The Military has disclosed that troops of the Armed Forces denied saboteurs the oil theft of N7,428,648, 246 between January and March 2025.
The Director, Defence Media Operations, Maj. Gen. Markus Kangye, made the disclosure on Thursday, during a briefing with journalists on the efforts of troops in the various theatres of operation for the first quarter.
In his opening remarks, Kangye expressed deep gratitude for the gift of life to witness the recent Sallah celebrations, and prayed for sound health on all to witness the next celebrations coming up in June.
He also appreciated troops of the Armed Forces who, responding to the call of duty, did not have the opportunity to spend the holidays with their families as they were on the front lines in defence of the nation.
He praised Commanders of the various theatres of operation for providing leadership to troops during this time, and also journalists for their tireless efforts in putting out the efforts of troops in the public domain.
Kangye gave a breakdown of the theft of crude oil denied thieves as: crude 6,290,437 litres of stolen crude
oil, 1,319,350 litres of illegally refined AGO, 6,130 litres of DPK and 4,545 litres of PMS. Additionally, troops discovered and destroyed 257 crude oil cooking ovens, 128 dugout pits, 192 boats, 138 storage tanks, 236 drums and 122 illegal refining sites. Other items recovered include; barge, speedboats, pumping machines, drilling machines, and over 90 vehicles.
Relatedly, troops recovered huge quantities of assorted arms including various kinds of machine guns, RPG tubes, automatic weapons as well as locally fabricated guns and IEDs. Additionally, huge cache of assorted 7.62mm and 9mm ammunition, as well as live cartridges were also recovered.
During the period under review, the aggressive operational tempo by troops in conjunction with hybrid forces and other security agencies across all theaters, paid off, as their uncommon bravery, resilience, determination and strong will during various encounters throughout the quarter, including fighting and confidence building patrols, raids, ambushes and clearance as well as search and rescue operations brought about remarkable outcomes.
Specifically, many terrorist commanders such as Abba Allai (aka Amirul Khalid of Alafa), Abdullahi (aka Honour), Jagaban and Dan Danger amongst others were neutralized while Abdullahi Ali, was captured alive with severe gun wounds.
Kangye maintained that these efforts by the gallant troops created gaps in the command and leadership structures of BHTs as well as ISWAP/JAS terrorists. There were also infighting for supremacy within the ranks of the various terrorist factions, which sparked cracks in their leadership hierarchy, hence the observed confusion in their various camps.
“Our gallant troops exploited the situation and dealt decisively with them on various fronts, hence their resort to attack on soft targets and the use of IEDs and isolated ambushes”, the Director said.
The sustained operations against the terrorists also led to the arrest of scores of them, rescue of kidnapped hostages as well as surrendering of many to troops. Some gunrunners and terrorists’ logistics suppliers such as Alhaji Mansur Mohammed, Shehu Babangida, Sagi David, Blessing Paul, Shuaibu Maji were also arrested.
Air component also conducted reconnaissance, close air support and interdiction missions with high success rates, which seriously degraded the terrorists’ strength and will to fight.
