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15-06-2026
ABUJA: Nigeria’s military has “neutralised” more than 13,000 “terrorists” in the past year, the president says, as armed groups and criminal gangs continue to carry out mass attacks and kidnappings in the country.
In a televised national address on Friday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said the death toll from Nigeria’s fight against armed rebels is down 81 percent since he took power in 2023
Tinubu added that “124,000 fighters and dependents have laid down their arms since 2023 through Operation Safe Corridor,” a program aimed at rehabilitating repentant armed group members who voluntarily lay down their arms.
Tinubu’s speech was in commemoration of Nigeria’s Democracy Day, which marks the end of several years of military rule and the restoration of democracy in 1999.
However, despite the victorious tone of his speech, Africa’s second-biggest economy is in the throes of a spiraling insecurity crisis that has seen armed groups linked to ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda, as well as criminal gangs, abduct citizens for ransom money.
Soft targets, including schools, churches and mosques, particularly in vulnerable rural communities with limited state security presence, have been particularly at risk.
While armed groups initially limited their operations to the country’s north, they have begun spreading through thick forest corridors to attack targets in the country’s southwest.
Officials say the groups are shifting base because of military pressure on their locations. Following unfounded allegations of a “Christian genocide” in the country by US President Donald Trump late last year, the United States military has since begun supporting Nigeria in conducting precision strikes on armed group locations. In February, 100 American soldiers were deployed to Nigeria.
Scores of people have been abducted since January alone, including teachers and pupils as young as four years old. The latest incident in May saw 46 people kidnapped from a school in southwest Oyo state.
On Monday, the Nigerian military said it rescued 360 people kidnapped by ISIL-linked Boko Haram and held in a remote mountain hideout in northern Borno State.
Last year, in early November, a social media post by United States President Donald Trump set off alarm bells across Nigeria. The US “Department of War”, he said, was preparing to go into the West African country “guns-a-blazing” over what he claimed was the killing of Christians in Nigeria.
Nigeria’s government under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu swiftly hit back, rejecting the claims, saying that while the country faced a challenging security situation due to armed groups and banditry, it was untrue that Christians were specifically being targeted, as Muslim communities and traditional believers had also come under attack but the Trump administration was not appeased. It had placed Nigeria on its “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPC) watchlist for religious freedom, and soon made threats of sanctions, cuts to financial aid, and punitive measures against Abuja for “failing” to protect Christians.
As Nigerians worried about a potential bombing campaign against their nation, the Tinubu government though still denying accusations of a “Christian genocide” quietly pivoted. Instead of aggressive rhetoric, it said it would welcome US assistance in dealing with security challenges that have long proved a thorn in the side of successive Nigerian governments.
Weeks later, on the night of December 25, the US launched what Trump described as “powerful and deadly” strikes in northwest Nigeria but the US military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) made clear the attacks were carried out “at the request of Nigerian authorities”. (Int’l News Desk)
