The Nigerian military has dismissed claims made by a senior United States official that a “large haul” of electronic materials were seized from terrorists in Nigeria and flown out of the country by US forces.
Refuting the claims, Director of Defence Information, Brig-Gen Samalia Uba, explained that the materials contained declassified information from previous counter-terrorism operations conducted by the Nigerian Armed Forces, NAF.
Uba said the intelligence materials were voluntarily provided to the United States as part of ongoing counter-terrorism cooperation between both countries.
He noted that the intelligence was not captured by American forces but released by the Nigerian government under an existing security collaboration.
“The materials were given to the US,” Uba said, adding that the development formed part of the longstanding security partnership between Nigeria and the United States.
The clarifications mark the first official response from the Nigerian authorities since the claim was made by the US.
The controversy came after comments by the US Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council, Sebastian Gorka, who said American forces recovered a massive cache of electronic materials during an operation in Nigeria.
Gorka had claimed that the US operators killed 199 jihadists during the mission and recovered what he described as the largest volume of enemy electronic intelligence since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
“I watched our operators k!ll 199 jihadis in one operation and seize an unprecedented volume of intelligence materials,” he said.
Responding to the US claims, Uba said the intelligence exchange should not be interpreted as American forces independently seizing materials from terrorists in Nigeria.
“It is not a new operation. We have previously communicated our highly successful joint operations in May. Nigeria-US joint operations and collaboration are very much on course,” he said.