How Brigadier General Braimah Died in Boko Haram Assault — Army Breaks Silence on Benisheikh Attack

The Nigerian Army has released new details about how Brigadier General Oseni Omoh Braimah was killed during a Boko Haram attack on a military base in Benisheikh, Borno State. The account pushes back against widespread claims that 17 soldiers died and that the commander’s vehicle was unserviceable, offering instead a picture of a senior officer who stayed in the fight until the end.

What actually happened

According to a statement by Major Sani Uba, Media Information Officer at the Joint Task Force Operation HADIN KAI, Braimah was mounted on a high-grade Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle when it was temporarily immobilised during combat. He was actively coordinating the counter-assault at the time, not retreating or stranded in a broken-down truck as social media reports suggested.

The Defence Headquarters confirmed that two officers and two soldiers were killed in the engagement, contradicting claims that 17 personnel died. Uba called those figures entirely false, misleading, and devoid of credibility, adding that images circulating online purporting to show the attack were not from Benisheikh at all.

A loss that cuts deep

Braimah was the Commander of 29 Task Force Brigade in Benisheikh, a town on the strategic Maiduguri-Damaturu highway. His death comes just months after Brigadier General Musa Uba, commander of 25 Task Force Brigade in Damboa, was ambushed and killed along the Damboa-Biu axis in November 2025. Two generals killed in the same theatre of operations within five months is not a statistic. It is a pattern.

Classmates and colleagues have been mourning Braimah as the Chief of Army Staff that never was. From Edo State, he was described as a leader who led from the front, a mentor whose presence steadied those under his command. Vice President Kashim Shettima visited Maiduguri on Tinubu’s orders and vowed that the terrorists responsible would find no safe haven — but the visits and the rhetoric have not stopped the attacks.

The bigger picture

Boko Haram and ISWAP have lost territory over the years, but they continue to carry out coordinated assaults on military positions. The Benisheikh attack was not a random raid. It was a targeted, well-planned operation against a brigade headquarters on a critical supply route. When an insurgent group can immobilise an MRAP and kill a brigadier general in his own base, the threat level is not declining. It is evolving.

The army’s decision to publicly correct the narrative around Braimah’s death suggests it is concerned about morale and misinformation. But correcting the story and winning the war are different things. For the soldiers still out there, and for the communities along that highway, the question remains: how many more generals before something changes?

Sources: Vanguard, Daily Post, Legit, Premium Times, The Sun