Troops killed 9,300 insurgents in one year, says defence minister

Mohammed Badaru, minister of defence, says an estimated 9,300 bandits and terrorists have been killed within the past year by troops of the Nigerian Army.

Badaru spoke on Thursday during the ministerial sectoral briefing organised by the ministry of information in Abuja.

He said the troops apprehended about 7,000 insurgents, while 4,641 kidnap victims were rescued during the same period.

He said the troops recovered 4,882 assorted weapons and 83,900 ammunitions, adding that 20 leaders of various terrorist groups were among those killed.

“In addition to the military, we have close collaboration with the office of the national security adviser, police, civil defence and all other military, paramilitary and security enhancing agencies,” NAN quoted Badaru as saying.

“This has translated to tremendous progress during this last one year in review. You will all agree with me that those from Borno enjoyed their last Sallah freely.”

The minister said the troops also arrested 1,437 people over crude oil theft, and released 245 captives in the Niger Delta.

“We destroyed 3,051 dug pits of illegal production, destroyed 1,276 boats, 3,924 storage facilities, arrested and destroyed 408 vehicles and 2,760 cooking oil drums,” he added.

“So, most of the illegal factories are now down. And in addition, major vessels have been arrested, and this has helped greatly.

“This is because the President enjoined us to work together in synergy to deliver and end insecurity in the country.

“We have also been working with regional security agencies and countries around us to improve this situation.

“We are collaborating with neighbouring countries to fight insurgency, and we have arrested in conjunction with these countries militaries, many weapons and drug traffickers.

“This shows that the collaboration we have with our neighbouring countries is efficient and helping us to reduce the inflow of small arms and light weapons.”