Dismantling terror networks in Nigeria

By The Conscience Chronicler

For sixteen years, Nigeria has bled. We have bled from the wounds inflicted by Boko Haram, by its splinter faction, the Islamic State West Africa Province, by the bandit armies that roam the North-West, by the kidnappers who have turned the nation’s schools into theatres of terror. We have bled from Chibok to Ogbomosho, from Gwoza to Yelewata, from the forests of Borno to the farmlands of Benue, from the mountains of Kaduna to the villages of Kwara.

We have bled so profusely, so persistently, so unrelentingly, that the blood has become part of the landscape, and the landscape has become indistinguishable from the grave.

The terrorists are learning from every attack. They study their successes and their failures. They refine their tactics. They identify vulnerabilities. They adapt and strike again. From Chibok to Ogbomosho, from countless villages in the North-West to communities across the Middle Belt and beyond, the pattern has become tragically familiar. An attack occurs.

The nation mourns. Promises are made. Committees are announced. And then, the next attack. And the next. And the next. The terrorists have not only adapted; they have metastasised, expanding from the North-East to the North-West to the North-Central, and now, unmistakably, to the South-West.

The attack on Ogbomosho in Oyo State on May 15, 2026, where terrorists abducted 45 pupils and teachers from three schools, beheading one teacher in a filmed execution, was not an anomaly. It was the inevitable consequence of a security architecture that had failed to prevent, deter, or rescue.

The question is no longer whether terrorism is a threat to Nigeria. The question is whether Nigeria is willing to do what it takes to end it. And the answer, so far, has been a resounding, heartbreaking no. We are fighting gunmen instead of the terror ecosystem that sustains them. We deploy soldiers to chase shadows while the financiers sit comfortably in Lagos, Kano, and Kaduna, wiring money to terror cells through bureaux de change and informal networks.

We arrest foot soldiers while the commanders issue orders from forest enclaves we have mapped for years, but never cleared. We mourn victims while we fail to stop the next attack. We hold press conferences while the terrorists hold entire communities hostage.

The United States understands something we have chosen to ignore: that terrorism is not a military problem alone. It is a financial problem. It is an intelligence problem. It is a governance problem. And it cannot be solved with bullets alone. On June 22, 2026, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced sanctions against Mukhtar Adamu Muhammad, a Nigerian national living in the Agege area of Lagos, and three Nigerian bureaux de change companies: Nine to Nine Exchange Bureau De Change, Manhattan Bureau De Change, and Generation Currency Bureau De Change, for allegedly financing the Islamic State West Africa Province.

The U.S. authorities identified Muhammad as a financial facilitator who conducted money transfers on behalf of ISWAP, using these businesses as conduits to move funds to the terror group.

Under the sanctions, all of their assets under U.S. jurisdiction have been blocked, and U.S. citizens and companies are prohibited from engaging in transactions with them. The action forms part of a broader operation targeting three individuals and six entities operating across West Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.

This is the kind of action we should have taken years ago. The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the Department of State Services all know who the financiers are.

They have the intelligence. They have the bank records. They have the informants. They have everything except the political will to act. Instead, the financiers continue to operate with impunity, moving millions of naira through informal channels, funding the weapons that kill soldiers, the bullets that kill children, the ransoms that enrich kidnappers. And we wonder why the violence persists.

The history is well documented. The Boko Haram insurgency began in 2002 under Mohammed Yusuf in Maiduguri, radicalising after the 2009 uprising and Yusuf’s death at the hands of security forces. Under Abubakar Shekau, the group carried out mass killings, suicide bombings, attacks on churches and mosques, the 2011 UN Building bombing in Abuja, and the 2014 Chibok girls’ abduction, an atrocity that should have been a turning point but instead became the first chapter in an endless narrative of abductions.

In 2016, the group splintered, with one faction pledging allegiance to ISIS and becoming ISWAP, while the other faction remained under Shekau until he died in 2021. ISWAP has since grown into one of the Islamic State’s most formidable franchises outside the Middle East, carrying out deadly attacks on military formations, communities, and humanitarian workers in Borno and neighbouring states, exploiting porous borders to establish transnational financing and logistics networks.

Meanwhile, the North-West banditry has evolved from cattle rustling into a full-blown terrorist enterprise, driven overwhelmingly by economic incentives: illegal mining, kidnapping-for-ransom, extortion, and territorial control.

The Lakurawa group, with suspected links to ISIS, launched attacks on local villages in late 2024 and early 2025, killing dozens. The bandits are not religious extremists; they are entrepreneurs of violence, and they have perfected their trade because the state has given them space to operate, profit, and expand.

The human cost is immeasurable. In November 2025, terrorists abducted 315 persons from St Mary’s School in Papiri, Niger State, including 303 students and 12 teachers. In December, another hundred students were released, but the trauma endures. In June 2025, at least 100 people were killed in an attack on Yelewata village in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State. In February 2026, more than 160 worshippers were abducted in Kwara State.

On February 3, 2026, an armed group attacked two neighbouring villages in Kwara State, killing over 160 people and abducting dozens in one of the deadliest attacks recorded in recent months. Between March 4 and 6, 2026, suspected Islamic militants attacked Ngoshe town in Borno State, abducting more than 300 civilians, including women and children.

The military responded with airstrikes and ground troops, reportedly killing many assailants as well as civilians, including local elders and religious leaders. The cycle continues: attack, response, civilian casualties, more attacks.

The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect has documented that since 2014, over 2,000 children have been abducted or kidnapped, largely in mass abductions targeting schools. In 2024 alone, at least 580 civilians, primarily women and girls, were kidnapped across several states.

The actual figures are likely much higher. In September 2025, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women found Nigeria responsible for grave and systematic violations of women and girls’ rights amid ongoing mass abductions, citing the government’s repeated failure to prevent attacks on schools or protect victims.

The Nigerian security forces themselves have been implicated in human rights violations during counterterrorism operations, including extrajudicial killings, rape, torture, and arbitrary detentions.

The International Criminal Court has found reasonable grounds to believe that both Boko Haram and Nigerian security forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The foot soldiers, the soldiers who patrol the forests, the police officers who man the checkpoints, and the airmen who fly the missions deserve our respect and our gratitude. They risk their lives daily, often without adequate equipment, sufficient pay or the support they deserve.

But the foot soldiers are not the problem. The problem is the system that sends them into battle without a coherent strategy, without the intelligence they need, without the technology that could give them an edge, without the political backing to finish the job. The problem is the leadership that deploys them to chase gunmen instead of dismantling the terror ecosystem that produces those gunmen in the first place.

The solutions are not mysterious. They are not beyond our capacity. They are beyond our will.

First, we must aggressively target the financial lifelines of terrorist groups. We must identify and dismantle the networks that fund, equip, transport, and shelter these criminal elements. The U.S. sanctions against Mukhtar Adamu Muhammad and his bureaux de change should be replicated by Nigerian authorities. We have the intelligence.

We have the legal framework, the Terrorism Prevention Act of 2011, as amended, that empowers security and law enforcement agencies to track and prosecute terrorism financing. What we lack is the courage to act. The Nigeria Sanctions Committee should be activated, and those found to be financing terrorism should be publicly named, their assets frozen, and their networks dismantled.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent action to freeze assets linked to 13 entities flagged for terrorism financing proves that the mechanism works. It must be applied systematically, without fear or favour.

Second, we must invest massively in intelligence gathering. Every successful counterterrorism campaign worldwide has relied heavily on intelligence superiority.

As security expert Olufemi Adeniji recently told The Guardian, the quickest gains in the fight against insecurity can be achieved through improved intelligence gathering and targeted efforts to cripple the financial structures sustaining criminal groups. We need to deploy modern surveillance technology, round-the-clock monitoring of identified flashpoints, communication interception capabilities, and improved data analysis systems. We need specialised counterterrorism fusion centres in each geopolitical zone where intelligence from the military, police, Department of State Security, Civil Defence, Immigration, Customs, local vigilantes, and community leaders can be pooled, analysed, and acted upon in real time. We must shift from reactive security deployments to intelligence-led operations capable of identifying and neutralising criminal and terrorist leaders before attacks occur.

Third, we must overhaul the legal and judicial framework. Convictions for terrorism, kidnapping, and banditry should be swift and publicised. The current practice of arresting suspects and then holding them for years without trial is a failure of justice and a source of impunity. Specialised courts for terrorism cases, with dedicated judges and expedited procedures, should be established nationwide. The practice of granting endless interlocutory appeals, often used by wealthy defendants to delay proceedings indefinitely, must be curtailed by statute.

Fourth, we must activate state and community policing. The National Assembly has approved constitutional amendments to establish a framework for state police. President Tinubu has endorsed it.

But approval is not implementation. The necessary legal and oversight structures must be put in place immediately, with robust safeguards to prevent abuse. Local governments must be empowered with direct allocations for community security, as the Offa Security Committee has recommended. Communities cannot be expected to fund security operations from private contributions while security votes disappear at the state and federal levels.

A transparent, accountable system of local security funding would empower communities, reduce incentives for governors to loot security allocations, and ensure that resources reach the front lines.

Fifth, we must address the root causes of radicalisation and violence: unemployment, poverty, and hopelessness. The National Counter-Terrorism Centre’s 2025–2030 Strategic Plan rightly identifies “Seeds of Hope” initiatives to rehabilitate victims of terrorism through agriculture and livelihoods.

But these initiatives must be scaled massively, reaching every community at risk of recruitment. Young people who have no hope of employment, no access to education and no belief in the future are the raw material from which extremism is forged. Providing them with alternatives is not charity; it is national security.

The United States and Nigeria have shown what is possible when there is political will. On May 16, 2026, a joint counterterrorism operation reportedly killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, described by U.S. authorities as the second-ranking ISIS leader.

The U.S. has also intensified its crackdown on terrorism financing, designating Muhammad and three Nigerian companies involved in moving funds for ISIS-West Africa. The U.S. State Department said the action exposes a transnational network stretching from France and Syria to Türkiye and Nigeria. “Under the leadership of President Trump, the United States is dismantling ISIS’s ability to finance terrorism around the world,” the statement read. “We are cutting off the financial lifelines from around the world that enable ISIS to fund attacks, support its regional affiliates, and threaten civilians, including religious minorities.”

Nigeria must do the same. We cannot continue to depend on foreign intelligence and foreign sanctions to do the work our own institutions should be doing. The United States has shown us what is possible. Now we must show ourselves.

The terrorists are learning from every attack. They are not sitting still. They are adapting, evolving and expanding. The attack on Ogbomosho was not an accident; it was the next logical step in a campaign of expansion that has been underway for years.

If we do not act now, the South-West will become what the North-East has become: a theatre of terror, a graveyard of dreams, a region where children cannot go to school without fear, where families cannot bury their dead without the threat of another attack, where the state has retreated, and the gunmen have filled the void.

But we must also remember those who are suffering. The families of the 45 captives are still in the bush of Ogbomosho. The parents of the 300 abducted in Ngoshe. The communities of Benue that have been massacred and forgotten. The widows of Yelewata. The orphans of Kwara. They are not statistics. They are the flesh and blood of Nigeria, and they are waiting for their government to act.

The Conscience Chronicler does not write to depress. The Conscience Chronicler writes to awaken. And so, I say to the government, to the security agencies, to the political class: the time for half-measures has passed. The time for committees has passed. The time for press conferences has passed. The time for action is now.

Dismantle the terror networks. Cut off their funding. Neutralise their leaders. Protect the people. And let us, finally, begin to heal the wounds that have festered for sixteen years.

The terrorists are learning from every attack. It is time for Nigeria to learn from every attack as well. And the first lesson is this: we cannot defeat an enemy we refuse to understand. We cannot defeat an enemy we refuse to confront fully. We cannot defeat an enemy whose financiers we protect, whose networks we tolerate, whose leaders we fail to pursue.

We have the intelligence. We have the legal framework. We have the military capacity. What we lack is the political will. And without political will, all the soldiers, all the technology, all the laws in the world will mean nothing.

The clock is ticking. The terrorists are learning. And Nigeria is waiting for its leaders to show that they have finally learned as well.

The Conscience Chronicler