{"id":81424,"date":"2026-01-12T00:46:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T00:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=81424"},"modified":"2026-01-12T00:46:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T00:46:26","slug":"anyone-found-with-criminals-will-be-treated-as-enemy-defence-minister-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2026\/01\/12\/anyone-found-with-criminals-will-be-treated-as-enemy-defence-minister-warns\/","title":{"rendered":"Anyone Found With Criminals Will Be Treated as Enemy, Defence Minister Warns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Onyeanya Immaculata<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Nigerian Armed Forces have warned that anyone found aiding or associating with bandits, insurgents or other criminal elements during military operations will be treated as an enemy and face the same consequences.<\/p>\n<p>The warning was issued on Saturday during activities marking the 2026 Armed Forces Celebration and Remembrance Day.<\/p>\n<p>In a video shared on Sunday on X, the Minister of Defence, Gen. Christopher Gwabin Musa (retd.), said President Bola Tinubu has continued to support and encourage the Armed Forces, giving them a clear mandate to restore peace across the country.<\/p>\n<p>Musa cautioned Nigerians against providing direct or indirect support to criminal groups, stressing that such actions carry grave consequences.<\/p>\n<p>He said individuals found in the company of terrorists or bandits on the battlefield would be treated as combatants.<\/p>\n<p>He urged law-abiding citizens to support security agencies with timely and credible intelligence, assuring that the military remains ready to act swiftly on actionable information.<\/p>\n<p>In a separate statement, the Defence Headquarters quoted the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Olufemi Oluyede, as commending officers and men of the Armed Forces for their professionalism and sacrifices in ongoing operations nationwide.<\/p>\n<p>Oluyede also called for stronger civil military cooperation and national unity as the military intensifies counter terrorism and anti banditry operations across the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Onyeanya Immaculata The Nigerian Armed Forces have warned that anyone found aiding or associating with bandits, insurgents or other criminal elements during military operations will be treated as an enemy and face the same consequences. The warning was issued on Saturday during activities marking the 2026 Armed Forces Celebration and Remembrance Day. In a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":81425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182,1724,172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-81424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-and-security","category-insecurity","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81426,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81424\/revisions\/81426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}