Community Support For Insurgents, Local Interference Prolonging North-East War Says Commander Sector 2 Operation Hadin Kai
The Commander Sector 3 Operation HADIN KAI ( OPHK) & Multinational Joint Task Force ( MNJTF) Major General Suleiman Tilawan, has attributed the prolonged insurgency in the North-East to continued community support for insurgents and persistent local interference in military operations, warning that such actions are undermining efforts to restore lasting peace and security in the region.
The Commander made the assertion on Tuesday, 28 April 2026 when the Head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs ( UN-OCHA) paid him a courtesy visit at Kinnasara Cantonment, Monguno.
He noted that despite significant gains recorded by the Nigerian Army and other security agencies, the persistence of the conflict is largely due to the actions of some local residents who provide intelligence, logistics, and safe havens to insurgents.
According to him, such support not only emboldens the fighters but also compromises the effectiveness of carefully planned military operations. He explained that the interrelationship between IDPs and insurgents cannot be trivialized as the insurgents infiltrating into Monguno town come out of the very communities as many of the people in the IDP camps. Noting that the Gana Ali and GG camps in the town are not IDP camps but ghettos and slumps that were created due to the influx of persons coming into Monguno from villages displaced by insurgents and these places have over time became havens within the town for terrorists to deploy sleeper cells.
He added that in every society and especially in communities experiencing conflicts, law and order is maintained and encouraged by a carrot and stick approach, where those that are law are abiding are given the carrot while the stick is to sanction and caution law breakers.
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