Nigeria jails 400 as it strengthens terrorism fight
Publish date: 13 April 2026
Issue Number: 1172
Diary: IBA Legalbrief Africa
Category: Criminal
Nigeria, under pressure from the US over ongoing militant attacks, is attempting to strengthen its fight against terrorism, with mass trials and airstrikes, but it appears that civilians are once against bearing the brunt of the violence, notes Legalbrief Africa. Nearly 400 people have been sentenced in Nigeria for links with militant Islamic groups following mass trials, reports BBC News. The convicts were given sentences ranging from five years to life imprisonment after linked to Boko Haram or a rival splinter group, the Islamic State West Africa Province. The trials came at a time when the government is under intense pressure to curb rising insecurity in Africa's most-populous state. Security forces are battling multiple armed groups, from militant Islamists to separatists, and kidnapping-for-ransom gangs. Boko Haram launched an insurgency in the north-east in 2009, killing tens of thousands of people and displacing more than 2m, aid groups say. Last Wednesday, the US urged its citizens to reconsider travelling to the country because of the deteriorating security situation.
More than 500 suspects were put on trial in the Federal High Court in the capital, Abuja, on charges of either taking part in attacks or supporting the militants through funding, supplying arms, or giving logistical support. On Friday, judges convicted 386 of them, while two were acquitted, eight were discharged, and the cases of 112 suspects were adjourned, officials said. Five of the accused had pleaded guilty at the start of the trials to charges that included selling livestock, supplying food and information to the militant groups, according to BBC News. The US carried out airstrikes in northern Sokoto state on Christmas Day to target a militant Islamist group known as Lakurawa after President Donald Trump alleged that Christians were being persecuted in Nigeria. The government denied Trump's claim, saying that people of all faiths and no faith were victims of violence.
Nigerian military jets struck a village market while pursuing Islamist militants in the northeast on Saturday night, with at least 200 civilians feared dead, reports Channel News Asia. The incident happened in a Yobe state village, on the border with Borno state, the heartland of a long-running insurgency that has killed thousands and displaced millions more. Civilians have also previously been caught in the crossfire and killed in military air strikes aimed at militants, though the authorities sometimes dispute hitting civilians. Africa's most populous country has been fighting a jihadist insurgency for 17 years. Amnesty International earlier said on X that there were ‘more than 100 dead’ and 35 people seriously wounded. Local chief Lawan Zanna Nur, meanwhile, said: ‘The total casualties, dead and injured, are around 200.’ Nigeria's military said it had ‘successfully conducted a precision air strike on a known terrorist enclave and logistics hub located near the abandoned village of Jilli’. It said ‘scores of terrorists’ were killed in the strike, but did not mention any civilian casualties.
In a separate statement, the air force said it had launched an investigation following reports that its airstrike ‘may have affected a local market in Jilli, resulting in civilian casualties’. This strike is the latest in a series of such incidents in the north of the country, according to Channel News Asia. In January 2025, a military airstrike killed at least 16 people in northwestern Zamfara state after an army jet mistook local vigilantes for criminal gangs. A month earlier, a military jet killed 10 people when it hit villages while bombing jihadist positions in neighbouring Sokoto state. In December 2023, a Nigerian military airstrike mistook a Muslim religious gathering for bandits in Kaduna state, killing at least 85 people. And in January 2017, at least 112 people were killed when a fighter jet struck a camp housing 40 000 people displaced by jihadist violence near the border with Cameroon. Northwestern parts are gripped by criminal gangs - locally called bandits - that raid villages and extort farmers and artisanal miners and kill. Early this year, the US began deploying 200 troops to Nigeria to provide technical and training support to soldiers in fighting jihadist groups.
And a least 60 people were killed in a wave of attacks by armed groups across villages in northwestern Nigeria in the past week, reports CGTN. The attacks, spanning the neighbouring states of Kebbi and Niger, hit at least 10 villages, according to clergymen and a humanitarian report. In the Shiroro local government area of Niger state, at least 20 people were killed in an attack on the village of Erena on Tuesday, according to a situation report citing local humanitarian workers. Residents said dozens of gunmen stormed the area, opening fire and burning homes. One survivor said the attackers moved through the village ‘shooting sporadically’, forcing residents to flee into the surrounding bushland. Several people were also reportedly abducted. Authorities confirmed the incident, with police saying at least two vigilante members and a driver attached to a security team were among the dead. A separate military report described the assailants as heavily armed ‘bandits’ who also targeted a nearby military position. In neighbouring Kebbi state, local clergy reported between 24 and more than 40 deaths in separate attacks, suggesting the overall toll could be significantly higher. Northwest Nigeria has seen a surge in violence driven by criminal gangs locally referred to as bandits, who carry out raids, kidnappings and killings. Security analysts say some of these groups are increasingly collaborating with jihadist factions, further worsening instability.
