After one of the worst massacres committed in Nigeria in several months, President Bola Tinubu announced Wednesday evening the deployment of an army battalion in Kwara State, accusing “Boko Haram terrorists” of having killed dozens of “defenseless villagers”.

Published on: 05/02/2026 - 02:36

The president of Nigeria ordered the deployment of the army in an area of ​​the center-west where an attack left at least 162 dead on Tuesday, and accused Boko Haram jihadists of being responsible, we learned on Wednesday February 4.

Gunmen stormed the village of Woro, in Kwara State, and "latest reports put the death toll at 162, while the search for more bodies continues," said Babaomo Ayodeji, secretary of the Kwara branch of the Nigerian Red Cross. This is one of the worst massacres in the country in several months.

In response, President Bola Tinubu "ordered the deployment of an army battalion to Kaiama constituency in Kwara State, where Boko Haram terrorists killed defenseless villagers in Woro overnight", in a "cowardly and bestial" attack, according to a presidential statement released Wednesday evening.

Multifactorial insecurity

For his part, the governor of the state, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq spoke of 75 people killed, in a video broadcast by the spokesperson for the local government. Woro “refused to give in to a provocative form of Islamic doctrine,” the governor said.

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“It is commendable that the members of the community, although Muslims, refused to be enlisted in a strange belief that advocated violence rather than peace and dialogue,” said Bola Tinubu.

On Wednesday morning, Sa'idu Baba Ahmed, a member of the local assembly, explained to AFP that the bandits had burned down businesses and the village's royal palace. “At present, we do not know where the king is,” he lamented. Police confirmed the attack but have not yet given a death toll.

Kwara State is plagued by multifactorial insecurity, between armed gangs (locally called bandits) who pillage villages, kidnap and terrorize residents, and a growing jihadist threat, with groups active in the northwest of the country expanding their range of action southward. The Support Group for Islam and Muslims (JNIM), affiliated with Al-Qaeda, claimed in October to have carried out its first attack on Nigerian soil in this state, very close to Woro.

Curfews

Faced with insecurity, local authorities implemented curfews in certain areas and closed schools for several weeks, before ordering their reopening on Monday. Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq considers that the killing is a "cowardly expression of the frustration of terrorist cells following the campaigns" carried out by security forces.

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A few days ago, the Nigerian army announced that it had "neutralized" "terrorists" (around 150, according to local media) in the forests of Kwara, adding that they were bandits - but without specifying whether it had captured or killed them.

In an attack perpetrated Tuesday in the state of Katsina (north), criminals also killed 23 civilians, according to a report prepared for the UN and consulted by AFP. This would be in retaliation for recent military operations in this region, according to the army.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country and leading oil producer, has been facing a jihadist insurgency in the northeast led by Boko Haram and its rival the Islamic State in West Africa since 2009, while armed criminal groups operate in the northwest and center-north, to which have been added local jihadist movements such as Lakurawa and Mahmuda.

Researchers have recently established a link between some members of Lakurawa – the main jihadist group based in the northern state of Sokoto – and the Islamic State in the Sahel (EISS), active in neighboring Niger. Kwara State is not the usual territory of Boko Haram.

With AFP

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