Andy Ezeani
\nTuesday,May 19,2026<\/p>\n
There are strong reasons to believe that the latest killing, on May 16, 2026, of Al-Bilal Minuki, the second in command in the global operations of the terrorist jihadist group, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) will be the last. Minuki had purportedly being killed earlier, in 2024, by the Nigerian military.<\/p>\n
Minuki\u2019s death in the May 16 strike in the Chad Basin was announced by the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump. He characteristically posted the development on his social page, declaring that \u201cBrave American soldiers and the Armed Forces of Nigeria\u201d had eliminated the terrorist linchpin.<\/p>\n
Trump informed in his post that he directed the operation that took out Al-Bilal Minuki and that the operation involved \u201cmeticulously planned and very complex mission\u201d. He described Minuki as \u201cthe most active terrorist in the world\u201d. He probably was.<\/p>\n
Soon after Trump\u2019s statement, Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu confirmed the incident, hailing it as a result of cooperation in combating terrorism. The Nigerian president did not make reference, though, to the uncomfortable fact that his government had claimed two years earlier, in 2024, that it had killed the same Al-Minuki.<\/p>\n
The Trump-directed elimination of Minuki simply proved that the fellow had not been killed earlier.
\nMr. Mike Arnold, former mayor of Blanco in the State of Texas, USA, and the founder of the non-profit organisation, Africa Arise, has an interesting perspective on the Minuki killing. He is persuaded that Trump\u2019s decision to strike Minuki was profoundly intentional beyond removing a terrorist.<\/p>\n
Arnold firmly believes that \u201cTrump targeted that specific ISIS guy because Tinubu had already declared him dead\u201d. In other words, Trump not only set out to kill a major terrorist but also literally passed a message to Tinubu that Big Brother was watching the goings on in Nigeria under the Tinubu presidency.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s statement that Minuki \u201cthought he would be hiding in Africa while coordinating global terrorist activities of ISIS\u201d may, indeed, have been couched to convey a more loaded message to the Nigerian government.<\/p>\n
In the wake of Minuki\u2019s killing or re-killing around the Chad Basin last week, the presidency and Nigeria\u2019s Defence headquarters went into crisis management mode, apparently to save face and to douse public sneering at the earlier false claim by the government that it had killed the fellow.
\nInterestingly, the presidency and the military high command struck divergent postures on the purported \u2018miskilling\u2019 of Minuki earlier.<\/p>\n
While one side struggled to concede a blunder, the other elected to obfuscate. The difference in disposition re-ignites the nagging question in the mind of many Nigerians on whether the challenges faced by the country in effectively subduing insecurity reflect an insurmountable problem, or speaks of wilful compromise on national security at certain critical stations?<\/p>\n
As the government and the military high command struggle to explain the false claim of eliminating a major terrorist, Nigerians can not but wonder how many other serious issues they have been misled on.<\/p>\n
In its formal statement on Minuki\u2019s false killing in 2024, the presidency said \u201cthe earlier listing of Minuki as having been eliminated was a case of mistaken identity or misattribution in the fog of sustained counterinsurgency operations\u201d. whatever all that means.<\/p>\n
The statement further explained that \u201cSecurity officials have now clarified that the Birnin Gwari forest axis in Kaduna State, where the 2024 operation reportedly took place, was never within Al-Manuki\u2019s established operational areas\u2026That made the earlier assessment inaccurate\u201d.<\/p>\n
It assured with certainty that \u201cThe final operation was approved only after multiple layers of verification had been applied\u201d. The authorities were fully confident about the identity of the target, this time, it said.<\/p>\n
Unlike the presidency that stopped short of fully pleading a wrong doing, the military high command elected to hide behind its fingers in a stance that does not foster public trust.<\/p>\n
In its own account of how Al-Bilal Minuki, who was reportedly killed two years ago, lived on after, the Defence Headquarters, through its information unit, said that the \u201cconfusion over the fate of Minuki\u2026. was partly caused by the use of similar names and aliases among ISWAP and Boko Haram fighters operating across the North East and the Lake Chad Basin\u201d.<\/p>\n
Properly understood, what the explanation seemed to be saying is that in the battle against criminals and enemies of the state, the Nigerian military targets names not identified individuals. That is to say, for instance, that when the search was on for Osama Bin Laden a few years back, anyone found in a local market bearing that name was a target. Is that really how it works?<\/p>\n
The Defence Headquarters’ Information section further explained that \u201cSuch name similarities are not unusual among terrorist elements and are sometimes deliberately used to obscure identities, confuse intelligence records and complicate public reporting\u201d. This is simply too much to grasp.<\/p>\n
The military high command needs to be a lot more circumspect. Instances abound of the military issuing statements about its exploits, which subsequently were either contested or outrightly punctured. The case of\u00a0 another terrorist, Abubakar shekau,who kept being killed officially but who kept resurfacing for almost a decade, remains fresh in mind.<\/p>\n
Also, the case in March 2026, in which the military, in a widely media-covered outing, claimed that its men as part of a joint security team, uncovered a bomb factory in Imo state, owned by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is still a source of head-shaking by many.<\/p>\n
The report of the bomb factory discovery was accompanied by photographs of a cache of ammunition purportedly recovered in the said raid.<\/p>\n
Soon after the well-publicized media report of the bomb factory bursting exploit,however, disconcerting technical evidences referencing Global Positioning System (GPS) camera data on the photographs went viral, contesting the authenticity of the photographs the military claimed were from the purported raid.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the photographs supporting the report were countered as having technical details showing they emanated from Oyo State and Ikorodu in Lagos State and were taken much earlier than when they were said to have been taken.<\/p>\n
The military countered the challenge and insisted that those contradicting its reports were manipulating technical details to confuse issues and mislead the public. However, serious doubts have been sown about the claims.<\/p>\n
The military as a critical national institution can ill afford its profile and believability adversely affected or even perceived by segments of the society as being compromised by political tendencies. Its public communications units should moderate their enthusiasm and possibly reduce statements that tend to draw public cynicism rather than respect.<\/p>\n
When the presidency, an outright political animal, with its present intemperate information management orientation, begins to appear to people as making statements on sensitive national issues which are more plausible than statements by the military high command, as is the case with Al-Bilal Minuki\u2019s 2024 false elimination, then the military has to accept that it has a serious communications problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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