An estimated number of 259 Nigerians were killed across Nigeria by Boko Haram’s breakaway faction, and the ISIS-backed Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in 2022, a report by Lagos-based security intelligence firm, SBM said.
In a report released on Wednesday, SBM said ISIS organisation took credit for a total of nine attacks that occurred throughout the nation in 2022.
While the breakaway Islamist extremist group of Boko Haram was said to have claimed responsibility for 30 attacks across the country, many of them were carried out in the major states of the northern region of the country.
“An attack on a Catholic church in Ondo, South West Nigeria, shocked the world in June. Although the government was quick to blame Boko Haram’s breakaway faction, the ISIS-backed Islamic State West Africa Province (who are yet to claim responsibility for the attack), 2022 has been quite a successful year for the group in its expansion goals as it carried out successful attacks in the FCT, Kano Kaduna and set up bases in Niger and neighbouring states.” The report said.
Nigeria has in the last decade experienced security issues, particularly in the country’s north-eastern area, which has endured relentless attacks from deadly extremist organisations like Boko Haram and the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP).
In other areas, such as the North-west and North-central, where residents are dealing with ethnoreligious crises and hearers/farmers chases, which have disastrous effects on agricultural production and other sources of income, cut off essential utilities, and increased the number of displaced people, the violence has also increased.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that 8.4 million people will require humanitarian assistance in 2022, primarily in the states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe (BAY).