The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) has stated that Nigerian troops killed scores of outlawed Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB) terrorists, including one of their leaders identified as Nkwachi Eze popularly known as Onowu who has been on the wanted list of the military.
The Director, Defence Media Operations, Major General Markus Kangye disclosed this on Thursday while addressing newsmen on military operations for the month of April.
He said Eze was responsible for coordinating series of attacks and kidnappings across the South-East geopolitical zone.
Speaking further, he stated that the Army also apprehended wanted gunrunner and kidnap kingpin Buhari Umar who was allegedly terrorising Gombe, Bauchi, Plateau and Kaduna States.
Kangye also said that troops arrested a 5-man kidnapping syndicate in Lafia local government area of Nasarawa State.
He named the suspects as Hassan Mohammed, Saleh Sani, Idi Yusuf, Adamu Danmai and Hassan Bello.
General Kangye also disclosed that troops rescued 173 kidnapped hostages, while over 204 terrorists and members of their families surrendered.
According to him, troops in the month of April also arrested 430 suspected oil thieves and other criminal elements.
Furthermore, the troops of Operation DELTA SAFE foiled oil theft worth over ₦1, 931,297,897.00 in the last one week.
He gave a breakdown of recovered products as 1,009,733 litres of stolen crude oil; 304,811 litres of illegally refined AGO and 3,480 litres of DPK, 19,875 litres of PMS and 1,600 litres of engine oil.
