Clarification on viral video: soldiers intervened to rescue NYSC corps members held hostage in Awka — findings

By: Zagazola Makama

Fresh findings have clarified the circumstances surrounding a viral video showing a confrontation between the Deputy Governor of Anambra State and a military rescue team during the governorship election in Awka.

The video, shared extensively on social media, depicts the Deputy Governor verbally harassing a soldier at an INEC collation point, demanding to know why the military officer was present at the venue.

Military sources told Zagazola Makama that the soldier, along with a small rescue team, was deployed following a distress call from the NYSC State Coordinator, Mrs Pauline Ojisua.

According to the sources, at about 0820 hours on Nov. 8, the NYSC Coordinator alerted 302 Artillery Regiment (General Support), stating that corps members and INEC officials were being held hostage by political thugs at Ukwu Oji Umubele, Awka Ward 5, Awka South LGA, after the collation officer absconded from the polling unit. Acting on the distress call, the soldiers were promptly dispatched to the location.

“Troops promptly moved to the location, rescued the corps members and electoral officials, and escorted them safely to INEC office where collation continued without incident,” the sources stated.

However, upon arrival, however, the rescue team met the Deputy Governor, accompanied by political associates, who challenged the presence of the soldiers and attempted to obstruct their intervention.

A viral Video showed the Deputy Governor raising his voice and repeatedly, insisting that the military had no mandate to be in the collation environment, despite the emergency situation and the presence of threatened NYSC personnel. The soldier remained calm, clarifying that he was responding to a distress call.

The Deputy Governor continuously demanded explanations while refusing to listen to the INEC officials who placed the call. The soldier was heard asking: “Madam, what did you tell me when you called?” The video then cuts abruptly before the INEC/NYSC official could respond.

Sources within the security team said that the Deputy Governor’s conduct suggested displeasure with the military intervention, which prevented political thugs from taking advantage of the situation.

Zagazola report that Election security procedures allow military intervention only in life-threatening situations, particularly where corps members serving under NYSC, not political parties are endangered.

Furthermore, INEC collation guidelines bar candidates and their deputies from entering or staying inside collation centres, to avoid interference or intimidation.

Legal experts, Kelvin Martings described the soldier’s action as lawful, necessary and timely, given that the NYSC State Coordinator, a senior Federal Government official, requested immediate protection for corps members.

He also condemned the Deputy Governor’s behaviour, describing it as unruly and obstructionist, especially toward uniformed personnel responding to an emergency involving vulnerable citizens.

Another sources familiar with the matter confirmed: “The military’s swift intervention prevented potential harm to corps members. Any harassment of security personnel performing rescue duties is unacceptable.”

INEC is yet to issue an official statement as at press time.

Clarification on viral video: soldiers intervened to rescue NYSC corps members held hostage in Awka — findings

EXCLUSIVE: Boko Haram–ISWAP rivalry escalates into full-scale territorial war across island corridors

By: Zagazola Makama

The Lake Chad Basin is witnessing a dangerous escalation in insurgent-on-insurgent warfare, as a fresh wave of violent clashes between rival jihadist factions Boko Haram’s Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS) and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) intensifies across strategic island strongholds and riverine settlement routes in Abadam and Kukawa Local Government Areas of Borno State.

Between 5 and 8 November 2025, Boko Haram’s Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS) launched a fierce coordinated assault on its rival faction, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), across a stretch of islands identified as Sahel 1, Dogon Chuku, Mangari, and linked riverine basins spanning Tumbun Gini – Tumbun Dalo – Tumbun Shanu – Mangari – Dumba in Abadam and Kukawa local government areas of Borno State.

The fighting was intense. The objective was clear. JAS wants to erase ISWAP. Sources revealed that JAS fighters, led by commanders Hassan Buduma and Mohd Hassan, mobilised multiple watercraft loaded with fighters and heavy weapons, moving in waves from Tumbun Gini through the upper river basin to Tumbun Dalo, Tumbun Shanu, Mangari, Dumba and surrounding islands, a chain of sandy enclaves where humanitarian presence is almost non-existent.

In a scene described as “an amphibious assault in insurgent style,” JAS fighters attacked ISWAP from the water, surprising them at dawn. “This is not a misunderstanding, this is a takeover,”said one intelligence source familiar with the region.
However, after days of sustained fighting,
ISWAP fighters were forced to abandon their river camps scrambling for their lives.

The number of casualties remains unknown, but ISR reportedly picked up heat signatures of several bodies floating and others buried in shallow sand pits.

Multiple sources also confirmed that JAS deployed several motorized watercraft in a multi-axis assault, overrunning ISWAP clusters and pushing surviving fighters off the island perimeter into mainland hideouts around Ali Jillimari, Metele, Kangarwa, and Gudumbali in North of Borno.

While both groups share an extremist ideology, the battle has nothing to do with religion. It is about power. Control of the Lake Chad islands means control of millions of naira collected through extortion of fishermen and traders, they will also take control of the Arms and fuel smuggling corridors through Niger, Chad and Cameroon. They will also have mobility advantage where the water channels provide a perfect cover from air surveillance.

ISWAP had dominated these islands since 2021, after the death of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. But water levels have receded this season, opening new land routes and exposing old fishing settlements.

At the core of this escalation is not ideology — but dominance. JAS, according to intelligence intercepts, has vowed to “totally eliminate ISWAP presence in the Lake Chad islands”, and seize ISWAP’s lucrative supply corridors interfacing Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

JAS reportedly plans to push further south toward ISWAP headquarters within Marte and Ngala LGAs, a strategic move that, if successful, would reverse ISWAP’s dominance for the first time since 2021. Once ISWAP regroups on the mainland, it will retaliate violently to reclaim the islands. The group has never allowed a territorial defeat to stand.

Zagazola report that the clashes represent a transition from sporadic skirmishes to a full territorial campaign. More ambushes, roadside bombs and abductions along access routes linking Metele, Kangarwa and the Maiduguri–Damasak MSR, should be anticipated.

The emerging trend suggests that both factions will now lunched retaliatory raids on each other’s strongholds, attack supply lines, including river transport. Communities in Kukawa and Abadam especially fishermen, transport boat operators, and seasonal farmers will bear the immediate consequences.

The Lake Chad Basin has always held strategic value a place where borders blur and armies struggle to manoeuvre. But this new insurgent rivalry marks a turning point. For the first time in years, Boko Haram and ISWAP are not just fighting the state. They are fighting over who gets to rule the shadows.

And somewhere in the middle caught between gunboats, ideology and hunger are the civilians of the Lake Chad islands, whose lives continue to be shaped by a war they did not choose and cannot escape.

Zagazola Makama is a Counter Insurgency Expert and Security Analyst in the Lake Chad Region.

EXCLUSIVE: Boko Haram–ISWAP rivalry escalates into full-scale territorial war across island corridors

NDLEA Arrests Saudi-bound Wanted Drug Lord, Dismantles Laboratory, Recovers 148.3kg Colorado, Precursors

… Nabs 73-yr-old grandpa, 70-yr-old grandma in Edo, Bayelsa

By: Michael Mike

A wanted drug lord 40-year-old Yussuf Azeez has been arrested by operatives of a special operations unit of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport Lagos while on his way to Saudi Arabia.

Azeez was arrested on his way for Umrah, a holy pilgrimage, after months of intelligence and surveillance on him and his criminal drug activities.

A statement on Sunday by the spokesman of the anti-narcotics agency, Femi Babafemi said the alleged drug kingpin had been arrested and charged for drug offences in the United Kingdom but jumped bail and escaped to Nigeria. Soon after settling down in Lagos, he set up a massive clandestine laboratory in the Lekki area of the state for the production of Colorado, a deadly synthetic cannabis and other illicit substances.

Babafemi said at about 6:30am last Thursday, Yussuf walked into the waiting hands of NDLEA operatives at the Lagos airport while attempting to board his flight to Saudi Arabia for Umrah. He was subsequently swiftly driven to his 17 Vincent Eku street, Ogombo, Lekki, clandestine laboratory which has been under surveillance for a while.

He was said to be found in company of another suspect, 43-year-old Abideen Kekere-Ekun, at the time of his arrest.

Babafemi said inside the massive building, operatives from the agency’s Directorate of Forensic and Chemical Monitoring were able to dismantle all installed laboratory equipment, precursor chemicals and already produced illicit substances including Colorado, all weighing 148.3 kilogrammes.

The spokesman added that at the Sifax bonded terminal in Okota, Lagos, NDLEA operatives in conjunction with men of Customs Service and other security agencies last Friday discovered 105.5 kilogrammes Molly, a designers drug and 500 grammes of methamphetamine during a joint examination of a shipment.

In Niger state, NDLEA operatives last Thursday intercepted Ibrahim Mohammed, 35, in a Volvo truck marked GRZ 872 XA along Kainji-Wawa road while conveying 87,000 pills of tramadol and 72 kilogrammes of skunk, a strain of cannabis.

Babafemi said not less than 34,520 capsules of tramadol were found concealed in different compartments of a Toyota Corolla car marked GAN 102 AR intercepted along Zaki-Biam – Wukari road last Monday while the driver Aliyu Samaila, 25, was arrested.

He said the opioids were loaded from Onitsha, Anambra State, and heading to Cameroon. In another operation in Taraba, NDLEA officers last Thursday arrested a suspect Felix Tanko Chinedu, 28, with 15,020 capsules of tramadol at Kasuwabera ATC in Ardo Kola local government area.

In Kogi state, NDLEA operatives on patrol along Okene/Lokoja highway last Wednesday intercepted a consignment of 7.600 kilogrammes Loud, a strong strain of cannabis. A follow-up operation in Abuja led to the arrest of the owner, Chukwunonso Anieze, 40, while no fewer than 175,000 pills of opioids were recovered from another consignment at the location same day.

Three suspects: Olayide Oyidiran, 39; Abdulsalam Abdulsalam, 28; and Opeyemi Tijjani, 39, were last Wednesday nabbed at Abuja/Kaduna tollgate with 769 kilogrammes skunk being conveyed in a truck marked TRE 897 BE, coming from Lagos en route Owo, Ondo state and heading to Kano.

He said a 73-year-old grandfather James Ugbedo was laat Friday arrested in a cannabis plantation at Igbeshi forest, Imiakebo, Etsako East local government area, Edo state where 1,459.75 kilogrammes skunk was destroyed and 5.6 kilogrammes of same substance evacuated, while 70-year-old grandma Mrs. Comfort Odudu was nabbed at Onopa, Yenagoa, Bayelsa state with 5 kilogrammes skunk last Tuesday.

Babafemi said with the same vigour, commands and formations of the agency across the country continued their War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) sensitization activities to schools, worship centres, work places and communities among others in the past week.

Meanwhile, the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (rtd) while commending the officers and men of SOP, DFCM, Tincan, Edo, Taraba, Kaduna, Kogi, Niger and Bayelsa commands for the various successful operations, enjoined them and their colleagues across the country to continue with the ongoing balanced approach to the drug control efforts of the agency.

He said: “The dismantling of yet another clandestine laboratory for the production of Colorado and other dangerous synthetic substances and the arrest of the kingpin behind it in Lekki, coming barely a week after similar actions were taken against another cartel in Ajao estate Lagos shows that these are no doubt the first in the series of what will be many strikes against merchants of death who prey on the weak in our communities. Let it be known to those still hiding in the dark that the NDLEA supported by our local and international law enforcement partners will continue to hunt them and bring them to justice.”

NDLEA Arrests Saudi-bound Wanted Drug Lord, Dismantles Laboratory, Recovers 148.3kg Colorado, Precursors