When operatives of the Department of State Services and troops of the Nigerian Army raided an Eastern Security Network armoury in Enugu State on Wednesday, they did not only find guns and rocket launchers. They found uniforms. Ten NYSC trousers. Eight NYSC T-shirts. Four NYSC lanyards.
The plan, according to a DSS statement released Thursday, was to wear those uniforms, walk into schools across Enugu, Anambra, and Imo states, and kidnap students writing the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination. The disguise was designed to cause confusion, lower the guard of school officials, and create the impression that northern bandits had invaded the Southeast region.
It did not happen. Because intelligence got there first.
The operation unfolded in three phases across Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week.
On Monday, June 8, DSS operatives acting on intelligence moved into the Garki area of Enugu South Local Government Area. They arrested two ESN field commanders who were in the process of coordinating plans for coordinated attacks on security checkpoints and mass kidnappings targeting women, students, and children across the region.
Those two arrests broke open the rest of the operation.
Intelligence extracted from the arrested commanders led the DSS to request military support from the 82 Division of the Nigerian Army. A joint covert operation was immediately authorised under Operation Eastern Sanity II, the ongoing military campaign aimed at dismantling ESN’s operational network in the Southeast.
On Tuesday, June 9, the joint team moved on Gariki in Enugu South LGA and raided what the 82 Division Army Public Relations described as a clandestine arms hideout concealed inside a zinc structure, disguised as a piggery. From that building, they pulled out a General Purpose Machine Gun, AK-47 rifles, an RPG-7 rocket launcher tube, rocket-propelled grenade warheads, RPG chargers, hand grenades, a tear gas gun, tear gas canisters, magazines, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
The full weapons inventory from the Tuesday raid: a rocket launcher, two rocket-propelled grenade warheads, three RPG chargers, three AK-47 rifles, six AK-47 magazines, two handheld grenades, one tear gas gun, two tear gas canisters, 270 rounds of NATO 7.62x39mm ammunition, 478 rounds of 7.62x39mm special ammunition, and a bandolier.
They came back on Wednesday with a second raid on another ESN armoury in the Agbani axis of Enugu State. That location yielded eight AK-47 rifles, 12 AK-47 magazines, 323 rounds of 7.62mm special ammunition, one smoke grenade launcher, two more tear gas canisters, and the NYSC uniforms.
Ten pairs of trousers. Eight T-shirts. Four lanyards.
All recovered items and arrested suspects were handed over to the DSS Enugu State Command for further investigation and prosecution.
The Eastern Security Network was established in 2020 as the armed wing of the Indigenous People of Biafra, the separatist group led by Nnamdi Kanu, who remains in detention in Nigeria pending his ongoing trial. Both IPOB and ESN are proscribed as terrorist organisations by the Nigerian government.
Since its founding, the ESN has been linked to attacks on security personnel, destruction of INEC facilities, and a wave of killings and kidnappings across the Southeast. The group has been specifically blamed for the climate of insecurity that has included Monday sit-at-home enforcement, attacks on police stations, and assassinations of traditional rulers and community leaders across Enugu, Imo, Anambra, and Ebonyi states.
The targeting of WAEC students fits a pattern the DSS has previously flagged. The intelligence in this operation specifically stated that ESN members planned to kidnap students at examination centres to create the impression that the attacks were the work of northern bandits, not a Southeast separatist group. The goal, security sources said, was to inflame regional tensions and generate a narrative of federal abandonment of the Southeast.
The 82 Division’s statement confirmed the operation was part of Operation Eastern Sanity II, and was signed by Lieutenant Colonel Olabisi Olalekan Ayeni, Acting Deputy Director Army Public Relations.
This operation did not happen in a vacuum.
Less than a week before the Enugu raids, DSS operatives had arrested five suspected arms couriers linked to gunmen who abducted students and staff of St. Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri Village, Niger State, on November 21, 2025. Two of those suspects were Nigerien nationals. They were apprehended in coordinated operations across Kaduna, Niger, and Kebbi states, with security agents recovering 15 AK-103 rifles, 15 magazines, and 1,434 rounds of 7.62mm live ammunition.
That arrest trail, combined with intelligence from those detainees, fed directly into the Enugu operation. These are not isolated incidents. They are nodes in the same network.
In February 2026, troops of the Joint Task Force Southeast rescued five travellers abducted by suspected IPOB and ESN operatives on a road in Anambra State. In April 2026, a precision airstrike in Ajali Forest, Ezeagu LGA of Enugu State by Operation Udoka’s air component forced an IPOB/ESN retreat, during which an abandoned anti-tank IED was recovered.
The WAEC examinations are currently ongoing across Nigeria. Examination centres in Enugu, Anambra, and Imo were the confirmed targets of this disrupted operation. Security has been reinforced at examination centres in the Southeast following the arrests, according to sources familiar with the operation.
The DSS statement on Thursday did not name a specific date for the planned attacks, but the timing of the arrests, three days into the examination period, suggests the operation was close to execution when it was stopped.
Security authorities are urging members of the public in the Southeast to provide timely and credible intelligence to relevant agencies. Anyone with information about suspicious movement, unusual gatherings, or knowledge of ESN activity is asked to contact the DSS or Army directly.
This operation stopped a kidnapping plot against children sitting their school-leaving examinations. The uniforms found in that Enugu armoury were not props. They were operational equipment for a plan that was days away from being carried out.
The joint team got there first. This time.
