Ujima: “Solving Our Brothers, Sisters, and Siblings’ Problems As Our Own” Means Shutting Down AFRICOM.
Still image from video footage released by the U.S. Department of War on December 25, 2025, showing the launch of a possible Tomahawk Land Attack Missile from a U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer during a strike operation targeting ISIS elements in Sokoto State, Nigeria. (Picture source: U.S. Department of War)
Habari Gani?! Ujima! Collective Work and Responsibility -"To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers', sisters', and siblings' problems our problems and to solve them together." On Christmas Eve, with the “cooperation” of the Nigerian government, the U.S. fired more than a dozen Tomahawk missiles into Sokoto State, Nigeria. According to news reports these came from a warship off the coast of Guinea, and this warship would have been under the control of AFRICOM, the U.S. Military Command in Africa. Trump claims he was delivering a "Christmas present" to stop the killing of Christians, but just as in the case of the supposed drug dealing of Venezuela, or the right of a settler colony like Israel to exist and defend itself, this serves the U.S. ruling class's own imperial ends.
Sokoto is less than 250 miles away from Niger, a member of the Confederation of Sahelian States (Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali). This is a Confederation increasingly asserting its self-determination/kujichagulia over its own resources. Niger kicked out French uranium mining companies like Orano and expelled the U.S. Military's AFRICOM's drone base from the Agazez region. Burkina Faso is leading an effort to build their own currency to replace France's CFA franc, and Mali is convening countries to build Africa’s own security infrastructure.
By emphasizing the persecution of African Christians, Trump is more likely throwing a bone to a U.S. White evangelical base. It does make it a little tougher to read that this is done seemingly with the support of some sections of Nigeria’s Catholic institutions and some of its political leadership. However, a U.S. Dept of War, that is part of an administration led by White Nationalists that think diversity weakens empire and that the slave master relationship is a natural one, is not concerned with justice in Africa. We know this here, for sure. In fact, where some of the missiles landed it supposedly confused the people because there is no history of ISIS there.
Ultimately, a central problem of our sisters, brothers and siblings that we can address here is U.S. imperialism. Along with France, the U.S. set loose the problem of Salafist Jihadism (the terrorism trend they say they are attacking) a big part of which was Obama’s ruthless destruction of Libya in 2011. As in the case of Venezuela, Palestine, the Confederation of Sahelian States is stepping forward towards being self-determinative, a move to admire. A step to solving the problem revealed in this missile attack would be for us to shutdown AFRICOM, as has been called for by the Black Alliance for Peace for almost a decade, and to call for its shutdown throughout the year. See this link for the statement from The Coalition for the Elimination of Imperialism (CEIA) in Africa about this bombing.
