The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) has abducted Yu Uba, a Brigadier General in the Nigerian Army, who was leading his troops on Friday.
Uba and his men were in a convoy with members of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) near Sabon Gari in the Damboa Local Government Area of Borno State on Friday when members of the terrorist sect opened fire on them at about 5 pm.
Two soldiers and two members of the task force lost their lives in the ambush.
Following the incident, the military issued a statement to discredit reports of Uba’s abduction. One of the earliest reports was published by HumAngle.
On Saturday, Appolonis Anele, the army’s director of public relations, issued a statement denying the abduction.
This statement read in part, “The Army Headquarters also wishes to debunk the fake narrative going round some media platforms online alleging the abduction of the Brigade Commander. The general public is hereby advised to disregard the fake news regarding the incident while praying for the continuous success of our gallant service men and women.”
With this statement from the army, several social media pages began to refute the original publications and claim that Uba had returned to base. Some of those can be seen here and here.
However, on Monday, ISWAP leaked a picture of Uba in their custody and claimed they killed him afterwards.
FIJ spoke with insiders in the military who confirmed the authenticity of the image and said the army’s statement was hasty.
“Uba had taken videos to show he was alive and on his way back from the ambush,” one of the sources told FIJ on condition of anonymity. “However, he never made it. These videos were what we relied on originally, but nobody waited to see him first before going to discredit.”
Another source told FIJ that the terrorists captured Uba minutes after the ambush.
Uba is the highest-ranked military personnel the ISWAP has abducted since it began its reign of terror.
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