Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters (DHQ) has announced that its security forces have killed 82 terrorists and arrested 198 criminals within the past week. The raids are part of anti-terror operations across the country.
In a statement released, the Nigerian Director of Defence Media Operations, Maj-Gen Markus Kangye, announced that troops also rescued 93 kidnapped victims and retrieved 86 high-caliber weapons along with 2,040 ammunition rounds from various theatres of operation.
A total of “41 repentant terrorists” and members of their families, including 10 adults, 12 adult females, and 19 children, handed themselves over to troops in the northeastern part of the country during the operations, he stated, saying that they also handed over their weapons and ammunition.
Kangye said that during other raids in the same period, a total of 22 oil thieves sabotaging the national economy were captured in the country’s oil-rich territory.
“Additionally, troops discovered and destroyed 38 crude oil cooking ovens, 27 dugout pits, 22 boats, two speedboats, 60 storage tanks, 34 drums, and 32 illegal refining sites,”
he also said.
Last year in April 2024, a high-level African counterterrorism conference was held in Nigeria with hundreds of representatives from around the world. Leaders at the meeting hoped to change that through regional collaboration and partnerships.
The summit was jointly arranged by Nigeria and the United Nations Office of Counter Terrorism (UNOCT) to strengthen regional security reaction and collaboration against acts of terror.
“Terrorism snaps at the very fabric of the prosperous and just society we seek to build for ourselves and our children,”
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu stated.
“This violent threat seeks to frighten the farmer from his field, children from their schools, women from the marketplace, and families from their very homes. We must therefore fight this threat together, combining determined national effort with well-tailored and regional and international collaboration.”
The summit aimed to enhance intelligence sharing among African countries and promote African-led techniques on counterterrorism. Authorities said that it will also function as a guide to the international community’s coordinated response to terrorism in Africa.
Over the past decade, Nigeria has faced stemming the violence by Boko Haram and its fragment, ISWAP in the northeast. Nigeria’s security advisor Nuhu Ribadu said these factors need to be handled.
“Effective strategies require comprehensive approaches that address these drivers, promote socioeconomic development, enhance governance resolve conflict, and strengthen regional and international cooperation,”
Ribadu stated.
