The Presidency has dismissed claims that Abu-Bilal Al-Manuki, the senior Islamic State leader eliminated in a joint Nigeria-United States military operation, had been killed in a previous operation, insisting that earlier reports linking his name to a 2024 strike were a case of mistaken identity.
The clarification came from Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, amid growing public scepticism over the authenticity of the operation, which was announced by US President Donald Trump on Friday night.
Onanuga, on Saturday, in a post shared on X, acknowledged that Al-Manuki’s name had appeared on lists of suspected ISWAP commanders reportedly killed in 2024 during operations around the Birnin Gwari forest axis in Kaduna State, but said security officials had since established that the earlier listing was a misattribution.“
Security officials now clarify that the earlier listing was a case of mistaken identity or misattribution in the fog of sustained counterinsurgency operations.
Importantly, intelligence now confirms that the Birnin Gwari theatre was never within Al-Manuki’s established operational sphere, which negates the accuracy of the earlier assessment,” Onanuga said.
He said the latest operation was the product of months of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance efforts, backed by communications monitoring and phone intercepts that reportedly began as far back as December 2025.
According to Onanuga, security officials had initially sought to capture Al-Manuki alive, which explained why he was placed under surveillance across multiple locations, including Abuja and Maiduguri, in the days leading up to the final strike.
“Officials maintain that multiple layers of verification were applied before authorisation of the final kinetic action, making this operation distinct from earlier incidents in which battlefield assessments later required revision.“In their assessment, ‘this time, there is no ambiguity’,” he added.He added that authorities were “100 per cent certain” of the target’s identity this time.
Critics have pointed to past cases in global counterterrorism where high-value targets like Abubakar Shekau were wrongly declared killed, only to resurface later.
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