A Federal High Court in Abuja has sentenced two senior commanders of the Ansaru terrorist group to life imprisonment after they pleaded guilty to a series of terrorism-related offences.
Justice Emeka Nwite handed down the sentence after convicting **Abubakar Abba**, also known as **Abu Baraa**, and **Mahmud Usman**, popularly called **Mamuda**, on a 32-count charge brought by the Department of State Services (DSS) on behalf of the Federal Government.
The charges included terrorism, terrorism financing, kidnapping for ransom, illegal mining, the manufacture of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and other offences connected with terrorist activities.
The court sentenced both men to life imprisonment on counts 30 and 31 and imposed additional 20-year prison terms on the remaining counts. Justice Nwite ordered that the 20-year sentences run from the date of their arrest.
According to the prosecution, the convicts were among the highest-ranking leaders of Ansaru, an al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organisation proscribed by the Nigerian government. The DSS arrested them in separate intelligence-led operations between May and July 2025 after they had spent years on the country’s most-wanted list.
At their arraignment in September 2025, the Federal Government accused the duo of coordinating terrorist sleeper cells across Nigeria and maintaining operational links with extremist groups in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
Prosecutors told the court that the two men played prominent roles in some of the country’s most significant terrorist attacks and kidnapping operations over the past decade.
The charges linked them to the July 2022 attack on the Medium Security Custodial Centre in Kuje, Abuja, during which more than 600 inmates escaped, as well as the 2022 assault on the Nigerian Army’s Wawa Cantonment in Niger State.
They were also accused of masterminding the 2013 abduction of French engineer Francis Collomp in Katsina State, the 2019 kidnapping of the Magajin Garin Daura, Alhaji Musa Umar Uba, and several other kidnappings and armed robberies allegedly carried out to finance terrorist operations.
Court documents further alleged that investigators connected the defendants to a planned attack on a uranium facility in Niger State. The prosecution also said they received specialised training in weapons handling, battlefield tactics and the manufacture of improvised explosive devices at terrorist camps in Mali and Libya.
Before their arrest, the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) identified Abu Baraa as the self-styled leader of Ansaru and Mamuda as his deputy and chief of staff.
National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu had described the pair’s arrest as one of Nigeria’s most significant counterterrorism successes, saying they supervised a network of sleeper cells operating across northern Nigeria, particularly around the Kainji National Park corridor spanning Niger and Kwara states and extending into the Benin Republic. He said their capture dealt a significant blow to the group’s leadership and operational capacity.
Ansaru emerged in 2012 as a splinter faction of Boko Haram before aligning itself with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The group has been linked to numerous attacks on security personnel, government facilities and civilians, as well as several high-profile kidnappings across northern Nigeria.
The convictions are among the most significant terrorism-related prosecutions secured by Nigerian authorities against the leadership of the extremist group in recent years.