Nigeria: Nigerian Military Denies Ceasefire Deal With Boko Haram

What the report says

Nigeria’s military has rejected reports that it agreed to a ceasefire with Boko Haram, according to Premium Times, which was republished by AllAfrica. The denial was made on Thursday at a joint security briefing in Abuja by Samaila Uba, spokesperson for Defence Headquarters, at the National Counter Terrorism Center, a unit under the Office of the National Security Adviser.

The controversy follows a report by The New Humanitarian, cited in the article, which said the government had entered a secret understanding with a Boko Haram faction led by Bakura Doro. That report said the arrangement had helped keep parts of northeastern Nigeria relatively calm for several months and was linked to efforts to secure the release of more than 300 civilians abducted in March in Ngoshe, Borno State. The same report said the truce did not extend to the Islamic State West Africa Province, which remains active in the Lake Chad region.

Uba said there was “nothing like a ceasefire” and argued that ongoing military operations were still producing arrests, rescues and killings of suspected militants. The article also notes that PREMIUM TIMES had asked for comment earlier, while presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga declined to discuss the matter and referred questions to the defence ministry or the national security adviser’s office.

The report provides broader context on Boko Haram’s fragmented structure, saying the group now has multiple factions operating in the northeast and north-central parts of the country. That matters because any local truce, if it existed, would affect security dynamics in a region that has faced years of insurgency and overlapping armed threats.