The United States has been conducting intelligence-gathering surveillance flights over Nigeria since late November, signalling a significant and potentially tense new phase in security cooperation between the two nations, according to an exclusive Reuters report.
Citing flight tracking data and current and former US officials, Reuters reported that the operations follow threats made in November by President Donald Trump to intervene militarily over what he described as Nigeria’s failure to halt violence against Christian communities.
Flight tracking data shows the contractor-operated aircraft, a modified Gulfstream V business jet, typically departs from Accra, Ghana, flies over Nigeria and then returns. “In recent weeks we’ve seen a resumption of intelligence and surveillance flights in Nigeria,” Liam Karr, the Africa team lead for the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute, told Reuters.
The purpose of the flights “could not be independently determined,” Reuters noted, but they also come months after a US pilot was kidnapped in neighbouring Niger. A former US official quoted by the news agency said the missions included efforts to locate the kidnapped pilot and to collect intelligence on militant groups operating in Nigeria, including Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province.
A current US official confirmed to Reuters that the aircraft has been flying over Nigeria but declined to provide further details, “citing diplomatic sensitivities.”
The report stated that the surveillance flights suggest Washington is rebuilding its intelligence capacity in the region after being expelled from a key air base in Niger last year. According to Reuters, the aircraft is operated by Mississippi-based Tenax Aerospace, a company that provides special mission aircraft and works closely with the US military.
This development occurs alongside a separate domestic security crisis in Nigeria.
On Monday, authorities confirmed that 28 travellers were feared kidnapped in Plateau State, underscoring the pervasive insecurity that the US flights appear to be monitoring.
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