The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has confirmed that one of its officers was killed and another seriously injured when armed men attacked a two-man surveillance patrol in Borgu, the Niger State border district that has become one of the most violent corners of the North Central. The attack took place at about 11.30am on Tuesday, October 6, according to a statement issued by the service on Thursday. Both officers were attached to the Wawa Control Post, which monitors movement along the frontier with the Republic of Benin.
The service’s headquarters identified the dead officer as Assistant Superintendent of Immigration I, I.U. Babangida. The Niger State Command, in an earlier statement issued in Minna on Monday by its spokesperson, Mukhtar Abubakar, gave his name as Ibrahim Babagiwa. The injured officer, Inspector A.K. Musa, escaped with machete wounds and is said to be stable and responding to treatment.
The command’s account adds a grim detail missing from the headquarters statement. According to Abubakar, the officers were patrolling the Tungan Taya axis near Woko village when they were ambushed, and a search party recovered the remains of the slain officer two days later, on October 8, burnt. He was buried according to Islamic rites.
“The Service honours his sacrifice and unwavering commitment to duty,” the headquarters statement said. It added that the NIS was working with the Niger State Government and other security agencies “to identify and apprehend those responsible for this heinous act”. No group has claimed the attack, and no arrest has been announced.
The killing is not an isolated incident for a service whose personnel man remote posts with limited protection. On the night of November 27, 2025, gunmen stormed an NIS camp at Bakin Ruwa, on the Maje border corridor in Bagudo Local Government Area of Kebbi State, and killed three officers. Kebbi’s Commissioner for Security and Internal Affairs, Halliru Aliyu, said at the time that the attackers set the camp ablaze and shot the officers as they tried to escape the fire. Officials linked that assault to the Lakurawa armed group.
Earlier, on January 10, 2025, an attack on border facilities at Kangiwa, also in Kebbi, left a local watchman and three contractors dead. The NIS said then that none of its officers was harmed, but that its facilities suffered substantial damage. Taken together, at least four immigration officers have now been killed in attacks on border patrols and posts in under a year, with the toll on civilian staff and contractors adding to the count.
Borgu itself carries a heavy record this year. In January, gunmen attacked Kasuwan Daji, killing more than 30 people and abducting women and children, according to local accounts. Weeks later, on February 4, an attack on Woro in neighbouring Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State left 75 people dead by the Kwara State Government’s count, while the Red Cross put the toll at 162.
Officials and residents have tied much of this violence to armed groups that moved into the forests around the Kainji Lake area. Accounts from Kwara at the time of the Woro attack attributed it to a Boko Haram faction led by a commander known as Sadiku, which relocated to the Kainji forest reserve in July 2025. The same network has been linked to the abduction of more than 300 students from St Mary’s Catholic School, Papiri, in Niger State in November 2025.
The geography explains why border officers are exposed. Borgu shares a long, porous frontier with Benin, with dense forest, the Kainji Lake National Park and numerous informal crossing routes that are difficult to patrol. Small surveillance teams, like the one attacked on October 6, often operate far from reinforcements, which security analysts have long identified as a weakness in border policing across the North West and North Central.
Following the Kebbi killings in 2025, the Comptroller General of Immigration, Kemi Nandap, announced additional deployments, joint operations with other agencies and stronger intelligence gathering along the affected corridor. The service has not said whether similar measures will follow in Borgu, or whether patrol arrangements around Wawa will change.
Several questions remain open. The NIS has not explained the six-day gap between the attack and the first official statement, nor has it said which group it believes was responsible. For now, the service insists the killing will not weaken its resolve. “The Nigeria Immigration Service remains undeterred by this unfortunate incident and reaffirms its unwavering commitment to safeguarding the Nation’s Borders,” it said.