By Our Senior Defence Correspondent
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — The recent whistleblowing by former Director of Defence Information, Major General John Enenche (Rtd), has cracked open a dangerous conversation that senior military commanders have long whispered in the corridors of the Defence Headquarters: the Nigerian military is fighting a war where the enemy already has the blueprints.
Enenche’s public admission that “lack of intelligence is not our problem” and that “we know when they are coming and where they are, but they still come and attack” exposes a deep systemic rot. It confirms that the high casualty rates suffered by troops in the hands of Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) are heavily driven by internal sabotage, compromised operational data, and tactical betrayals.
As the conflict stretches past its fifteenth year, a grim paradigm shift has occurred. Instead of the armed forces taking the war to the terrorists’ enclaves as ordered by President Bola Tinubu, jihadists have flipped the battlefield. They have launched a brutal, highly coordinated campaign of rapid, multi-directional assaults on Forward Operating Bases (FOBs)—a strategy military insiders now refer to as “burning of the camps” or the “camp Holocaust”.
The Grim Toll: A Timeline of Strategic Decapitation
The sheer volume of high-ranking officers and frontline troops killed in targeted base invasions over the last 18 months illustrates the devastating impact of these internal intelligence leaks. Jihadists are no longer just laying indiscriminate ambushes; they are actively raiding fortified formations, hunting commanders, looting armouries, and burning down infrastructure.
The human cost of this compromised strategy is written in blood across the Northeast:
- The June 2026 Mandara-Buratai Raid: Just days ago, Boko Haram insurgents launched a surprise dawn attack during a heavy downpour along the Mandara–Buratai Road in Borno State, overrunning a military base and killing eight soldiers. Around the same time, an ISWAP unit using 15 gun trucks ransacked a base in Gajibo, killing five soldiers and carting away heavy weaponry.
- The April 2026 Monguno and Benisheikh Blasts: In a devastating one-week window, ISWAP fighters targeted major bases in Borno State. On April 9, 2026, an assault on the Benisheikh base resulted in the death of the base commander, Brigadier General Oseni Omoh Braimah, alongside several troops. Days later, on April 13, terrorists breached the Monguno base, killing the base commander, Colonel I.A. Muhammed, and four soldiers.
- The March 2026 Execution Sweep: On March 1, 2026, ISWAP overran a military formation in Mayenti, Bama LGA, killing the Commanding Officer, Umar Ibrahim Mairiga. On March 9, a midnight raid in Kukawa LGA resulted in the death of Lieutenant Colonel Umar Farouq and his men. Earlier, in October 2025, Colonel Aliyu Saidu Paiko, Commanding Officer of the 202 Battalion, was similarly killed in action alongside his frontline troops.
- The January 2025 Malam-Fatori Siege: A suspected ISWAP unit laid a brutal, three-hour siege on a remote army base in Malam-Fatori town, killing at least 20 Nigerian soldiers and injuring dozens of others.
A History of Betrayal: From Soft Targets to Base Invasions
To understand how the military arrived at this critical juncture, one must look at the evolution of the insurgency since 2009.
In the early years (2009–2013), Boko Haram under Mohammed Yusuf and later Abubakar Shekau relied primarily on urban hit-and-run tactics, suicide bombings of soft civilian targets, and sporadic attacks on isolated police outposts. However, as the group gathered billions of naira through state-level ransoms, cattle rustling, and international arms smuggling, its tactical sophistication grew exponentially.
EVOLUTION OF TERRORIST TACTICS IN NORTHERN NIGERIA (2009 - 2026)
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
2009 - 2012: Urban hit-and-run, suicide bombings, police station raids
2013 - 2015: Large-scale territory seizure, overrunning towns (e.g., Gwoza)
2016 - 2021: Emergence of ISWAP, targeting military convoys and logistics
2025 - 2026: "Camp Holocaust"—Targeted base invasions and execution of COs
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
The true turning point occurred when the group began successfully invading heavily fortified military units:
The Era of Territory Capture (2014–2015)
Boko Haram shocked the nation by swarming and overrunning major military barracks, such as the Giwa Barracks in Maiduguri and the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) headquarters in Baga. They seized dozens of armored personnel carriers (APCs), main battle tanks, and artillery pieces. At its peak, the group captured and hoisted its flag over 14 local government areas, establishing a caliphate by physically dislodging under-equipped battalions.
The Rise of ISWAP and “Vanguard” Ambushes (2016–2021)
Following a leadership fracture, Abu Musab al-Barnawi formed ISWAP, shifting the focus away from civilian soft targets to the direct decapitation of military logistics. Using advanced anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) and heavily armored vehicle-borne IEDs (SVBIEDs), they systematically targeted military convoys, culminating in the tragic 2018 Metele base attack where over 100 soldiers of the 157 Task Force Battalion were slaughtered.
The Modern “Camp Holocaust” (2025–2026)
Today, the threat has mutated into highly synchronized, multi-directional night raids. Terrorists are no longer attempting to hold permanent physical territory; instead, they focus on maximum structural destruction, weapon looting, and the targeted elimination of commanding officers.
The Anatomy of a Leak: Why Real-Time Intelligence Fails
Major General Enenche’s revelation directly challenges the long-standing excuse that the military suffers from a lack of technical eye-in-the-sky intelligence. If the Defence Headquarters knows when and where the terrorists are moving, why do frontline soldiers continue to find themselves outgunned and surprised?
Military analysts point to three critical barriers:
1. The Presence of Embedded Moles
The most damning aspect of the crisis is internal sabotage. Intelligence reports gathered by tactical commanders are routinely leaked to terrorist networks via compromised personnel within the supply and communication chains. These moles provide jihadists with exact details on troop numbers, patrol routes, weapon distributions, and the specific locations of base commanders’ quarters, allowing for surgical strike precision.
2. Bureaucratic and Political Paralysis
Even when real-time intelligence indicates an impending attack, field commanders are frequently tied down by restrictive rules of engagement and a sluggish command structure. Enenche noted that operations are often delayed or entirely halted due to fear of “collateral damage”—particularly because Boko Haram and ISWAP routinely herd kidnapped civilians and schoolchildren around their mobile camps to use as human shields. By the time clearance is obtained from Abuja, the tactical advantage is entirely lost.
3. The Information Blackout Policy
Compounding the tragedy is an institutional culture of secrecy and denial. Rather than confronting the reality of internal betrayal, there are rising allegations that authorities have attempted to crack down on information leaks, allegedly instructing field officers to keep details of successful ISWAP or Boko Haram base raids strictly confidential to protect the administration’s political image ahead of upcoming election cycles.
The Strategic Crossroad
The historical data and current realities demonstrate that Nigeria cannot recruit or buy its way out of the insurgency through hardware alone. The billions of naira poured into purchasing advanced fighter jets and attack helicopters will continue to yield minimal results if the coordinates of the troops on the ground are being sold to the enemy from within the ranks.
General Enenche’s radical conclusion—that “it now depends on every citizen of Nigeria to sit up” and defend themselves—is a stark, sobering admission. When a retired top military spokesperson declares that the formal security architecture is too compromised to guarantee protection, it sends a clear message to the Nigerian public: the war against terror is being lost not from the frontlines of Borno, but from the inside out.
Until the military conducts a ruthless internal purge to flush out the moles sabotaging its operations, the “camp Holocaust” will continue, and more fine officers will pay the ultimate price for institutional betrayal.
