investigations

The year started slowly. Then it moved fast. 

Many reporters at HumAngle wondered what 2025 would bring. But as the year ran fast, the foot soldiers ran even faster, creating a monumental investigative reporting archive across multiple platforms. In this newsroom, everyone is an investigative journalist — from editors, interns, reporters and the Editor-in-Chief/Chief Executive Officer.

We told raw stories and terror tales, and conducted human-centred investigations that uncovered what would otherwise have been covered up. Most of our 2025 investigations tackled insecurity, exposed social injustices, unravelled the vulnerability of communities to terrorists, and set the record straight amid disinformation wildfires. 

In 2025, we redefined our journalism models, focusing on impact-driven investigations and stories that really matter. Here are our best investigations for the year.

1. The Making and Unmaking of Abubakar Shekau

When the notorious terrorist Abubakar Shekau died in 2021, tons of stories and narratives were pushed around the circumstances leading to his death. One question many failed to ask: How did Shekau emerge from nowhere to command an army of villains, inflicting lifelong pain and anguish on many? Only a few terrorism experts could answer that question with details and rigour. One such person is Ahmad Salkida, the CEO and Editor-in-Chief at HumAngle.

Four years after Shekau’s death, his investigative piece appeared on the internet’s fringes: The Making and Unmaking of Abubakar Shekau. Ahmad Salkida has studied Boko Haram for over a decade, from its inception to the point of vile insurgency and massive attacks against unarmed civilians.

HumAngle probed and profiled how Shekau rose from humble beginnings in Yobe State to become one of Africa’s most notorious insurgent leaders, transforming Boko Haram into a movement defined by mass abductions, suicide bombings, and indiscriminate killings. Initially a perfume seller and Qur’anic student, his life changed after meeting radical cleric Muhammad Yusuf, whose death in 2009 propelled Shekau into leadership. 

2. What Happened to Gallari’s 42 Men After 12 Years in Military Detention?

That story on Shekau’s legacy of terror went viral. But before then, we had investigated the illegal incarceration of 42 village men of Gallari, a community in Borno, northeastern Nigeria, by men of the Nigerian military. They were arrested in 2011 during military raids targeting Boko Haram suspects, with little or no evidence against them. 

HumAngle’s investigation exposed how the villagers were held in Giwa Barracks and other facilities under harsh conditions, enduring torture, starvation, and disease. Their families faced stigma, poverty, and displacement, with wives forced into single parenthood and children growing up without fathers. Upon release, some of the men returned to find their homes destroyed, loved ones lost, and communities fractured. The story highlights the broader consequences of Nigeria’s counterinsurgency strategy, where mass arrests and indefinite detentions have left deep scars on civilian populations. 

For many months, Usman Zanna, a HumAngle reporter, documented this story after speaking with victims locked in military confinement for over 12  years. One of them came out blind from detention, another had lost one of his ears, and another had torture scars all over his body. During an advocacy meeting facilitated by HumAngle and Amnesty International in Borno State, however, civic leaders and media practitioners took a step to spotlight the investigation that opened a can of worms on the military’s gross violation of human rights in the arrest of the 42 Gallari men.

3. From Elephants to Warthogs: The Shadow Wildlife Trade Financing Boko Haram in Nigeria

As Boko Haram entrenched and spread across Borno’s forested areas,  terrorists invested heavily in the ivory trade to sustain their operations. They poached elephants for years until the dynamics of the ivory trade shifted dramatically. Armed groups occupied critical elephant habitats like Sambisa, transforming them into fortified strongholds. The conflict, coupled with indiscriminate hunting, led to a drastic reduction in elephant sightings.

When elephants vanished from the region’s forests, however, Boko Haram terrorists turned to warthogs, an overlooked species with tusks just as valuable. With little regulation and growing global demand, warthog ivory is now fuelling a new black market. At the heart of it lies a deadly trade financing terror and deepening regional instability.

HumAngle exposed how local and international black markets helped patronise the terrorists’ ivory exploits, especially warthog trading, to fund their operations. We used OSINT and human intelligence.

4. Surrendered Terrorists Evade Official Rehabilitation Programme, Reinfiltrate Nigerian Communities

One interesting investigation we published in 2025 was an in-depth report on the complex lives of individuals who were once affiliated with Boko Haram. The story sheds light on their recruitment processes, experiences within the group, and efforts to reintegrate into society. It reveals personal stories, such as those of Abubakar Adam and Rawa Ali, who voluntarily distanced themselves from the insurgency but faced significant obstacles upon returning, often lacking sufficient government support.

Other accounts, including those of Falmata Abba and Aisha Mohammed, reveal a spectrum of emotions from regret to relief about leaving the militant group, while Rukayya’s story focuses on her health struggles. The piece also discusses the varied reactions from communities toward these returnees and critiques the shortcomings of Nigeria’s efforts in deradicalisation and rehabilitation.

The investigation raises concerns about trust and security in communities where former insurgents reappear without completing official reintegration programs, underscoring the need for comprehensive, transparent approaches to facilitate effective societal reintegration and maintain stability.

5. The Boys Lured into Boko Haram’s Enclave with Food Rations

Amid the escalation of insurgency in North Central Nigeria, terrorists devised a new way of recruiting children into their ranks. Boko Haram fighters lure children with food rations, handing guns to them after feeding them. Ibrahim Adeyemi, HumAngle’s investigations editor, followed the story in Niger state, speaking to survivors and parents of children caught in terrorists’ enclaves.

The insurgents exploit hunger as a recruitment tool, deliberately destroying farms and food supplies to create scarcity, then luring vulnerable children into their camps with food rations. Once inside, boys are trained as fighters or spies. At the same time, girls are forced into marriages and servitude, all under the command of leaders like Mallam Sadiqu, who manipulate desperation to sustain the group’s ranks. 

HumAngle’s investigation, which took several months, focused on identifying underage boys and girls who were deceived into entering the terrorists’ territory.