The Department of State Services (DSS) has arraigned two senior commanders of Ansaru, a terrorist organisation.
The two commanders of the Al-Qaeda-linked sect — Mahmud
Usman, aka Abu Bara’a/Abbas/Mukhtar, the self-styled Emir of Ansaru; and Mahmud
al-Nigeri, aka Malam Mamuda, Bara’s deputy and chief of staff — were arraigned
on Thursday before Emeka Nwite, a judge, on a 32-count charge bordering on
terrorism.
The suspects who were recently arrested during operations by
security forces are facing charges bordering on leading a terrorist
organisation, financing its activities, recruiting fighters, and coordinating
violent attacks across Nigeria.
In July 2022, Ansaru militants were linked to the attack on
Kuje prison in Abuja, where over 600 inmates, including 64 Boko Haram suspects,
escaped.
The suspects allegedly attacked the Nigerian Army’s Wawa
Cantonment in Kainji, Niger state, in 2022, causing mass casualties.
Nuhu Ribadu, national security adviser (NSA), had described
the arrested commanders as masterminds of the jailbreak.
Abu Bara was described as the “coordinator of terrorist
sleeper cells across Nigeria and the mastermind of several high-profile
kidnappings and armed robberies used to fund terrorism”.
His deputy, Malam Mamuda, was said to have trained in Libya
between 2013 and 2015 under foreign jihadist instructors from Egypt, Tunisia,
and Algeria, specialising in weapons handling and improvised explosive device
(IED) fabrication.
The NSA added that the suspects were also named in the 2013
abduction of French engineer Francis Collomp in Katsina state, the 2019
kidnapping of Musa Uba (Magajin Garin Daura), and the abduction of the Emir of
Wawa.
Ribadu, who described their arrest as a turning point, said
the suspects have networks across Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
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