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.
