Notorious banditry kingpin Dogo Gide said his terrorist group foiled an ambush by a Boko Haram faction led by Mallam Sadiku, killing 20 fighters of the insurgents.
Local sources familiar with the incident told PREMIUM TIMES the terrorists clashed in the Kwaki-Chukuba area of Shiroro LGA, Niger State, where Mr Gide’s mother resides.
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“It happened last Thursday in Kwaki,” a source whose identity has been withheld for security reasons told our reporter.
Another source working closely with security forces confirmed this, although he could not give the exact date of the incident.
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Named at birth as Abubakar Abdullahi, Mr Gide recently relocated back to his stronghold in Niger State following the ongoing military offensives against terrorists in northern Nigeria.
Faceless Dogo Gide fights Faceless Boko Haram’s Sadiku
Mr Gide, who had been repeatedly rumoured killed by the Nigerian military, spoke in a three-minute video shared by Zagazola Makama, a security analyst with an understanding of insurgency in the North-east.
“These are the guns and RPGs we seized from Mallam Sadiku,” Mr Gide said behind the camera, showing the booties allegedly taken from the clash.
“They ambushed us, but I want you [Mallam Sadiku] to know that only one of us was injured, but we seized 10 guns from you, including an RPG and an identity card from your men,” Mr Gide continued, saying the identity card “from your men shows that the Nigerian government is sponsoring you people to kill usb ut God has exposed you.”
Mr Gide accused the Sadiku-led Boko Haram faction of lying in claiming to be fighting a holy war (Jihad).
“But you are killing innocent people, including children and women,” he criticised Mr Sadiku. “You are rustling innocent people’s cattle, planting explosives targeting the peasants in the name of Jihad, but God has exposed you.”
However, Mr Gide is also notorious for what he accused Mr Sadiku of. Apart from raiding villages, Mr Gide also specialised in targeting foreign expatriates and mass abduction, with the Kuriga school kidnapping being the latest he took part in.
“This is not the first you are targeting to kill me, but God has been protecting me, and you will continue to fail,” Mr Gide told the Boko Haram factional leader. “You can see that none of my boys suffered any casualty, but I have killed 20 of your boys and seized 20 arms.”
Previous clashes
This latest clash adds to the cycle of supremacy fights between Mr Gide’s group and other terrorist factions in the fringes of Kaduna, Niger and Zamfara states.
In December 2023, Mr Gide’s group fought with Ansaru, an al-Qaeda franchise in Nigeria, after a failed arms deal. This preceded another clash in June of that year when Mr Gide’s group clashed with an ideological-based group that operates like the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP), a breakaway faction of Jama’tu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS) otherwise known as Boko Haram.
However, experts believe that the group which Mr Gide clashed with is linked to Boko Haram, not ISWAP.
“It is Sadiku’s Boko Haram group that operates both in Niger and Kaduna states,” a security expert working with an aid group told PREMIUM TIMES last year. The expert asked not to be named because of his affiliation with the humanitarian organisation he works for.
“We have not seen ISWAP penetrating Niger State,” he added. “If they are there, the area will have become another blood field like Sambisa and Mandara Mountain in Borno State.”
In the June 2023 clash, which took place in Kurebe, Niger State, Mr Gide lost nine of his footsoldiers, including his biological brother.
Although it is not clear why Mr Gide’s group and the Sadiku-led Boko Haram faction are now against each other, both groups collaborated in the past to launch deadly attacks against security and civilians.
PREMIUM TIMES will soon publish a story on Mr Sadiku’s reign of terror in North-west and North-central Nigeria, where he has been making efforts to recruit locals.
The notorious Dogo Gide
Mr Gide was one of the suspected masterminds of the 28 March 2022 attack on a Kaduna-bound train.
In July 2021, the terror kingpin and his ally, Kachalla Ali, also known as Ali Kawaje, kidnapped over 100 students and eight teachers from the Federal Government College (FGC) in Birnin Yauri, Kebbi State. The kidnapped victims were later released in batches after payment of ransom.
The following year, three Chinese expatriates were kidnapped while two security guards and another Chinese national were killed at a construction site of the Zungeru Hydro Electric Power Dam project in Shiroro LGA. Although it was not clear how two of the expatriates regained freedom, one was later released from Mr Gide’s camp.
One of his most recent attacks was in March last year when he was contracted to confront military operatives trailing the Yellow Janbros bandit group, which kidnapped 137 students from a joint section of primary and secondary school in Kuriga.
In August 2023, Mr Gide shared a video of how his group downed a military aircraft in Niger State. Mr Gide became known in 2018 after he joined forces with his colleague Ali Kawaje to kill their master, Buharin Daji, who was equally notorious.
