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Many unanswered questions, as gunmen regroup
….Imo Govt: Gentle’s Videos are AI generated
. ….Pundits moot political trade-off
In September 2025, the Nigerian Army declared in a widely broadcast press conference that it had arrested Gentle De Yahoo and eight other gunmen and had them in custody. Not long after, stories of the death of Gentle De Yahoo and some leaders of his group trended publicly. At the time, even reliable government sources freely and publicly made the bold claim that Gentle and other key leaders of the IPOB militant group had been eliminated.
2 February 2025
The Reappearance Stunt
The narratives varied from place to place and from time to time. What was unchanged, however, was the fact that neither the government nor the security forces could show the dead bodies of the purportedly slain commanders.
One narrative claimed that the hideout where Gentle De Yahoo and Angel Makeup were hiding was attacked by security forces, causing the house to explode and burn to the ground with its occupants inside. Yet, their charred remains were not recovered from the debris.
Another narrative, described as sounding like “tales by moonlight,” averred that the Imo state government captured and contracted the voodoo priest of the terror gang to poison Gentle De Yahoo, Temple (Igwe Butuzo), Angel Makeup, B44, Uwam, and other commanders in the course of fortifying them with fetish potions. Many analysts maintain that if such a scheme was ever contemplated, the voodoo priest must have fooled the government while telling the gunmen to play along and pretend to be sick and dying.
This plot was reportedly played out at a time the security forces had gained superiority over the terror gang and were gearing up to wipe out all their camps and commanders in Imo state, only to back down when they learnt that the commanders may have been eliminated by alternative means.
There were many stories, and almost all of them did not connect, hardly ringing true to any discerning observer. What is true, however, is that these terror commanders went underground and laid low for upwards of four months while the state and security forces basked under the erroneous assumption that they had been neutralized.
The Unanswered Questions
Consequently, the return of Gentle De Yahoo and other terror lords in the state throws up many questions with few answers. Did the Nigerian Army and government deliberately set out to deceive and mislead the public with false claims, or was it just the quality of information at their disposal? If they had lied to the Nigerian public, how many more lies are they covering? Why did it take the intelligence arm of Nigeria’s security institution more than four months to know that Gentle De Yahoo and his ilks were alive and kicking?
The return of Gentle De Yahoo and other militant leaders didn’t just disprove the claims of the Nigerian security forces but further ridiculed the institution when the Army, in a recent press conference, promised to investigate if the videos of Gentle De Yahoo in circulation were artificial intelligence (AI) generated or real. Critics lampooned the military for offering to investigate a man who was supposed to be in their custody since September last year.
The AI Fallacy
While all the security agencies have largely remained silent and declined any categorical statement about the trending video of Gentle De Yahoo, the Imo state government through its Special Adviser on Public Communications, Dr. Jones Onwuasoanya has dismissed the visuals of Gentle De Yahoo as AI generated while describing the gunman as ‘late’.
Reacting to the position of the Imo State Government on the matter, a public commentator, Awuzie Franklin’s had this to say:
“Anyone still arguing that the video of Gentle the Yahoo is Al-generated is clearly in denial. At this point, such thinking seriously calls for a psychiatric evaluation, because the evidence is too obvious to ignore.”
A Pattern Of Violence Returns
The reappearance of Gentle and others seems directly connected to the resurgence and regrouping of gunmen in key security flashpoints in Imo state. As far back as December 2025, there was a noticeable uptick in activities as gunmen worked to re-establish their presence in areas they were previously dislodged from. Suddenly, all the wanted terror kingpins in the Ezioha-Umuaka axis, who had hitherto fled or gone underground, have been sighted. Chief among them are those with a ₦5 million bounty on their heads: EyePencil, Spare Key (bomb-expert), and Asari.
In late December, one of the wanted gunmen from Ezioha Forest, Chiemela (popularly known as Disaster), attacked a Naval Officer at Umunoha wielding an AK-47. He ordered the officer out of a car he was using to run an errand for his boss, a senior Naval personnel home for Christmas. As the officer stepped out, he jumped the gunman; in the scramble, the officer pulled out his dagger and stabbed Disaster, who then fled, abandoning his AK-47 rifle.
Around the same period, a Port Harcourt-based contractor who returned home with his family for his annual Thanksgiving in Umuele, Njaba Council area—a neighbouring community to Ezioha in Mbaitoli Council—was abducted from his home Catholic church in the middle of the Thanksgiving service. The gunmen demanded a ₦5 million ransom; the family frantically rallied ₦500,000 for his release. The Thanksgiving was abandoned as the man and his family speedily returned to Port Harcourt.
Just last week, a businessman who had fled to Isiozi Umuaka, his maternal home, due to insecurity and terror activities in his hometown of Umuele, returned to his home in Umuele only to be kidnapped on the 29th of January from his farm. The kidnappers demanded a ₦2 million ransom for his release.
Besides these incidents, there have been general reports of car-jacking, armed robberies, abductions, and kidnappings, all pointing to the resurgence of the notorious terror gang in the Ezioha-Umuaka axis.
Mobilizing Funds, Restocking Arms
What is obvious from the pattern so far is that the terror group is aggressively mobilizing funds and resources to restock their armoury and finance their operations. Security operatives had depleted their armoury and manpower following a steady three-month bombardment of their camps from October to December 2025, which led to the killing of many gunmen and the destruction of over 10 outposts in the Ezioha forest.
Intelligence Failure
Following the massive security operations to flush out the hoodlums from the Ezioha-Umuaka axis, many gunmen were on the run as security forces repeatedly hit their camps, putting them in disarray. The expectation had been that the fleeing gunmen would be swiftly picked off the streets in a major intelligence operation, while their forest camp was totally cleared or burnt to the ground to eliminate its use as a criminal hideout. This expected follow-through did not materialize, culminating in the confirmed return of the group’s leaders and a violent resurgence in the region.
