- The Federal High Court in Abuja has sentenced senior Ansaru commanders Mahmud Usman (Abu Bara’a) and Abubakar Abba (Malam Mamuda) to life imprisonment following their guilty plea to a 32-count terrorism charge.
- Filed by the Department of State Services (DSS), the charges encompassed terrorism financing, high-profile kidnappings, illegal mining operations, and cross-border Sahelian intelligence ties.
- The secret police publicly rejected the life sentence as “too light,” citing the horrific execution of two abducted teachers from Oyo State, and announced immediate plans to seek a stiffer penalty at the Court of Appeal.
The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has convicted and sentenced two top commanders of the Ansaru terrorist group, Mahmud Usman (also known as Abu Bara’a) and Abubakar Abba (also known as Malam Mamuda), to life imprisonment.
Eko Hot Blog reports that the judgment was handed down by Justice Emeka Nwite after the two defendants altered their earlier pleas and formally pleaded guilty to all 32 terrorism-related counts brought against them by the Federal Government through the Department of State Services (DSS).
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The convicts, who were arrested in separate intelligence-led operations between May and July 2025, were key operatives behind major national security breaches.
Mahmud Usman served as the self-styled Emir of Ansaru and main coordinator of sleeper cells across Nigeria, while Abubakar Abba operated as his deputy, having received specialized weapons and improvised explosive device (IED) training in Libya.
Court documents detailed their involvement in several high-profile acts of terror, including the 2022 attack on the Nigerian Army Wawa Cantonment in Kainji, the 2022 Kuje Medium Security Custodial Centre jailbreak, the 2013 abduction of French engineer Francis Collomp, and the 2019 kidnapping of the Magajin Garin Daura.
Justice Nwite, while evaluating the allocutus presented by defence counsel Bala Dakum, who pleaded for leniency on account of the convicts’ health conditions and willingness to assist security agencies with actionable intelligence, sentenced the duo to life imprisonment on counts 30 and 31, which bordered on terrorism financing through illegal mining and ransom collection.
The court further imposed 20-year prison terms for each of the remaining 30 counts, ordering the sentences to run concurrently from the dates of their initial arrests.
However, the Department of State Services swiftly rejected the verdict, describing the life sentence as inadequate given the horrific impact of the convicts’ criminal network.
A senior DSS official revealed that during the 60-day captivity of abducted school pupils and teachers from Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State, the kidnappers repeatedly demanded the release of Usman and Abba.
The official noted that the captors beheaded two teachers to pressure the government into releasing the terror commanders, asserting that a life sentence does not serve justice for the victims’ families, hence the agency’s resolve to challenge the ruling at the Court of Appeal.
