US surveillance planes carry out intelligence gathering flights over Nigerian airspace

AMERICAN planes have been carrying out intelligence-gathering surveillance flights over large areas of Nigeria since late November according to a recently-published document by former US officials.

Last month, President Donald Trump declared that he has asked his generals to draw up plans regarding how to attack Nigeria in response to the incessant attacks on Christians by Islamic terrorists. He accused the Nigerian government of not doing enough to address the situation, standing by as Christians were being massacred across the north of the country.

Nigeria is currently suffering from the effects of chronic insecurity as Boko Haram, the Islamic State of the West African Province (Iswap), armed bandits and kidnappers have turned large swathes of the north of the country into no-go areas. However, in all these areas, both Christians Muslims are affected by the reign of terror, as the authorities are overwhelmed by the scale of the problem.

As the debate raged, the House of Representatives Sub-committee on Africa held public meetings to see if there is any truth to the fact that there is religious persecution of Christians in Nigeria. Among other things, it looked at President Trump’s redesignation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), which if ratified by the Senate, would allow the US to impose sanctions on Nigerian officials found complicit in religious persecution and limit certain forms of bilateral assistance.

It now appears that the US has taken action on the matter as the recent report published by new agency Reuters, the flights took place according to US officials. It added, however, that the purpose of the flights could not be independently determined.

According to the report, flight tracking data for December showed that the contractor-operated aircraft typically departs from Ghana, flies over Nigeria and then returns to Accra. Reuters revealed that the aircraft is operated by Mississippi-based Tenax Aerospace, a company that provides special mission aircraft and works closely with the US military.

Liam Karr, the Africa team lead for the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute, said his analysis of the flight data indicated the operation was being run out of Accra, a known logistics hub for the US military in Africa. He added that the flights appeared to signal that Washington was rebuilding intelligence capacity in the region after Niger Republic ordered US troops to leave a major air base last year, seeking security assistance from Russia as a replacement.

Reuters added that a former US official said the aircraft was among several assets the Trump administration moved to Ghana in November. While it was unclear how many aircraft remained there, the former official said the missions included efforts to locate the kidnapped US pilot in Niger Republic and to collect intelligence on militant groups operating in Nigeria, including Boko Haram and its splinter faction (Iswap).

Another administration official said Washington was continuing to work with Nigeria to address religious violence, anti-Christian attacks and the destabilising spread of terrorism. For its part, the Pentagon said the US government had held productive meetings with Nigerian officials following President Trump’s message to the country.

This latest report further revealed that a security source in Nigeria said that an agreement was reached during a November 20 meeting between Nigeria's national security adviser Nuhu Ribadu, and US defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. Both sides agreed to deploy air assets for intelligence gathering at the meeting.