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Nigerian troops rescued 397 kidnapped victims and secured the surrender of 57 terrorists and their family members in July, as military operations intensified across multiple theatres nationwide, the Defence Headquarters said Friday.
Director of Defence Media Operations Maj. Gen. Michael Onoja presented the figures while detailing the military’s operational achievements for the month. He said troops neutralized 102 terrorists and other criminals, arrested 345 suspects, and recovered 59 weapons along with 1,811 rounds of ammunition during the period. A separate summary later in Onoja’s briefing put the total number of kidnap victims rescued at 393 rather than 397, a discrepancy not otherwise explained in his remarks.
In the North-East, Onoja said troops under Operation HADIN KAI sustained intensive offensives against Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province, and Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad across Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, and Yobe states. Within that theatre alone, troops neutralized 54 terrorist fighters, arrested 102 terrorists, rescued 102 kidnapped victims, and facilitated the surrender of 57 insurgents and their family members. “The theatre also recorded a steady trend of surrenders occasioned by sustained offensive pressure on terrorists’ enclaves,” Onoja said.
A string of individual surrenders punctuated the month’s operations. On July 1, a suspected terrorist who had fled a Lake Chad camp surrendered to troops in Mobbar Local Government Area of Borno State. On July 4, a woman and her child surrendered at Yaganari village in Dikwa LGA. Between July 4 and July 17, seven family members of terrorists who had escaped the Mandara Mountains surrendered to troops in Gwoza LGA.
The month’s most significant single breakthrough, according to Onoja, came on July 25, when a senior ISWAP finance operative surrendered to troops along the Ladari-Jegarawa-Tunokalia axis on the Gamboru-Wulgo Main Supply Route. Onoja identified the operative as the Chief Finance Officer of the ISWAP enclave at Jubillaram, saying he surrendered alongside two children and handed over an AK-47 rifle, four magazines, 101 rounds of ammunition, a motorcycle, and cash. Onoja said the surrender brought the running total of terrorists and family members who have voluntarily surrendered in recent weeks to about 46, which he attributed to the effectiveness of sustained land and air offensives in degrading terrorist capability and morale.
On July 28, three suspected terrorists surrendered in Gubio LGA after fleeing camps at Sabon Gari and Tumbun Mota amid sustained air bombardment. Onoja said the suspects confessed during interrogation to having been trained as gunboat operators and anti-aircraft gunners for operations in the Lake Chad region. The same day, troops arrested two suspected terrorist collaborators in Magumeri LGA after they allegedly admitted to working with the insurgents.
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Outside the North-East, Onoja cited a July 29 operation in Taraba State, where troops conducted a fighting patrol to Bomanda village in Karim Lamido LGA following reports of kidnappings, rescuing three civilians who had been held captive for about 10 days. “The victims were evacuated for medical treatment prior to reunification with their families,” he said.
Summarizing the month’s nationwide operations, Onoja said the record reflected the sustained resolve of Nigeria’s Armed Forces to secure the environment needed for socio-economic stability. He also said the military had continued to apply pressure against crude oil theft, noting that gains recorded in the Niger Delta had frustrated the activities of economic saboteurs operating in the region.
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Operation HADIN KAI, the North-East counter-insurgency operation Onoja referenced, has served as the Nigerian military’s primary framework for operations against Boko Haram and ISWAP since it replaced the earlier Operation LAFIYA DOLE structure, part of a periodic rebranding and restructuring of the military’s counter-insurgency campaign in the region over the past decade. The steady surrender trend Onoja described aligns with a pattern Nigerian military officials have highlighted in recent briefings, in which sustained air and ground pressure on insurgent enclaves in the Lake Chad Basin and Mandara Mountains areas has been credited with pushing fighters and their dependents toward voluntary surrender rather than continued combat.
The briefing did not clarify the source of the discrepancy between the 397 and 393 figures cited for total kidnap victims rescued, nor did it break down how many of the nationwide totals for arrests, neutralizations, and weapons recovery originated outside the North-East theatre specifically.
