Following a recent airstrike launched on suspected terrorists’ hideouts in Sokoto State by the United States government, operatives of the Ondo State Security Network Agency, the Amotekun Corps, have arrested 39 persons allegedly escaping from the northern parts of Nigeria.
The Corps also apprehended 61 other suspected kidnappers, armed robbers, car snatchers, and those who flouted the anti-open grazing law during the festive period.
The Commander of Amotekun Corps in Ondo State, Adetunji Adeleye, disclosed this while parading over 100 suspects who were nabbed in different parts of Ondo State, at the headquarters of the corps in Akure.
Adeleye stated that the 39 suspected bandits who were arrested at a forest located near Elegbeka community in Ose Local Government area of the state confessed that they are fleeing from the northern part of the country due to the recent attacks launched against them.
According to Adeleye, the suspects are still being profiled for possible prosecution or repatriation to their base.
He disclosed that the Amotekun boundary patrols of Ekiti/ Ondo, Osun/Ondo, and Ogun/Ondo have yielded tremendous results.
Last week, US President Donald Trump announced “powerful and deadly” strikes against the terrorists in the north-west region.
Trump said in a Truth Social post that the military conducted “multiple strikes” but did not elaborate.
“MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues,” Trump posted to social media.
The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) said multiple people, whom it said were Islamic State terrorists, were killed in strikes in Sokoto state, which is in the northwestern part of the country bordering Niger and has become a hot spot for a resurgence in violent extremism and the kidnapping of schoolchildren.
The Pentagon said Thursday that the Nigerian government approved the strikes and worked with the United States to carry them out.
On Friday, Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Tuggar told Channels Television that Nigeria provided intelligence to the U.S. for the strikes and that he had spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio twice in the lead-up, including in one call that lasted 19 minutes.
“This is what we’ve always been hoping for — to work with the Americans, work with other countries to combat terrorism,” he said. But in several media interviews after the strikes, he pushed back on the framing of the country’s security issues as being about religion.
Referring to his discussion with Rubio, he said it was agreed that statements by the two governments “would show clearly that it is a strike against terrorism … and that it is not to do with religion, but is to do with protecting Nigerians and innocent lives.”
“When you try to reduce it to just say, ‘Oh, no, it’s Muslims killing Christians in Nigeria,’ you see how you can get it completely wrong. It’s a regional conflict,” he added.
Trump had placed Nigeria as a country of particular concern over what he described as the mass killing of Christians. He thereafter threatened military action in the West African nation.
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