing operations that will put
an end to this terrorism in Nigeria.
We're hearing from the United States
perspective Donald Trump's words that
they were targeting is scum. That was
the the quote directly from him. Can you
give us more details on on exactly who
was the target there? Was it Islamic
State militants themselves or are these
groups that are aligned to Islamic
State? What more information do you
have? You say you shared intelligence.
What intelligence can you share with us
at the moment?
Well, this is uh this comes down to the
issue of the laws and what the law
permit in each uh state. I'm sure that
the American government have
jurisdictional power over operation
against ISIS and the ancillaries around
the world. They may not have specific
authorization by the Congress to fight
terrorist organizations that are not
designated as such. In Nigeria, both the
Lacurawa, the Boko Haram and thearies
have been designated as terrorist
organization. Therefore, we consider
them all as part of the you know act of
terrorism against the state. So, uh I I
believe that that's the understanding
that the American government had. But,
uh this is sketchy, right? In the coming
days or hours, we are going to have more
intelligence and more report about exact
target whether it were the members of
the ISIS or were the members of Lurawa
or the members of the bandit. So, but um
whether ISIS, Lawra or Bandit, they are
all terrorists. They're terrorists.
>>
The Trump administration has been
critical from its perspective of the
what it would call persecution. I'm sure
that would be the phrase they would use
of Christians in the country. What is
the response of of the Nigerian
government? Because many other analysts
will say that that when it comes to the
groups you've you've mentioned, they
target people indiscriminately. It's not
just Christians who are targets and
victims. It is also Muslim communities.
It is is communities across the country.
What is your response to the the
criticisms laid against you by the White
House and Washington DC?
>>
Well, we made that clear from the
beginning and I think that our
collaboration now is on the basis of
disagree to agree. So, uh what I mean by
disagree to agree is that one, we both
disagree on one thing. They believe it
is a targeted killing of Christians. And
we have maintained the position which is
backed up by data that there is no
targeting of a particular religion
because evidence and data showed that
all people of all faith in Nigeria and
even those who have not identified with
faith have become victims. Even the
operations in the northwestern Nigeria,
most of the casualties there are
Muslims. So we as a country know that
there is no targeting of Christians and
that's why we maintain that it is a
fight against those elements that are
against the peace of our state
irrespective of their religious or
ethnic background. But you can
understand with America they also want
to speak to their demographics and I
believe that the statement of Donald
Trump through true social is
communicating to the American society
and so that is the opinion that they
hold and they act on the basis of that.
We also have the opinion that terrorism
in Nigeria is not specifically targeting
a tribe or a religion. And we know that
because as a responsible government, we
cannot afford to say or agree with the
notion that is a targeting of Christians
when the evidence is showing otherwise.
Otherwise, it will result in deeper and
broader conflict in our uh geographical
uh location.
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