Nigeria Reports 13,000 Terrorists Neutralised in Past Year

Nigeria’s military has neutralised more than 13,000 terrorists in the past year, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said in a televised national address on Friday. The president also stated that the death toll from the 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.

The speech marked Nigeria’s Democracy Day, which commemorates the end of military rule and the restoration of democracy in 1999. On Monday, the Nigerian military rescued 360 people kidnapped by ISIL-linked Boko Haram from a remote mountain hideout in northern Borno State. Scores of people have been abducted since January, including teachers and pupils as young as four years old.

In May, 46 people were kidnapped from a school in southwest Oyo state. Armed groups linked to ISIL and al-Qaeda, as well as criminal gangs, have abducted citizens for ransom money, with soft targets such as schools, churches and mosques in rural communities 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 southwest.

Officials say the groups are shifting base because of military pressure on their locations. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral Idi Abbas attended the 70th anniversary celebrations of the Nigeria Navy at the Eko Atlantic waterfront in Lagos on June 1, 2026.

U.S. President Donald Trump late last year, the United States military has been supporting Nigeria in conducting precision strikes on armed group locations. In February, 100 American soldiers were deployed to Nigeria.