Investigations have revealed that the killing of about 176 people in Woro, Kwara State, was a planned jihadist attack led by a long-rising terror commander whose expansion went unchecked despite warnings.
Tuesday’s massacre in Woro, a remote community in Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State, which left an estimated 176 residents dead, has been linked to a calculated expansion of jihadist activity rather than a random act of violence. Findings by Saturday PUNCH showed that the attack followed intelligence failures within Nigeria’s security architecture, which reportedly did not act decisively despite prior warnings of growing extremist presence in the area.
At the centre of the bloodshed is Abubakar Saidu, popularly known as Sadiku, a terrorist commander whose violent footprint spans more than a decade across northern Nigeria. Once a shadowy figure within the insurgency, investigations revealed a 12-year trajectory that saw Sadiku rise from a trusted lieutenant of the late Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, in 2014, to what security analysts now describe as the “Shekau of the North-Central” by 2026.
As sustained military pressure weakened Boko Haram’s strongholds in the North-East, Sadiku reportedly migrated westward, embedding himself within the vast forest corridors stretching across Niger and Kwara states. From these hideouts, he is said to have orchestrated sustained attacks that crippled farming communities, displaced residents and ultimately culminated in one of the deadliest mass killings ever recorded in Kwara State.