National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu announced the arrest of two leaders of the Ansaru terrorist group, calling the capture one of the “most significant achievement[s] to date in our ongoing effort to rid Nigeria of the threat of terrorism.”
The arrested individuals are Mahmud Muhammad Usman (Abu Bara’a), the self-styled “Emir of ANSARU,” and Mahmud al-Nigeri (Mallam Mamuda), the deputy Amir and Chief of Staff.
Ribadu described Usman as the “coordinator of various terrorist sleeper cells across Nigeria” and the “mastermind of several high-profile kidnappings and armed robberies used to finance terrorism.”
Mamuda was identified as the leader of a cell operating near Kainji National Park who specialized in “weapons handling and IED fabrication.”
The two men, who had been on Nigeria’s most-wanted list for years, are linked to numerous terrorist operations, including the 2022 Kuje jailbreak and the kidnappings of French engineer Francis Collomp, Alhaji Musa Umar Uba, and the Emir of Wawa.
Ribadu stated that the suspects’ capture “marks the most decisive blow against ANSARU since its inception” and has “effectively dismantled” the group’s central command.
The Ansaru group emerged as a Boko Haram splinter faction in 2012, initially presenting itself as a “humane alternative.”
However, it quickly began attacking Nigerian security operatives and government infrastructure, publicly displaying the “setting sun logo of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM),” to signal its ideological alignment with global jihadist movements.
The group entrenched itself in both urban sleeper cells and forest-based enclaves across northern Nigeria and the Benin Republic.
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