The Nigerian military says it has taken full control of Sambisa Forest, the vast woodland long regarded as the most potent symbol of jihadist power in the country’s North-East.
If sustained, the development would mark one of the most consequential moments in Nigeria’s fight against insurgency in more than a decade.
According to military authorities, weeks of coordinated ground advances, backed by precision air operations, forced armed groups to abandon long-held positions deep inside the forest. Commanders say troops are now firmly deployed across key axes, dismantling camps, clearing supply routes and denying fighters the ability to regroup.
The message from Abuja is unambiguous: Sambisa is no longer a sanctuary, but territory under the authority of the Nigerian state.
For years, the forest acquired an almost mythical status. Dense, remote and difficult to police, it became a base from which militants planned attacks, released propaganda videos and projected an image of invincibility.
Successive governments promised to reclaim it, while critics questioned whether the terrain could ever be fully secured. The military’s claim that Sambisa has now “fallen” is therefore as much psychological as it is tactical — an attempt to puncture a narrative that has haunted Nigeria since the height of the Boko Haram insurgency.
Senior officers attribute the breakthrough to sustained pressure rather than a single dramatic assault. Intelligence-led operations, they say, disrupted logistics and command structures, while constant aerial surveillance limited the movement of fighters. “They retreated because the pressure did not stop,” one security source told HeadlineNews.News. “This was not about symbolism. It was about exhausting their options.”
The Nigerian Army is keen to stress that this is not a moment for complacency. Troops remain in place to hold ground and prevent any re-infiltration — a lesson drawn from earlier phases of the conflict, when cleared areas were sometimes reoccupied after forces withdrew. Military planners describe the current phase as consolidation: stabilising surrounding communities, clearing residual threats and restoring civilian authority.
Analysts caution that military success, while significant, does not automatically translate into lasting peace. The North-East remains scarred by years of displacement, poverty and weakened local governance — conditions that armed groups have historically exploited.
“Territory can be reclaimed with force,” one regional security expert said, “but legitimacy is built through governance, services and trust.”
That tension now defines the next chapter. The fall of Sambisa, if maintained, strengthens the state’s hand and undermines the aura of inevitability that militants relied upon. It also shifts the spotlight onto political leadership, reconstruction and the willingness to confront internal sabotage — from corruption to intelligence leaks — that has previously blunted security gains.
For now, the military’s announcement has resonated powerfully across the country. In a conflict often marked by grim news, it offers a rare moment of momentum. Whether it proves to be a turning point will depend less on the declaration of victory than on what follows it.
One certainty remains: a forest once synonymous with fear has been forced back into the realm of the ordinary. And in a war where symbols matter almost as much as territory, that alone carries weight.
Headlinenews.news
