On Friday, gunmen attacked some members of the 7 Guards Battalion of the Presidential Guards Brigade of the Nigerian Army.
Three troops were hurt in the event, which happened late on Friday night in the Bwari Area Council of Abuja, and eight people were slain.
A captain and a lieutenant were among the two officers who were killed; the other victims were soldiers.
The Nigerian Law School in Bwari is the target of the terrorists’ primary strike, and they may already be camped there, according to an army source.
The Nigerian army has not yet responded to the attack in a formal manner. Onyema Nwachukwu, a spokesman for the Army, did not answer or respond calls to his phone. However, a variety of intelligence sources informed reporters that the government was aware of terrorists’ plans to strike certain locations in the capital and that security had been stepped up in the area.
After terrorists attacked a neighborhood close to the Federal Government College, Kwali in the Kwali Area Council of Abuja, the government formally closed the school on Monday.
A similar attempt on a presidential convoy in Dutsinma, Katsina State, by terrorists took place a few weeks prior to the attack on the Guards Brigade, which is responsible for protecting the president.
On the same day, terrorists broke into the Kuje jail in Abuja and released hundreds of prisoners, including suspected members of Boko Haram.
Two days prior to the terrorists’ publication of a film showing them abducting people from the Abuja-Kaduna train, the attack on Friday also took place.
If their demands were not satisfied, one of the terrorists in the video threatened to kidnap President Buhari, Kaduna State Governor Nasiru El-Rufai, and other notable Nigerians and destabilize the nation.
In addition, the terrorists threatened to execute and sell some of the remaining passengers on the Abuja-Kaduna train that were in their care.
“This is our message to the government of Nigeria and just as you have seen these people here, by God’s grace, you will see your leaders; your senators and governors will come before us. These ones you are seeing here, we will keep some as our slaves and sell them off just as our Imam told you in the past.
“Just like the Chibok girls that were sold off, we will equally sell these ones as slaves. If you don’t adhere to our demands, we will kill the ones we need to kill and sell the remaining. By God’s grace, El-Rufai, Buhari, we will bring you here,” the terrorist said in the video.
Until recently, the FCT had enjoyed relative peace, compared to some neighboring states such as Niger and Kaduna where terrorists, locally called bandits, operate almost on daily basis.
Despite the deteriorating security situation, the Buhari government has repeatedly insisted that security has improved under the president.
