For those unfamiliar with African geography:
First, I will remind you Africa is massive. This is the Authograph map, the most accurate-to-size and least-distorted map in the world:
Africa is bottom center. North America is that bitty thing near the top. (Turn your head to the side if you need to orient yourself via Florida or Brazil, because lack of distortion meant some stuff Does Not Look how you would expect.)
Now that you have a sense of how big it is, here's Africa.
Now here's the same map, but I circled the countries where ISIL has any kind of significant presence. Please note that "significant presence" in this case means "wow, they control a whole city," and also that the Middle East is too small for me to accurately circle individual states on a phone. As of 2025 there is no significant ISIL presence in Israel, Palestine, Jordan, or that bit of Saudi Arabia I tried four times to avoid and couldn't.
YOU'RE GONNA NOTICE ALL OF THESE ARE PRETTY FAR FROM NIGERIA.
There is an absolutely minuscule stronghold in eastern Nigeria, but if the intent was actually to remove ISIL as a player in the region, it would require a scalpel, not a hatchet, and a quick scan of the Nigeria Wikipedia page shows a history in which Nigeria is doing pretty damn well at driving out terrorist groups trying to get a foothold entirely on their own.
Wiki further tells me that Nigeria has a massive Christian population and that freedom of religion is enshrined in their constitution. Up until the 2023 elections, it was even unofficial-but-standard practice that if a Christian won the presidency, they'd select a Muslim vice-president, and vice versa. (In 2023 a Muslim president selected a Muslim veep. I don't know anything in particular about Nigerian politics, so I don't know why this was--it could be anything from Islamic colonialism to being besties as kids to the veep just being a guy who's really good at diplomatic relations.) The more I'm reading, the more obvious his bullshit claim becomes.
Call your reps, Americans. Those of us who are Millennials and older will remember when the excuse was al-Qaeda and WMDs. History doesn't repeat, but it sure does like to rhyme. And if you're thinking "but he's ignoring the law anyway, so does it even matter if we call?" YES. YES IT DOES. Enough attention can force lawsuits that give troops a nail to hang their hats on to say "can't do it, sorry, unlawful order."
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