Nigeria killed more than 13,000 ‘terrorists’ in past year, president says

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 dependants have laid down their arms since 2023 through Operation Safe Corridor,” a programme 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 spiralling 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.