Fatima Mohammed Kyari was seven years old in 2014 when Boko Haram attacked her village, Mallam Fatori, in Abadam Local Government, Borno State, northeastern Nigeria. 

“That evening, we suddenly heard gunshots everywhere,” she recalled. “My mother quickly packed our clothes, and we started running. But we couldn’t go far on foot, so my uncle took us on his motorcycle to my father’s village, Mallum Tunkur, a few kilometres away.”

A week later, Mallum Tunkur also became unsafe. Fatima’s paternal family decided to send her and her grandmother to Maiduguri to stay with relatives, while her mother remained behind. Constant displacement and the strain of moving from one village to another weakened her mother’s health. A year after Fatima arrived in Maiduguri, she fell ill and passed away. Her father had already died.

Fatima never imagined that the crisis that tore her family apart would also lead to her first day in school.

Each morning in Maiduguri, she watched her cousins dress in blue uniforms, their lunchboxes swinging as they happily left for school. In Mallam Fatori, her family had never prioritised formal education, so she was not enrolled. But in Maiduguri, she was surrounded by several children who went to school every day.

Left at home, she turned to self-learning through her cousins’ lessons. “I would sit next to them when they did their assignments,” she recounted. “I loved it when they read and wrote, so I asked them to teach me the alphabet and numbers.”

Her passion grew, and soon, she could recognise letters and numbers. She asked them to write her name on a sheet of paper and copied it repeatedly into a 20-leaf notebook.

“Once I mastered my name, my cousins started teaching me two-letter words from Queen Primer,” she said. “I moved on to three-letter words and eventually finished reading Queen Primer 1 and 2.” Queen Primer is a widely used early literacy book in Nigeria, designed to help children develop reading skills through basic phonics and simple words.

Fatima became so eager to attend school that she constantly voiced her desire. Other family members urged her uncle, the head of the household in Maiduguri, to enrol her, but years passed before he agreed.

Finally, at the age of 12, five years after arriving in Maiduguri, Fatima was taken to school for the first time, alongside another relative who had also been displaced from Monguno.

‘Only hope for a better future’

“I was enrolled in Primary 1, but just two weeks later, we had exams. Despite my late start, I placed 5th in my class, so they promoted me to Primary 4 and then to Primary 6,” she said.

After two years in primary school, she moved on to junior secondary school.

Though the Boko Haram insurgency had displaced her family and killed many in her community, Fatima believes she would never have gone to school if not for the displacement. She and her younger brother are the only ones in their family who have received formal education. “When I started school, all my siblings were excited,” she said. “They encouraged me to study hard because they saw education as my only hope for a better future.”

Her older siblings had never attended a formal school. Instead, they memorised the Qur’an before joining the family trade: fishing. The numerous tributaries of Lake Chad in Abadam made fishing the main source of income for many families in the area.

Fatima’s biggest challenge came when she transitioned from primary to junior secondary school. “In primary school, we closed early, but in secondary school, we stayed longer,” she said. “Sometimes, when we had extracurricular activities or struggled to find transport home, I arrived late.” 

She told HumAngle that her grandmother often mocked her persistence. “Even your other relatives, who have been going to school since they had only two teeth, haven’t benefited from it, talk less of you, who just started,” she recalled her grandmother saying.

Despite the discouragement, Fatima remained determined. Her siblings, who had never had the chance to study in a formal setting, defended her and tried to persuade their grandmother to support her. Over time, the older woman’s resistance softened, and she began encouraging Fatima’s education.

She became the head girl of her junior secondary school, Future Prowess Islamic Foundation School, which provides free education to children orphaned by the insurgency and other vulnerable children.

Fatima’s experience is not unique. Across the region, other children, like Aisha Ali, have found education through displacement. The Future Prowess Islamic Foundation School alone has provided education for over 2,000 displaced children in the region.

At 16, Aisha, a JSS 3 student at New Damboa Junior Secondary School, began a journey two years ago when she enrolled in a back-to-school programme run by Plan International. Before that, education had never been an option for her.

“I was 14 when I first stepped into a classroom,” she said. “I had never imagined myself in school, but when I got the opportunity, I knew I had to take it.”

Now, Aisha dreams of becoming a journalist, inspired by the lives of displaced people around her. “I want to report on the lives of people in the camps in Damboa,” she said. “There are so many stories that need to be told.”

Rebuilding for education

While Fatima and Aisha’s experiences reflect the personal impact of displacement on education, the crisis has also spurred broader systemic changes. The destruction caused by Boko Haram forced government agencies, international organisations, and NGOs to rethink how education is delivered in conflict-affected areas.

Many schools destroyed during the insurgency have been rebuilt with improved facilities, often through funding from the Nigerian government, the World Bank, and organisations like UNICEF.

A notable example is the €10 million program that enrolled over 13,000 out-of-school children in Borno State. The Nigerian Education Crisis Trust Fund, established in 2017 by then-Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, has also built learning centres for orphans and rehabilitated damaged schools.

In addition, philanthropy has played a crucial role in expanding educational access. The Aliko Dangote Foundation funded the construction of a “mega school” for internally displaced children, while grassroots initiatives like Girl Child Concern, Future Prowess Islamic Foundation, and Bolori Community School continue to provide education for vulnerable children.

Financial commitments to education have surged in recent years. In 2023, the World Bank approved a $700 million loan to support adolescent education in states including Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe. The following year, another $1.57 billion loan was secured, with $500 million dedicated to governance improvements in education and healthcare. Additionally, through UNICEF, the Global Partnership for Education launched a $20 million grant (2020–2023) to enhance teaching in conflict-affected areas. This was followed by a 2024 initiative to provide education for two million out-of-school children across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states.

However, HumAngle cannot independently verify whether these allocated funds have been fully implemented or effectively utilised.

From displacement to the classroom

Dr Omovigho Rani Ebireri, a lecturer at the University of Maiduguri’s Department of Continuing Education, told HumAngle that displacement has reshaped attitudes toward schooling in ways that might not have been possible otherwise.

“Before the insurgency, many communities in Borno had little trust in formal education. But when families were displaced into cities, they saw firsthand how education opened doors for others. Over time, that exposure changed their perception,” he said.

While this shift in attitude is evident, ensuring long-term sustainability remains a challenge. Dr Omovigho warns that many current school programmes in these conflict-affected communities rely heavily on donor funding, raising concerns about continuity. 

He argues that sustaining these efforts requires community involvement, government commitment, and flexible learning models. 

“Local communities must take ownership by establishing parent-teacher associations and supporting volunteer-driven learning programmes. The state government must also integrate these interventions into long-term educational planning rather than relying solely on external funding. If we can merge these emergency education programmes into the formal school system, we won’t have to start from scratch every time funding fluctuates,” Dr Omovigho added. 

By embedding emergency education efforts into mainstream policies, he believes the progress made in schooling displaced children can be sustained, preventing a reversal of gains when donor funds eventually decline.

A new perspective on education

The insurgency led by Boko Haram, which translates to “Western education is forbidden,” was intended to suppress schooling, particularly for girls. However, rather than eradicating education, it inadvertently spurred its expansion. Schools now integrate Western and Islamic curricula to align with local beliefs, encouraging more families to enrol their children.

For years, Bana Kura’s family in Ngarranam rejected Western education, believing it contradicted their religious values. His father, a businessman who frequently travelled for work, relied on hired translators to communicate during business dealings. Over time, he realised they could have helped him if his children had been educated.

Determined to change that, he enrolled his two youngest children in school. But the next day, his mother arrived in tears.

“You want to destroy my grandchildren’s lives,” she told him. “If you don’t want me to disown you, take them out of this place of disbelief.”

Under family pressure, Bana withdrew them from school.

Then, in 2015, Boko Haram occupied Ngarannam community, forcing families to flee to the metropolis. In displacement, the grandmother saw firsthand that Boko Haram was not acting in the best interests of those who sympathised with them. Her resistance to education began to wane, and she allowed her grandchildren to attend school.

By then, some children were already adolescents and had to attend adult education classes, where they learned basic reading and writing. Now, back in Ngarannam, the family has fully embraced education. A blackboard stands in their compound for extra lessons, and every morning, the children attend an integrated school combining Islamic and formal education. In the evenings, they continue their Islamic studies.

For this family, and many others like them, the Boko Haram crisis reshaped perspectives. While it is not a fair gamble, they say they might never have accepted schooling as part of their lives without displacement.