The discrepancy has prompted concerns about battlefield intelligence records and the veracity of high-profile counterterrorism statements concerning one of the most wanted IS commanders in the Lake Chad Basin.
The purported killing of a prominent Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) commander, Abu Bilal Minuki, also known as Abubakar Mainok, has caused misunderstanding since Nigerian police originally declared his death in 2024.
Meanwhile, the same person was proclaimed dead again in a new joint operation announced on Friday by US President Donald Trump and Nigerian President Bola Tinubu.
The discrepancy has prompted concerns about battlefield intelligence records and the veracity of high-profile counterterrorism statements concerning one of the most wanted IS commanders in the Lake Chad Basin.
SaharaReporters discovered that in April 2024, the Nigerian Defence Headquarters publicly recognised Abu Bilal Minuki as one of the top terrorist commanders neutralised during military operations in the North between January and March 2024.
The then-Director of Defence Media Operations, Major General Edward Buba, announced Minuki as the “Head of IS-Al Furqan Province (ISGS and ISWAP).”
He was included among many other commanders who were supposedly slain during coordinated operations across different battle zones.
According to the military briefing at the time, Minuki, also known as Abubakar Mainok, was a notorious rebel who operated around the Birnin Gwari forest axis in Kaduna State and along the Abuja-Kaduna route.
Buba told journalists at the Defence Headquarters in Abuja that Minuki was killed on February 21, 2024, during ongoing clearance operations.
He went on to describe that the larger operations that month resulted in the deaths of numerous high-ranking terrorist figures, including Kachallah Damina and over 50 fighters in a single clash on March 24, 2024.
“The armed forces are fighting a vicious enemy in the ongoing operations across the country,” Buba said at the time, adding that troops were “hunting them and striking them where they may be hiding and hibernating.”
The military also claimed significant victories in the campaign, including the killing of 2,351 terrorists, the arrest of 2,308 suspects, and the rescue of 1,241 kidnapped hostages during the time period under review.
However, in May 2026, US President Donald Trump and Nigerian President Bola Tinubu announced a successful joint military operation in the Lake Chad Basin, which resulted in the death of Abu-Bilal Al-Manuki.
President Tinubu, in a personally signed statement, described the operation as a “significant example of effective collaboration in the fight against terrorism,” confirming that Nigerian troops worked alongside United States forces in a “daring joint operation” targeting a terrorist enclave.
“Early assessments confirm the elimination of the wanted IS senior leader, Abu-Bilal Al-Manuki, also known as Abu-Mainok, along with several of his lieutenants, during a strike on his compound in the Lake Chad Basin,” Tinubu had stated.