Nigeria

Before he became a fugitive preacher, during which time security officials learned to mutter his name with a foreboding weight, culminating ultimately in his killing,  filmed and circulated across local and international news platforms, Mohammed Yusuf was a boy seated before his father, learning the Qur’an. This is where this story begins.

Not in 2002 or in July 2009, which are often cited as the landmark years. The beginning lay far away from prying eyes, in the ordinary intimacy of religious learning, in a world of fathers and sons, mallams and pupils, recitation and repetition.

Those who knew Yusuf’s early life describe a child shaped in his father’s image. According to one of his sisters, who does not wish to be named, “He learned to recite the Qur’an under Baba. He was our father’s student before he became anyone else’s.” He imbibed that discipline, the rigour and rhythm of recitation, correction, and memorisation. 

He went on to study under Goni Bulama, who was reportedly knowledgeable in fiqh (the human interpretation and application of Sharia law). Later, he travelled to Potiskum in Yobe State to continue learning under his uncle, Goni Madu. He stayed there for two or three years, “then he returned home and continued seeking knowledge in several places” as part of the Almajiranci system, his sister recalled. 

Among the clerics repeatedly named by people who followed that part of his life is Goni Modu in Lamisula, a suburb in Maiduguri. He occasionally took lessons from the late Sheikh Abba Aji, a well-respected Mufassir (Qur’anic exegete)in Maiduguri. “Yusuf did not emerge from the bubble; he was shaped through the interplay of ideologies,” said Kyari Mustafa, a researcher and one of Yusuf’s former students. One of his childhood friends, who is now a moderate cleric in Maiduguri, described Yusuf as a very curious child, adding that he thinks “that was what made him learn faster than all his peers”.

According to many who encountered Yusuf, he was many things, some of them deeply dangerous, but he was not a man who wandered by accident into religious influence. He read, listened, argued, absorbed, and faltered like many clerics before him and after him. He later recast those ideas into a corrosive, doctrinal political weapon, with devastating consequences that plunged more than five countries bordering Lake Chad into violence, killing and maiming tens of thousands, and uprooting millions from their communities.

Long before he created a movement the world would come to know as Boko Haram, he moved through circles of da’awah and doctrinal activism that were themselves products of a wider shift in Muslim politics. At one stage, he was linked to the Muslim Brothers, a movement of mostly students active in the 1980s and 1990s that promoted political Islam and reform. Some accounts also linked him to circles associated with Sheikh Ibrahim El Zakzaky, the Shia cleric and leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria. Those familiar with that era said Yusuf pulled away immediately from what he regarded as Shi’a framing by key figures in the movement, since he was inclined toward Sunni religious beliefs. However, Yusuf was not separated from their struggle; instead, he was separated over the terms, over authority, aqeedah, and over who would define the path ahead.

The claim that Yusuf was a disciple of the late Kano-based Salafi scholar Sheikh Ja’afar Mahmud and his circle does not hold under closer scrutiny. However, those who observed the stint at Muhammad Indimi’s mosque in Maiduguri and the eventual split describe a sharper divergence. “Ja’afar argued that Muslims should engage formal schools and institutions, then reform them from within. Yusuf rejected that path, calling for a boycott. He pushed for parallel systems built on Islamic guidance with zero secular influence,” said Mustafa.

From the beginning, there were overlaps between Yusuf and dozens of clerics in broad questions about jihad and Sharia. Still, Yusuf pushed toward establishing a totalitarian Sharia system on terms others did not share, or not yet. Across the Sahel, a broad clerical ecosystem continues to propagate hardline doctrinal interpretations reminiscent of those once advanced by Mohammed Yusuf. Many remain obscure, not for lack of ideological alignment, but because they have not transitioned into open confrontation with the state. Unlike Yusuf, whose influence escalated when he mobilised disaffected youth into armed resistance, these figures operate below the threshold of insurgency and restrict themselves to preaching. 

There was also an organisational history that has been largely buried beneath the violence that came later. “Yusuf was once part of a movement in 1997/1998 identified as ‘Jamatul Tajdid Islami’, which was first created in Kano and headquartered there,” said Malam Mohammad, Yusuf’s former associate now based in Kano. By early 2000, he was back in Maiduguri, beginning or deepening preaching activities across several mosques. He was pushed out from Mohammed Indimi’s Mosque, moved to Al’amin Daggash Mosque, was stopped again, and then continued from his own house, given to him by his father-in-law. He named the sanctuary Ibn Taymiyya Masjid after a 13th-century Islamic scholar. 

This was a precursor phase built on a study circle, not an insurgent cell. At the time, young men in white jalabiyas and their wives in black long jalbabs flooded Maiduguri. They were encouraged to bond tightly, abandon schools, and resign from secular institutions. “They shared food amongst themselves. They sold farm produce at subsidised rates from their large farm in Benisheikh. They provided free medical care through two clinics in Maiduguri. They ran a small revolving loan scheme for indigent members,” said Malam (name withheld), one of the movement’s former clerics currently in Maiduguri.

A fighter still active told HumAngle he dropped out as a sophomore at the University of Maiduguri, leaving his parents’ home to move in with a member of the group. “Between 2006 and 2007, I had no skills or a job. I survived on daily meals and food stamps from the Ibn Taymiyyah mosque. I will never forget that support by Malam Mohammed Yusuf,” said the 42-year-old Boko Haram member.

Ideology and a premeditated war

Boko Haram did not erupt because of the high-handedness of security agents, though that high-handedness was real and consequential. It did not begin because Mohammed Yusuf was extrajudicially killed in July 2009. However, that killing transformed him into a martyr in the eyes of his followers and helped harden the foot soldiers in the war that came thereafter. It did not begin because of one helmet law, one police confrontation, or one week of clashes in Biu, Bauchi, Maiduguri, Damaturu, Potiskum, and elsewhere.

Those events merely accelerated the rupture.

The deeper fuse was ideology, and that ideology did not grow in isolation. It travelled with money, with wars fought elsewhere, with transnational religious currents, and with the afterlife of global politics that Nigeria still refuses to examine closely.

In the 1980s, amid oil-fuelled prosperity and the protracted Cold War contest in Afghanistan, a distinct wave of Salafi thought was actively scaled by a Gulf state. It travelled through well-funded clerical networks, charities, publications, scholarships, and layers of international patronage that gave it both reach and structure.

For external backers, the fine details of ideology did not matter. What mattered was shared strategy. As long as this movement in Afghanistan put pressure on the Soviet Union, its beliefs were rarely questioned and were sometimes quietly supported.

In Afghanistan, jihad evolved from a theological concept into something more kinetic, a pathway, a destination, and, for many, a defining personal transformation. Young men from across the Muslim world answered that call. Nigerians were among them. Many of them were strikingly from the southwest region, but when they returned, they did not find the same fertile conditions in their home environment for a project of violent proselytisation. The idea survived, but it did not easily reproduce itself in that terrain.

In the north, these returnee fighters from Afghanistan did not arrive on stable ground. They met a generation of young men with little education and a grim future, a generation that knew the state only through force, neglect, and theft. They met boys raised on the daily humiliation of poverty and poor investment in education by corrupt officials.

That was the combustible field in which Yusuf picked up most of his ideas in the late 90s and began to nurture them into a movement in the early years of 2000. By the time the July 2009 ma’araka occurred, the insurgency had already been imagined, nurtured, and prepared for years. The movement had passed through the stages of learning, da’awah, withdrawal, factional dispute, internal sorting, and ideological hardening.

“Operation Flush” and the broader security pressure during that period disrupted a longer period of preparation. When the confrontation came, the group had not yet fully built what they intended to build. If they had been left to prepare longer, and if the rupture had come later rather than in July 2009, Nigeria might have faced a movement with greater organisational maturity and strategic capacity.

In the weeks after the confrontation between Boko Haram members and Operation Flush in Maiduguri, triggered by the enforcement of helmet regulations on motorcycle riders, tensions escalated sharply. Security forces shot around 20 sect members, an incident that hardened positions within the group and deepened mistrust of state authority.

Mohammed Yusuf responded with an open declaration, signalling that the group would confront the state if certain demands were not met. Within the cult-like community, preparations began quietly but deliberately. Members started liquidating personal assets. Cars, motorcycles, and even houses were sold. Women parted with jewellery and household items. Contributions came from across the network, each person offering what they could.

This mobilisation unfolded in earnest in the month leading up to July 2009. 

Long before the war, there were also fractures inside the movement that foreshadowed what would come later. One notable example is that of Muhammed Alli, who, after disagreeing with Yusuf, left for Hijra to Kanamma in Yobe State with dozens of youths in 2003. They isolated themselves from normal civil life in a remote location. When the traditional leader in the vicinity noticed a strange group of people in his turf in December 2003, he approached them, and one thing led to another; the group had violent confrontations with the Police that resulted in the loss of lives and properties. 

At the height of Yusuf’s sectarian authority between 2006 and 2009, a fracture was already taking shape within his movement. Beneath the surface, a harder, more impatient current was consolidating around Abubakar Shekau, his top lieutenant. “Yusuf believed in sequencing. Build strength first. Recruit deeply. Arm deliberately. Accumulate resources. Then, confront the state from a position of capacity,” said Mustafa.

Shekau, like Muhammad Ali, who led Kanamma, rejected that procedure. They both pushed for immediacy. Strike now and absorb the consequences later. Death itself, whether inflicted or received, was framed as victory through martyrdom, according to those inclined to Shekau’s hardline views.

Malam Hassan (Gandrova), a staff member of the Nigerian Prison Service, who was radicalised during one of Shekau’s brief remands at the Maiduguri Maximum Security Prison, would eventually join the terror group’s bomb-making unit. On Friday, July 24, 2009, he was assembling an IED with two other individuals at his rented apartment in Umarari, ‘Bayan quarters’ in Maiduguri. “Hassan and the two other bomb-making members of the sect were unskilled at the time, and their explosives blew up everyone in the room,” said a former member currently in one of Nigeria’s deradicalisation programmes set up to reintegrate former fighters back to normal civil life in their communities. 

The following day, Saturday, July 25, Yusuf’s followers were attacked in Bauchi. On the night of Sunday, July 26, Yusuf faced mounting pressure from his own ranks after the bomb incident and the raids in Bauchi, compounded by a sting operation by the police in Maiduguri, “who falsely tipped Yusuf’s men that security forces would launch an assault against them before dawn,” said a senior police officer familiar with the events of July 2009. Shekau’s more radical supporters within the group demanded action.

On the evening of July 26, 2009, hours before they launched an attack on the Borno State Police headquarters, Yusuf condemned the attacks on his men during an interview with this reporter, who worked for Daily Trust at the time. “What I said previously that we are going to be attacked by the authorities has manifested itself in Bauchi, where about 40 of our brothers were doing what Allah said, arm yourself and your religion in the face of an attack and an attack was imminent. This was what Malam Hassan [bomb victim] was doing when he became a martyr,” he said.  

Had Yusuf refused the group’s attack on the Police Force headquarters in Maiduguri, he would not have remained leader after that night, said several senior members of the group interviewed by HumAngle. The movement was already shifting beneath him. At best, he would have been sidelined. At worst, he would have been removed entirely by the very hardline faction he had tried to restrain.

Blood ties and the machinery of war

To understand how this story has unfolded, one has to see Yusuf as the centre of a household as well.

He had four wives and a large number of children, between 24 and 26, according to the accounts available. His first wife was Aisha, also known as Ya Bintu or Yaya Bintu. Among the children attributed to her are Yusuf, Habib, Ibrahim, Ahmad, Imam Muslim, Abdullahi (also called Abba), Isa, and Abdulazeez.

His second wife was Fatima, also called Ummu Zara. Children linked to her include Zarah, Alhaji Ba (recalled unclearly in one account), Iya Gana, Ummu Kulthu, Aish, Uma, and Abdulwahab.

His third wife was Hajja Gana, also called Ba’ba. Children associated with her include Zainab (often called Ummi), Maryam, Umar, and Khadija (also known as Ya Dija).

The fourth wife was Ummu Tulaf, or Ummuthulab in some accounts. Muazu is consistently named among her children. This is not a perfect register, but a family history carried through oral memory, insurgent secrecy, death, displacement, and the distortions that come when names are repeated across generations. But the uncertainties do not dilute the central point. Yusuf did not leave behind a disembodied ideology. He left behind a house, and that house has remained part of the machinery of war to date.

One relative of Yusuf, based in Kano, who spoke in detail about the family, put it simply: “All of his children are part of the insurgency. Some are dead now. But they are all part of it with no exceptions.”

The first son, Yusuf, married in Hotoro, Kano State, in 2010. The marriage was brief; he died not long after, leaving no children. His death followed the September 7, 2010, prison break in Bauchi, when Boko Haram freed hundreds of their members. Some of the escapees of that prison break were later traced to a hideout in Hotoro, where Yusuf lived. Security forces moved in. In the exchange that followed, Yusuf, the first son of Mohammed Yusuf, was killed.

Habib, the second son, known as Abu Musab, became the most consequential. Family testimony about his domestic life varies in detail, as such testimony often does in clandestine worlds, but the core is clear. He had multiple wives and many children. Zainab is recalled as one wife, Halima as another, Aisha as another. Their children, depending on who recounts the family tree, include Mus’ab, Humaira, Rumaisa, Muhammad, another Muhammad, Shifa’u, Ramla, Zarah, Rufaidah, Kasim, Abdullahi, and Amir. In one account, there is mention of a concubine or enslaved woman who bore him a daughter. 

After the July 2009 violent outbreak, most of Mohammed Yusuf’s children, except his first son, were moved out of Nigeria. They were first taken to Kusiri in northern Cameroon, then to N’Djamena in Chad, where they continued their religious education under Sudanese and Chadian tutors. This relocation appears to have taken place within months of Yusuf’s death and was aimed at preserving both their safety and their symbolic value within the movement.

In 2012, after Abubakar Shekau left Rijiyan Zaki in Kano and established himself in the Sambisa forest, he ordered Yusuf’s children to be brought back into the insurgent enclave, which the group had begun to frame as its Daula. This move reflected a deliberate effort to consolidate legitimacy by reabsorbing Yusuf’s lineage into the insurgency’s core.

Among those elevated during this period was Abu Musab al-Barnawi. He was progressively assigned roles that combined religious authority and operational relevance, positioning him as a bridge between doctrinal leadership and battlefield command.

From 2015 to 2016, tensions between Shekau and ISIS leadership intensified. The central issue was Shekau’s expansive use of takfir, particularly Takfir al-‘Umum, which justified violence against broad segments of the Muslim population. ISIS leadership, including Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, engaged in repeated efforts to moderate Shekau’s position. These attempts also addressed concerns over targeting practices, the use of female suicide bombers, and command discipline. All efforts failed.

In August 2016, ISIS formally intervened. Through its Al-Naba publication, it announced the removal of Shekau as leader and the appointment of Abu Musab al-Barnawi as Wali of the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP). This marked the formal split between Boko Haram and ISWAP. The decision was externally driven by ISIS central and reflected a strategic shift toward a more controlled and population-focused insurgent model under new leadership. 

Abba (aka Abu Umaysa), whose given name is Abdullahi, is also one of Yusuf’s sons. He reportedly had multiple wives and children, including Muhammad, Maryam, Aisha, and at least one other son. Within the insurgent structure, he played a technical and operational role, particularly in communications. Sources indicate he was responsible for managing encrypted messaging platforms that facilitated contact between ISWAP leadership and ISIS-linked actors in the Middle East.

Despite his communications role, Abba was known to participate directly in combat operations, a pattern that reportedly drew disapproval from senior leadership due to the sensitivity of his liaison responsibilities. Internal disputes led to repeated detentions. Abba was imprisoned on four separate occasions by his brother Abu Musab, including periods of detention alongside that of Mamman Nur, a senior figure associated with Mohammed Yusuf’s lifetime.

In one instance, he escaped custody with other fighters and fled to the Niger Republic, but later returned. According to a source, he was subsequently pardoned and allowed to reintegrate without facing the death penalty typically imposed on members accused of attempting to defect.

A senior ISWAP defector, Malam Ibrahim, stated that during one period of detention linked to internal disagreements, ISIS-linked contacts “declined communication with ISWAP as long as they did not hear his voice. He was released immediately to continue his work.” 

Abba later died in early 2023 during an engagement with the Multinational Joint Task Force in the Kangarwa forest area.

The other sons, Muslim, Abdulazeez, Isa, and Abdulwahab, are described by one source as married and without children at the time of this report. However, Muslim was arrested in Chad when he was trying to defect from the group to live outside of Nigeria. 

Even inside the household of a movement that would later devastate the northeast, family life is still narrated through the intimate vocabulary of births, marriages, hopes, namesakes, and unanswered prayers for children. That is exactly why the story resists easy reduction. The people at the centre of violence remained human in their own domestic worlds. That does not mitigate their responsibility, but it explains how such worlds sustain themselves.

The patriarch’s execution

Yusuf’s rise spiked because of his soft-spoken, unusual, and persuasive verbal skills rather than his scholastic proficiency. He did not need the theatrics many expected from Sahel’s religious authorities. He could name what young men already felt but had not yet organised into doctrine. Corruption. Injustice. Absence. State impunity. The feeling that rulers had abandoned both God and the governed. He took those scattered injuries and gave them a single haunting frame.

Yusuf was carrying a worldview shaped by transnational currents, doctrinal disputes within Nigeria and the broader Sahel Islam, and his own insistence that the Nigerian state was religiously illegitimate.

Then came the extrajudicial killing.

Outside the police headquarters in Maiduguri, Yusuf was captured on camera,  alive in custody, seated and handcuffed. Later, he was dead, his body riddled with bullets. The state said he had been shot while trying to escape. The footage with his hands tied, however, invalidated that claim.

What followed was brutal and systematic. Raids spread across northern states, with Maiduguri at the centre. Security forces targeted hospitals and local pharmacies. They forced staff to identify and lead them to patients treated for gunshot wounds or related injuries. Those patients were taken to the State Police headquarters. Some could barely stand. Some were on crutches. Some were executed at close range in the presence of this reporter, as documented here.

For followers, the image of Yusuf became proof of everything he had preached about state injustice. This was the moment the war entered the family’s bloodstream. His children, who had already grown up under his teachings, now witnessed his extrajudicial death. 

Abu Musab was central to the next phase.

The rise and fall of Abu Musab

Relatives remember him first as a disciplined son who rose through the ranks. He became a Munzir, later Ka’id, fiya, then a Waliy. He read deeply. He gained influence not only because he was Yusuf’s son but because he appeared to embody knowledge and steadiness.

Some accounts describe him as a serious internal voice within the insurgency, especially in doctrinal disputes over takfir and the treatment of ordinary Muslims. At one point, some within the movement argued that any Muslim who refused to migrate to the bush and live under insurgent control was an unbeliever. The practical effect of that doctrine was robbery, extortion, and killing. 

Abu Musab is remembered by those close to him as having resisted that direction. “People had reasons they could not leave,” he said in one of his recorded messages. “Not everyone outside the bush was an apostate.” That detail does not make him humane in any broad sense. He remained a leader in a movement that killed, abducted, raped, extorted, and terrorised civilians. But it does place him more accurately within the insurgency’s internal tapestry. He was part of the crop of leaders who believed Shekau had gone too far.

That split would define the next phase of the war.

After Yusuf’s death, Abubakar Shekau turned what remained of the movement into a machine of spectacle and indiscriminate terror. His fighters razed villages, bombed markets, assassinated Muslim clerics, and turned young women and girls into delivery systems for explosives. Entire communities were punished under expansive accusations of unbelief or collaboration. Shekau did not merely fight the Nigerian state. He fought whole populations, including the Muslims his faction claimed to defend.

Inside the movement, dissent built over time. Some of Yusuf’s old followers, including members of his family, believed Shekau had broken from the founder’s original doctrinal line. They still believed in jihad. They still rejected the Nigerian state. But they did not accept his disregard for restraint and counsel.

When the movement pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, those internal disputes widened. That split changed the insurgency’s logic. Shekau’s faction remained rooted in Sambisa and in a politics of fear, punishment, and theatrical violence. ISWAP, under Abu Musab, moved toward an equally brutal but more organised form of insurgent governance around the Lake Chad Basin. It taxed fishermen, farmers, and traders. It built courts, regulated movement, and sought not merely to kill but to rule.

It was still a terrorist organisation. It still abducted, extorted, murdered, raped and coerced. But its method of domination differed from Boko Haram. Where Shekau often destroyed civilian life outright, ISWAP frequently sought to occupy it, supervise it, and harvest from it. Communities brutalised by both insurgents and the military often did not think in abstract moral categories. They thought in terms of survival. To some, ISWAP looked more predictable than Shekau’s men, less erratic, and more likely to tax than to massacre. In this phase, Yusuf’s family became an infrastructure.

Some sons moved into command, others into ideological work. Some daughters married senior figures, tightening bonds between bloodline and leadership. One of Yusuf’s wives, Hajja Gana, later married Abubakar Shekau. The geography of Lake Chad then amplified everything.

Once a vast inland body of water, the lake has, over the decades, become a shifting geography of reeds, channels, islands, marshes, and seasonal passages where state borders blur, and state authority thins into abstraction. A fighter can move from Nigeria into Niger or Chad with less friction than a trader might face at a conventional checkpoint. Armouries can be hidden on islands. Training camps can be relocated across terrains that conceal unfriendly surveillance. Tax routes can be imposed on fishing channels more effectively than the Nigerian state can regulate ordinary commercial life in some border communities.

Yet dynasties do not move cleanly. They fracture from within.

Abu Musab’s rise inside ISWAP did not end in settled power. Internal struggles sharpened. Rivalries widened within the rank-and-file and the shura. Family accounts describe a period of captivity that placed him in real danger. The Boko Haram faction led by one Bakura Doro wanted him dead. Some within ISWAP opposed his return to influence, reflecting deeper internal fractures shaped by ideology, loyalty, and competition for authority. Yet he retained a critical asset: He was a recognised member of the shura within the broader Islamic State network. That status placed him within a transnational decision-making architecture that extends beyond the Lake Chad Basin, linking local commanders to the central leadership historically based in the Levant and later dispersed across multiple theatres.

According to a high-profile source, “a decision was made to extract him, perhaps toward North Africa or the Middle East.” Such a move would align with patterns seen in the Islamic State’s global operations, where experienced figures are sometimes redeployed across provinces. These decisions are often driven by strategic need, internal distrust, or the desire to preserve individuals with institutional memory and ideological legitimacy within the wider ISIS ecosystem.

That plan never reached its destination.

Instead, he moved through Nigeria under concealment. He spent time with one of his wives and their child. He moved through Kano. He surfaced in Kaduna. The high-profile source said, “Kaduna was the location chosen for him to wait for his travel documents to be processed.” HumAngle gathered that he was in the process of obtaining a Niger Republic international passport. At his Kaduna hideout, between April 21 and May 19, 2023, one of his couriers was tracked and security agents followed the trail to the house.

What remains most striking is that they appear not to have known whom they were closing in on. They suspected criminality, but by available accounts, they did not know they were approaching Abu Musab al-Barnawi himself. 

Abu Musab heard heavy banging at the gate, mixed with men shouting and the rumble of vehicles. He knew immediately it was security forces. HumAngle gathered through extensive interviews that he was calm, almost detached. He told his young wife, who was holding their young child, to open the gate. As she moved toward it, he slipped into the room’s toilet. Moments later, he detonated the explosive vest strapped to his body.

The blast stunned everyone outside, including his wife. The sound cut through the compound without warning. He chose death over arrest, over public disgrace, over the certainty of spending the rest of his life behind bars.

There was no public announcement after the blast that killed Abu Musab, no official triumph, no clear state recognition that one of the most significant insurgent figures in the region had died in that house. The insurgents, too, remained quiet, neither publicly mourning nor confirming the incident. Instead, the kunya Abu Musab continued to circulate, adopted by others as part of the deception and continuity that sophisticated insurgent networks rely on.

So he died in near silence.

A complex conflict

The temptation in telling this story is to simplify it into a mirror, a dreadful, clean reflective script revealing the ugliness and wretchedness of ruthless power mixed with aloof governance. The state is wholly guilty. The insurgents are evil. The civilians are trapped. All of that is true, and none of it is enough.

Yusuf’s movement drew strength from three elements that must be held up together if the story is to make sense.

The first was ideology. A structured creed, nourished by transnational currents, that delegitimised secular authority and imagined an Islamic order justified by violence.

The second was a grievance about corrupt governance, collapsed services, absent justice, police extortion, and growing poverty and unemployment across northern Nigeria.

The third was impunity: lawlessness by the state, extrajudicial killings, collective punishment, detention without process, and the routine treatment of poor people as disposable.

Some of the young men who heard and looked up to Yusuf died in 2009, before the insurgency fully matured. Some fled and returned. Some crossed into Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Sudan. Some started living normal lives. Some became commanders, teachers, recruiters, executioners, or administrators in the insurgent order. Some of his children, like Abu Musab, moved into leadership. Others remained within family or support structures inside the insurgent ecosystem. Some died. Some vanished. Some married deeper into the insurgency. Some had children in forest camps and island settlements. Those children then formed a third generation.

That third generation may be the hardest part of this story.

Across parts of the Lake Chad Basin, children have grown up under insurgent authority or the culture of violence, with no memory of peace. Their parents’ stories are not about school, court, civic life, or public trust. They are about raids, camps, betrayal, martyrdom, command, and survival.

In Borno, Yobe, and across the Lake Chad region, insurgency is not sustained only by ideology at the top. It is sustained by marriages, kinship, cattle routes, fishing economies, clerical contentions, clans, dialects, borderland trade, and the practical calculations of communities trying to stay alive between insurgent taxation and military suspicion. A woman’s marriage can be an alliance, survival, coercion, and entrapment all at once. A boy’s movement from the city to the forest can be due to indoctrination, family obedience, or a lack of alternatives. A trader may pay insurgents not because he supports them but because the state has left him no other safe route.

That is also why the story cuts beyond Nigeria. 

The symmetry is brutal. The state killed the father after capture. The son killed himself to avoid capture. Between those two deaths lies the whole distortion of the northeast conflict. A state too often governed by force rather than law. An insurgency that chose violence over any serious claim to humanity. A population trapped between them, paying in graves, hunger, displacement, and silence.

More than a decade after Yusuf’s death, the conflict he helped set in motion has not collapsed into victory or defeat. Instead, it has settled into a prolonged contest between military containment and insurgent adaptation.

The Nigerian military and the Multinational Joint Task Force have, despite operational limitations, prevented a full territorial takeover by Boko Haram and ISWAP. At multiple points, especially between 2013 and 2015, insurgents controlled significant territory. That phase was rolled back through sustained military pressure.

However, these successes were fundamentally limited. The military has achieved containment, not resolution. This creates a circle where military gains are repeatedly eroded in the absence of credible state presence, turning the conflict into a durable stalemate rather than a solvable war.

The danger now is not only that Nigerians forget Mohammed Yusuf’s actual place in this history. The danger is that the next generation inherits only the myths. On one side, the state myth that terrorism came from nowhere and can be resolved through raids, procurement, press releases, and more force. On the other side, the insurgent myth is that an unbelieving state martyred a “righteous founder” and that his children merely carried forward a sacred duty.

Both myths kill.

The truer version is harder. Yusuf was a product of corrosive ideology, ambition, and grievance. That is why this story still matters.

Nigeria did not invent militant Salafi ideology. It did not write the script of the Afghan jihad. It did not create global takfiri currents. But Nigeria did something unforgivable in its own space. It abandoned millions of citizens to conditions in which men like Mohammed Yusuf could speak with authority. Then, when the blowback came, it answered with the same habits that had already emptied the state of legitimacy in the eyes of many.

There is one final image that remains.

Somewhere in northern Nigeria, perhaps in Lake Chad, perhaps in a displacement camp, perhaps in a community held loosely between one armed authority and another, a child is being taught. The question is not whether that child will learn religion. The question is what will be wrapped around it. 

First all-women cohort of winners hails from Colombia, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, South Korea, the UK and the US.

This year’s prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize has been awarded to six grassroots environmental activists from around the world for their efforts to fight climate change and save biodiversity.

For the first time since the prize was created in 1989 by philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman, all recipients of the award are women: Iroro Tanshi, from Nigeria; Borim Kim, from South Korea; Sarah Finch, from the United Kingdom; Theonila Roka Matbob, from Papua New Guinea; Alannah Acaq Hurley, from the United States; and Yuvelis Morales Blanco, from Colombia.

Sometimes described as the “Green Nobel”, the Goldman Prize recipients are chosen from each of the world’s six primary regions. They each receive $200,000 in prize money.

“While we continue to fight uphill to protect the environment and implement lifesaving climate policies – in the US and globally – it is clear that true leaders can be found all around us,” said John Goldman, vice president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation.

“The 2026 Prize winners are proof positive that courage, hard work, and hope go a long way toward creating meaningful progress.”

Morales Blanco, the winner for the region of South and Central America, fought some of the world’s biggest oil companies to successfully stop the introduction of commercial fracking into Colombia.

The 24-year-old grew up in a family of fishermen along the banks of the Magdalena River in the Afro-Colombian community of Puerto Wilches. “We had nothing but the river – she was like a mother who took care of me,” she said.

She began organising protests after a major oil spill in 2018, which forced the relocation of dozens of local families and killed thousands of animals. Her activism, which made her a target for intimidation and forced her to temporarily relocate, helped halt projects and elevate fracking as an issue in Colombia’s 2022 election.

Two of the other five recipients of this year’s prize have also focused their efforts on fighting fossil fuels, which are causing both global climate change and more localised pollution around the world.

Borim, the winner for Asia who started the Youth 4 Climate Action organisation, won a ruling from South Korea’s Constitutional Court that the government’s climate policy violated the constitutional rights of future generations, the first successful youth-led climate litigation in the continent.

Finch, Europe’s winner, told The Times newspaper she will use her prize money to keep fighting fossil fuels.

Together with the Weald Action Group, she fought oil drilling in southeastern England for more than a decade, securing the “Finch ruling” from the Supreme Court in June 2024, stating that authorities must consider fossil fuels’ impacts on the global climate before granting permission to extract them.

Two other recipients have fought against the destructive environmental impact of mining projects.

Papua New Guinea’s Roka Matbob, winner for Islands and Island Nations, led a successful campaign that saw the world’s second-largest mining company, Rio Tinto, agree to address environmental and social devastation caused by its Panguna copper mine, 35 years after it was closed following an uprising.

And the award recipient for North America, Acaq Hurley, from the Yup’ik nation in the US, successfully fought alongside 15 tribal nations to stop a mega- copper and gold mining project that threatened ecosystems in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, including the largest wild salmon runs in the world.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Tanshi, Africa’s winner, rediscovered the endangered short-tailed roundleaf bat and has been working to save its refuge, the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary, from human-induced wildfires.

In recent months, the frequency and intensity of attacks in northern Nigeria have shattered the comforting illusion that the region’s long insurgency has receded into the background of national life. As violent incidents have proliferated, many Nigerians have refused to confront this uncomfortable reality and have opted instead to embrace conspiracy theories suggesting that the resurgence is somehow tied to renewed American involvement in Nigeria’s  counterterrorism efforts.

It is not difficult to see why the theory of foreign collusion with terrorist groups resonates in Nigeria. In February 2025, United States Congressman Scott Perry claimed that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) had funded Boko Haram, but offered no evidence for the allegation. Richard Mills, then the US ambassador to Nigeria, rejected Perry’s statement, but by then the claim had already acquired a life of its own in the public space and on social media.

Then, American officials like Congressmen Ted Cruz and Chris Smith made statements that fuelled the “Christian genocide” narrative, which falsely claims that the killings in Nigeria exclusively target Christians.

Attacks on Christians have happened, including most recently on a church in Kaduna state on Easter Sunday, but Muslim communities have also been regularly targeted. The truth is that terrorist groups have long operated indiscriminately.

What this moment demands, therefore, is to go beyond the seduction of easy explanation, and embark on serious analysis of what is really happening in northern Nigeria.

That diagnosis must begin with clarity about what the attacks reveal. First, they reveal that the insurgency has adapted in both form and method. Second, northern Nigeria’s insecurity can no longer be understood in isolation from the rest of the region; it is part of the wider regional disorder across the Lake Chad basin and the Sahel. And third, the violence continues to feed on deeper domestic vulnerabilities that extend far beyond the battlefield: chronic poverty, educational exclusion, weak local governance, and the long erosion of the social contract in parts of the North.

Let us begin with the first point. Recent attacks demonstrate that the insurgent ecosystem has learned, adapted, and expanded beyond the old image of a crudely armed rebellion fighting in predictable ways. The ISIL affiliate in West Africa Province (ISWAP), in particular, has become more adaptive in structure and tactics, while its conflict with Boko Haram has weakened the latter and left ISWAP as the more organised and deeply entrenched threat in the Lake Chad region. It has consolidated its presence in parts of the Lake Chad basin and expanded into Sambisa Forest, widening the space from which it can threaten civilians and military formations alike.

This matters because insurgencies are sustained not by ideology alone, but by terrain, supply routes, local economies, and the ability to move men and materiel through spaces where the state is weak or absent. In that sense, the insurgency is no longer merely surviving in familiar hideouts; it is entrenching itself in a broader and more fluid battlespace, with ISWAP’s control of trade in and around Lake Chad now a major pillar of its resilience.

ISWAP has also refined the way it fights, demonstrating a growing capacity for coordinated assaults, night raids, ambushes, and operations designed not merely to inflict casualties, but to isolate military positions and slow the movement of reinforcements. This challenge is magnified by the sheer scale of the theatre itself.

Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa states are each comparable in size to entire European countries: Borno is slightly larger than the Republic of Ireland; Yobe is roughly the size of Switzerland; and Adamawa is slightly larger than Belgium. Policing territories of that scale would test any state, all the more so when they border a fragile regional neighbourhood.

The terrain has also shaped the rhythm of the conflict, with the dry season, particularly the first quarter of the year, ushering in an intensification of attacks.

At the heart of this adaptation is the evolution of technology. What once seemed unthinkable in this theatre has now entered the insurgent repertoire. Drones, including commercially available models modified for combat, are now part of the operational environment. The significance of this shift is not merely technical; it is also psychological and strategic.

Beyond technology, the insurgency’s growing mobility has sharpened the threat further. Rapid assaults by motorcycle-mounted units demonstrate the extent to which insurgent violence now depends on speed, concentration, and dispersal. Fighters can assemble quickly, strike vulnerable locations, and disappear into difficult terrain before an effective response can take shape.

The advantage here lies not in holding territory in the conventional sense, but in imposing uncertainty, stretching the state’s defensive attentions, and proving that the insurgents can still choose where and when to shock the system.

Perhaps the most dangerous dimension of this adaptation is the infiltration of foreign fighters. Their significance lies not only in their numbers, but in what they bring with them: technical knowledge, battlefield experience, tactical imagination, and links to wider militant networks.

Their presence points to a deeper cross-fertilisation between local insurgency and global terrorist currents. More troubling still, they are now playing a more active role in the conflict, not only refining tactics and skills but also participating directly in combat.

That is why the regional dimension must be central to any serious analysis. The weakening of regional cooperation has come at the worst time, creating openings that insurgents are only too ready to exploit. A threat that has always been transnational becomes harder to confront when neighbouring states no longer act with sufficient cohesion.

Niger’s withdrawal from the Multinational Joint Task Force after the reaction of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to the military coup there has sharpened that challenge and weakened the perimeter defences of the north-east theatre. The force, comprising troops from Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Chad, with a smaller Beninese contingent at its headquarters in N’Djamena, was instrumental in earlier gains and remains vital for reinforcing positions, conducting operations in difficult terrain, denying insurgents safe havens, and intercepting the movement of foreign fighters.

Yet even regional analysis, necessary as it is, does not fully explain the problem. Insurgencies endure not only because they move across borders, but because they can recruit, regroup, and exploit social weakness at home.

Violence in northern Nigeria is sustained by a combination of doctrinal extremism, chronic poverty, educational exclusion, and a state whose presence is often too limited to command confidence in the communities where armed groups seek recruits. The argument, therefore, cannot remain confined to the military sphere.

Poverty and lack of education do not directly produce terrorism, but they increase vulnerability, especially where alienation, weak institutions, and manipulative ideological narratives are already present. This is why the educational crisis in northern Nigeria should be seen not only as a developmental challenge, but as part of the wider security landscape. Education does more than impart literacy and numeracy; it provides structure, routine, and pathways to self-actualisation and social belonging.

It is important to note that the government is not without a response. In 2024, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the Student Loans (Access to Higher Education) Act into law, and the rollout of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund has since opened a wider path to post-secondary education and skills development. But the more decisive educational challenge lies earlier, at the basic level, where literacy begins, habits are formed, and attachment to institutions is either built or lost. By the time a young person reaches the threshold of higher education, the foundational work has already been done or neglected.

This is why local governance matters more to security than is often recognised. In Nigeria’s federal structure, primary education sits closest to the weakest and most politically distorted tier of government. If local government remains fiscally weak, administratively paralysed, or politically captured, one of the country’s most important long-term defences against radicalisation will remain fragile.

That is why local government autonomy, though often framed in dry constitutional terms, has direct implications for security. President Tinubu, an ardent champion of local autonomy, welcomed the Supreme Court’s July 2024 judgement affirming the constitutional and financial rights of local governments and has pressed governors to respect it. Resistance, however, is unsurprising: many governors have long treated local governments as subordinate extensions of their authority.

So what does the present moment demand from Nigeria? It demands, certainly, continued military pressure on insurgent sanctuaries. It demands stronger force protection, sharper intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, improved rural and urban security, and a more serious approach to trans-border diplomacy. It demands that regional diplomacy be treated not as a luxury of peacetime statecraft, but as part of the operational infrastructure of security.

But the crisis cannot be addressed by military action alone. It also calls for social, institutional, and educational measures across all tiers of government. The state must confront extremism not only through force, but through education and functioning local institutions. It must rebuild governance, restore trust, and close the social and institutional fractures through which violence renews itself.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

On March 25, the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the United Nations General Assembly passed a landmark resolution. Proposed by Ghana, it recognised the transatlantic slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity” and called for reparations. A total of 123 countries supported the resolution; three opposed it, including the United States and Israel, while 52 abstained, Britain among them, and several European Union countries.

The UN’s slavery resolution is a historic moment, but what comes next is even more important. Leading up to the resolution, the African Union urged its 55 member states to pursue slavery reparations through formal apologies, the return of stolen artefacts, financial compensation, and guarantees of non-repetition.

This raises a question the resolution does not directly ask: reparations from whom, and to whom? If the answer is simply from European governments to African governments, then the reparations movement risks ignoring the long history of European engagement with Africa, and in doing so delivering justice to the wrong people.

What the reparations debate misses

The contemporary framing of the reparations debate is seductive in its simplicity: Europeans arrived in Africa, Africans were enslaved, Europeans grew rich, and Africans became impoverished. Therefore, Europe owes Africa. This narrative carries moral force, but it risks flattening the complex history of European engagement with the continent.

While European actors undeniably drove the demand for enslaved labour, African political and economic elites were not passive victims. They played a significant role in capturing, transporting and selling enslaved people to European traders.

In some cases, African states, seeking to expand their treasuries and consolidate territorial power, preyed on neighbouring communities, condemning them to enslavement for profit. The Oyo Empire, a powerful Yoruba state in what is now south-western Nigeria, expanded significantly in the eighteenth century through its participation in this commerce. Across the region, African elites who had the means sustained the system by exchanging enslaved people for European goods such as alcohol, textiles and other manufactured commodities.

None of this diminishes European culpability in the slave trade. The demand was European. The ships were European. The plantation system was European. The racialised ideology constructed to justify slavery was European. But it does complicate the story.

The transatlantic slave trade was not solely a narrative of African victimhood and European perpetration. It is a story of elite collaboration, which did not end when the slave ships stopped sailing.

The historical argument: three phases, one logic

European encounter with African societies can be understood in three broad phases, each distinct in form but similar in the underlying logic of collaborative extraction.

The first phase was slavery. Europeans extracted human labour from Africa, often with the active participation of African political rulers. Britain emerged as the world’s leading slave-trading country, transporting roughly 3.4 million Africans across the Atlantic between 1640 and 1807. The abolition of the British slave trade in 1807 marked the formal end of this phase. But abolition did not disrupt the underlying logic of the elite collaboration. It reshaped it.

The second phase was colonialism. A less understood aspect of European domination in Africa is how seamlessly some African rulers transitioned from collaborators during the slave trade to intermediaries in the colonial period.

In Nigeria, for example, regional African rulers became intermediaries for British administrators. As Nigerian historian, Moses Ochonu, demonstrates in Emirs in London, a study of Northern Nigerian Muslim aristocrats who travelled to Britain between 1920 and independence in 1960, these African figures were far from passive subjects of British rule. They actively leveraged their relationship with British authorities to reinforce their own authority at home. Such sponsored travel to the imperial centre helped solidify personal ties between Nigerian elites and British administrators, reinforcing the system of indirect rule.

The third and current phase is the postcolonial era. While formal empire has ended, the structure of elite alignment endures. In countries such as Nigeria, the majority of citizens remain largely excluded from political and economic power. The institutional successors of intermediaries and collaborators during the eras of slavery and colonial rule are now running the African postcolonial states.

Rather than dismantling extractive systems, many have repurposed them. Similar patterns of exclusion and extraction that defined earlier periods have been reproduced, leaving the majority of Africans short-changed by a system that continues to serve elite interests.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu’s state visit to the United Kingdom last month – complete with royal ceremony, photo opportunities and symbolic gestures – reflected this relationship whose origins lie in the very history the UN resolution condemns. While the majority of Nigerians face difficult socio-economic conditions, the British government announced that Nigerian companies would create hundreds of new jobs in the UK.

This is not an anomaly but a continuation of the extractive logic that shaped the slave trade and colonialism. It endures, now recast in the language of diplomacy and partnership.

Reparations are just, and Britain’s debt is undeniable. But direction matters. If compensation flows from one set of elites to another, the oppressed majority of Africans will once again be excluded. True justice must run in two directions: from European states to formerly colonised societies, and from African elites to the citizens they continue to exploit.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

At the end of every farming season, farmers across Kwapre, an agrarian community in Hong Local Government Area (LGA) of Adamawa State in northeastern Nigeria, come together to mark an annual event. Known for their guinea corn farming, the men in Kwapre take turns harvesting each other’s farms. A date is fixed for each farmer, and the rest join him on the farm. While the men work, a set of drummers line up behind them, and the women scatter across the field, singing and dancing to the melody of the talking drum.

Harvest season here was always a farming festival that held the community together for generations. It was the celebration of a bountiful harvest, and after every farmer’s crop had been harvested, the whole community came together to drink and make merry. The festival, however, would later stop as insurgency and violence steadily eroded the safety and cohesion of the community.

Buba Baba, a farmer who used to live in Kwapre, remembers the festival with nostalgia. 

“We were living well. We had an abundant food supply, and our families were well taken care of,” he recounted. 

Everything changed in 2014. The insurgency in the region intensified. The Boko Haram terror group peaked and began spreading its influence across Borno State through sustained attacks and by asserting control over captured communities. From Bama in Borno to Sambisa Forest, the group pushed into hinterland settlements, imposing its rule in areas under its control while terrorising those beyond it.

This influence extended across border communities, cutting through the edges of Borno and spilling into northern Adamawa. Violence moved easily through these indistinguishable boundaries, reaching rural communities in Adamawa. Places like Kwapre, Shuwari, Kaya, and several localities across Madagali, Hong, and Michika LGAs fell within the terror group’s reach. Across these local governments, communities faced the threat of displacement from their land and the loss of their ancestral culture, a fate that soon reached Kwapre. 

That same year, terrorists invaded the community. The annual farming festival became inconsistent over the years and eventually stopped when the once-vibrant area was finally completely abandoned in 2025. 

The violence that broke ties 

Buba is among the over 200,000 persons who have been displaced by Boko Haram in Adamawa State, with most of them from Michika and Madagali local government areas.

He told HumAngle that Boko Haram first attacked his community in 2014, and residents fled the area. After a year, the locals returned, but the terrorists kept storming the area at intervals. Some left for good, while others, like Buba, stayed behind, clinging to their ancestral inheritance and hoping that the violence would end. 

“We go back when everything is calm and flee when the conflict starts again, but by 2025, we have all left, and there is currently no one in Kwapre,” Buba said. 

Boko Haram has been displacing residents in Adamawa since 2014. About 40 people were killed after the terrorists attacked seven villages in Michika and its environs in 2014. In 2016, the group invaded the Kuda Kaya village of Madagali LGA and killed 24 people during indiscriminate shooting. 

In 2019, Boko Haram struck again, but some of them were killed in Madagali after they tried to infiltrate a military camp. However, one soldier and a civilian were killed. In 2020, Kirchinga village in Madagali was attacked after the insurgents stormed the area. Houses were razed and shops looted, causing residents to flee. 

Other attacks were unreported. Data from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) shows that a total of 665 individuals from 133 households were displaced from their communities in Madagali by a non-state armed group in June 2022. 

Chinapi Agara, a resident of Garaha, another community in Hong, told HumAngle that when the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a Boko Haram breakaway group, attacked a military base in the area in February, communities within Garaha had experienced a surge in kidnappings in the last few years, which had forced many to flee. 

“Lots of communities like Kwapre, Gabba, and Lar have been completely displaced,” he said. Chinapi’s relative died from a stray bullet during the attack. 

Shuwari in Kirchinga, under the Madagali LGA of Adamawa State, is one community that has been deserted following insurgents’ attacks in the area. Despite the recurring attacks in the last decade, locals stayed back, but in February, the entire village was deserted after Boko Haram stormed the area and opened fire on locals. HumAngle learned that 21 people were killed, including the Shuwari community leader. 

Bitrus Peter, a resident of Kirchinga, told HumAngle that this was not the first Boko Haram attack in the area. “Since we came back from displacement in 2015, we have been facing this challenge. Sometimes, they give a break of a year or two and then return,” he said.  

Gambo Stephen, a survivor of the February attack in Shuwari who has since fled the area, told HumAngle that residents have now been scattered across various places.

Back in Shuwari, Gambo owned a barbing salon that brought in a modest income to support his wife and four children. “I opened the shop immediately after I was done with my tertiary education, and for years, it helped me to provide for my family,” he noted. 

On February 24, when Boko Haram raided Shuwari, Gambo’s salon was burnt to the ground alongside other houses and properties in the area. “I narrowly escaped because five people who were running with me were all shot dead,” Gambo said. 

‘Geographically threatened’

These localities around Kirchinga are geographically at risk of cultural loss.

Kirchinga town itself is a border settlement between Adamawa and Borno states. It lies along the banks of a large river that sustains a livelihood built around fishing. Even with seasonal drying of the water, satellite imagery shows stretches of low-lying land between the levelled terrain,  supporting farming during the dry season.  

Beyond this, the area serves as a pathway between Borno and Adamawa, with a road tracing the river’s path and linking a chain of localities. Agricultural fields, water sources, and this road network connect these settlements across the local government area through markets and other primary commercial activities. 

The land around the settlement dwarfs it. The road sustains movement and exchange, but along that same path is the spread of insurgent influence.

Zooming out from Kirchinga through satellite imagery reveals the other settlements facing similar patterns of displacement and abandonment. To the north lies Bikiti. While its layout differs from Kirchinga, the parallels are clear in the vast cultivation fields surrounding the settlement. Alongside these are a mix of swampy wetlands and local streams, supporting a range of ecosystem services, from farming to aquatic life and small game. 

Beyond this lies a large stretch of uninhabited land, many times larger than the settlement itself, composed almost entirely of cultivated fields. Further out, this landscape opens into forested areas that connect toward Sambisa Forest, long associated with insurgent strongholds.

Though these places differ in their satellite layouts, their cultural identities are evident from above. Whether through farming, fishing, hunting or trade, the patterns on the land reflect the life of the people who lived there. These are the same patterns that begin to disappear as displacement takes hold.

Kuda Kaya, another such settlement, offers another case in point. Located northeast of Kirchinga, it has become known for both attacks and displacement. 

It is a small settlement, easy to miss at a wider satellite scale. Within its tight layout are key structures: a primary school, a health post, and an administrative building, surrounded by clusters of homes. The settlement itself is heavily vegetated, with tree cover rising to roof level. Beyond this, shorter grasslands spread into cultivated fields, intersected by small streams. While hunting may not be the dominant activity, the landscape supports tree crops and grain farming.

The intent behind settlement patterns becomes clear when looking at historical imagery, even as far back as 2004, available on Google Earth. The ancestral communities chose flat terrain near rivers or streams, or large forest areas, settling in compact clusters while using the surrounding land for food production.

At present, signs of abandonment are not always as obvious as in parts of Borno or Benue in the country’s North Central. Some of these communities endured repeated attacks, with residents returning each time. But over time, the strain of persistent insecurity led to wider displacement and, in most recent cases, total abandonment.

In a few years, many of these buildings will begin to collapse. Roofs will give way, and some structures will be burned, patterns already observed across abandoned communities affected by insurgency in Nigeria. What will also become visible is the absence of farming. Recent imagery already shows early signs of neglect across what were once actively cultivated lands. 

The same likely extends to the rivers. While satellite imagery cannot fully capture changes in aquatic life, the absence of regular human activity around these waters will affect both the ecosystem and the human systems tied to it, similar to what has been observed in parts of the Lake Chad region.

Zooming further out shows northern Adamawa marked by these border communities, many of which are now within displacement hotspots.

Today, many of their residents live in resettled communities and displacement camps still active across the region, some farther away, removed from the cultural heritage their ancestral lands once provided. They adapt to the host communities, the only available way for them. They can no longer point to land and trace ownership or inheritance. Even when they take up familiar activities like farming, fishing, or hunting, they remain outsiders for a time.

The geographic shift may not always be extreme, but the separation from their roots is. The connection is severed, even when practices are carried into new environments. For those displaced, especially across generations or into prolonged uncertainty, that break becomes harder to repair. It is reinforced by the trauma of the violence that forced them out.

Some still hold on to the hope of return. Others are already preparing to move on, regardless of what becomes of home.

Resettlement 

When the terrorists returned to Kwapre in 2025, Buba faced a near-death experience, and that was the last straw. He fled with his wife and five children alongside other community members when the village was being set ablaze. 

“I left home empty,” he stated, adding that his family didn’t flee with any belongings. 

Buba moved into Hong town, where he settled with his family. With each passing day, he remembered home, but he knew it would be unwise to return. It’s been about a year since Buba resettled in Hong town. He describes the last couple of months as hell. 

“We are suffering, and since I was born, I have never suffered like this,” he said. Buba is unsure of his exact age, but is estimated to be in his 50s. “We have to pay for house rent, and there is no money to do so. We are always pleading with the landlord. We are also managing food supply,”  he lamented. 

Back at Kwapre, Buba had his own house. As a full-time farmer, he said his harvest was always bountiful, and his family was always cared for, but now, they even struggle to feed themselves. He currently works as a labourer on a construction site. His task is to fill up trucks with sand and transport them, but the wage barely covers his family’s needs. Since he has been a farmer all his life, Buba acquired a plot of land in his new area so he could cultivate crops, keep some, and sell the rest to augment his income from his labouring job. 

“I cultivated last year, but it was destroyed by cattle, and I couldn’t get even a bag of maize during the harvest,” he said. 

While he considers himself lucky to be alive, Buba says life has taken a difficult turn. “I can’t even pay my children’s school fees. I registered them in a school here in Hong town but they have just been sent back home,” he said. 

After making it out of Shuwari, Gambo travelled to Yola, the capital of Adamawa State, and settled in an old secondary school in Saminaka, a neighbourhood in the city. 

“I didn’t leave with anything because they burnt everything, so someone gave me a student mattress to lie on,” he said. 

After taking shelter at the school, he was able to phone his wife, who had made it out safely with his four children. 

“They are currently staying with her relatives in Madagali town,” he said. 

Gambo feels his family is better off without him because he has nothing to offer them. 

“Thank God for relatives because they do buy things and give them, and also some friends. If I had left home with some of my valuables, I would have started a business, but I don’t have anything on me. They (Boko Haram) also burnt my farm produce, slaughtered all my cattle alongside others in the village,” he said. 

If the violence ever ceases and peace is permanently restored, Gambo said he would never return to Shuwari, for he had seen enough. 

“My friends died there, and it’s only God that protected me, especially my wife and children,” he said. 

Gambo told HumAngle that the community is completely deserted and that his main concern right now is raising capital to start a business at his new location in Saminaka. If things somehow get better, he would send for his family to join him. 

In 2025, HumAngle reported how many displaced persons from Adamawa are stuck in displacement camps for about a decade because their hometowns remain unsafe. 

Ghost towns

While he has not kept in touch with anyone from his community since he fled, Buba fears that the name ‘Kwapre’ will be erased from history, as the once-lively village now lies empty and silent. He wished things were different. He dreams of a time when the terrorists will stop invading the area, and his people will return and carry on with their regular lives. He looks forward to the annual harvest festival, but he believes his aspirations are not enough to hold water. 

“People from Kwapre have been scattered across different regions. It’s even difficult to keep in touch with close relatives,” Buba said. 

But if the violence ceases and peace is permanently restored, Buba said he will return home even if it means he will be the only one living there. At least, he’ll have his house, his large farmlands and grains filled in his store. His children won’t go hungry, and he won’t have to labour day and night. 

However, some questions linger in his mind: When will the violence end, and even if it does, will Kwapre be the same again?

According to Gambo, the fact that he misses Shuwari can’t be denied. It was the only home he had known all his life. “We used to celebrate together when we were in the village. We lived peacefully, but when the insurgency started, everything crumbled,” he said.

While he misses the community that has stood by him his whole life, Gambo has made up his mind: he is done with Shuwari.

“I won’t go back because the village is on the border of Sambisa Forest,” he said. 

Studies have shown that the Boko Haram insurgency in Adamawa, which targets communities near the Sambisa Forest, has caused several communities within the Northern Senatorial District of the state to vanish. Madagali, Michika and Hong local governments specifically have the highest number of abandoned communities as attacks continue to intensify. From 2023 to 2025, villages in Kwapre, Zah, Kinging, Mubang, and Dabna in the Hong local government, with a combined population of over 10,000, were said to have been massively displaced, with many residents fleeing to safer towns. 

Sini Peter, the youth leader of Kirchinga community in Madagali, told HumAngle that a lot of cultural festivals have stopped due to Boko Haram’s consistent attacks in the area. 

The Yawal festival, the most popular cultural event in the area, was held annually in the middle of the year and is no longer held. 

“A grass would be tied to a guinea corn stem, which is a year old, and we would go out early in the morning, around 3 a.m., to chant,” Sini recalls how the festival used to be held. 

The Yawal festival was so significant to the Kirchinga people that the ritual had to be completed before locals could carry out their daily activities. The chants were traditional songs believed to ward off death from the community and were sung every morning on the day of the festival. Locals were always eager to participate in the ritual and sing the song until terrorists started invading the area.

However, they no longer believe in the ritual’s efficacy or mark the festival, according to Sini. “Boko Haram attacks made death a normal thing to us today,” he said. 

According to the youth leader, the February attack on Shuwari, which had caused residents to flee the area completely, shows a broader displacement pattern across Madagali communities that have been affected in the area. 

“Villages like Imirsa, Madukufam, Balgi and Yafa, which are bordering Kirchinga, are empty due to the Boko Haram issues,” he said, adding that the terrorists have been looting properties like roofing sheets in some of these communities from time to time. 

While many have deserted these areas for good, including Kirchinga town, Sini is among those who stayed behind. “I know that wherever a Marghi man goes, he will remember home because he will not enjoy anywhere like home. Even with the killings, we don’t have anywhere like Kirchinga,” he stated. 

Speaking on the security situation in the area, he noted that the security architecture in Kirchinga is very poor. “What should be done is not done because fear is all over us, including the security personnel,” he said. 

When Ahmadu Fintiri, the governor of Adamawa State, visited the area following the attack in Shuwari, he vowed to secure the area, but Sini fears the promise will not translate into action. 

“There are people trained now; they are called Forest Guards, and when the attacks happen, they do not have arms, but after the governor left, they were given AK-47s, but when they want to go for duty, they have to go to Shuwa to get the arms and return them after duty,” Sini said. 

He explained that this strategy might not work, as the forest guards spend over ₦1,000 daily to obtain and return arms in Shuwa, as protocol demands. 

It’s been a month since people treaded the Shuwari path, and with the community now completely deserted, Gambo fears that his children might never know their ancestral homes or experience the cultural heritage that once united their people. 

What’s left of the ghost towns?

The analysis of satellite imagery from 2013 to 2025 across 14 communities in Adamawa State, using specialised satellite sensors (Landsat/Sentinel), shows environmental change linked to abandonment and displacement. When fields are left uncultivated, the land does not simply freeze in time. In some areas, weeds overtake cultivation, while in others, the soil and greenery collapse, leaving the land barren. 

In communities like Larh and Dabna, the data shows a steady increase in shrubs and bushes. In recent times, peak vegetation values in Larh have risen by nearly 12 per cent, as weeds are left unattended in places where farmlands used to be. 

The seasonal variation has also increased, indicating that the lands now support vegetation growth in response to rainfall rather than following a stable, cultivated rhythm. Mubang and Banga show similar trends, with significant growth in peak farmland weed growth over the same period. The land is reclaiming itself in a chaotic, unregulated way, with invasive, fast-growing plants dominating.

On the other hand, several communities tell a different story. Kirchinga and Kopa have experienced dramatic declines in greenness, with vegetation dropping by 27 per cent and 23 per cent, respectively. These are areas where abandonment appears to have compounded other pressures, such as erosion, burning, or neglect, leaving the soil exposed and vulnerable. 

Shuwari and Yaza have also lost nearly one-fifth of their peak greenness over the same period. Unlike Larh or Dabna, these communities are not witnessing vigorous shrub growth. Instead, the land shows signs of degradation, with both peak greenness and seasonal variability shrinking, suggesting that vegetation’s capacity to recover is weakening. 

This has long-term implications for returnees. The data highlights a dual response to abandonment. In some areas, the absence of farming has allowed nature to fill the gaps, though not always in ways that benefit local livelihoods. In others, the land deteriorates quickly once cultivation stops, leaving behind increasingly unproductive expanses. 

These two observed outcomes will shape the future of the homes should locals return. 

Benin will elect a new president on Sunday in a race that is shaping up to favour the chosen successor of the governing party, which has been in power for the past decade.

Outgoing President Patrice Talon, 67, is barred under the constitution from running again after two terms in power, and will step down with a legacy of mixed results: economic growth, but also a clampdown on the opposition and critics.

The small West African nation with a population of 14 million has also seen increasing numbers of attacks in its north as Sahel-based armed groups expand their territories towards the Atlantic coast.

Benin is sandwiched between its bigger neighbour, Nigeria, to the east and Togo to the west. The coastal country has increasingly gained attention as a tourist destination as more people from the African diaspora flock to its windy beach towns.

A former French colony, Benin retains French as its official language. Fon, Yoruba, Bariba, and Fulfulde are among the largest local languages spoken in the country.

Here’s what to know about Sunday’s election:

What’s happening?

About eight million eligible voters will choose a president for the next seven years.

Candidates will need to secure at least 50 percent of the votes; otherwise, a run-off will be called on May 10 between the top two candidates.

There are only two candidates, however.

The main opposition party, the Democrats, failed to get enough lawmakers to sponsor a candidate, so it is not on the presidential ballot. It earlier failed to win any seats in legislative elections in January.

Reporting from a governing party campaign event in the commercial capital, Cotonou, this week, Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris said the mood there was lively, but that it did not represent feelings in all of Benin after the main opposition party was sidelined.

“Most supporters of President Talon feel that this is a walkover …The only question will be whether the voting population will turn out in huge numbers. The last election we had only 50 percent,” he said.

Who is running?

Romuald Wadagni: The 49-year-old is presently the country’s finance minister and is the candidate of the governing alliance between the Progressive Union Renewal (UPR) and the Republican Bloc (BR).

A former Deloitte executive, he is expected to take a comfortable lead on Sunday, having been endorsed by current leader Talon, with whom he says he has a “father-and-son” relationship.

Wadagni, in his campaign, has touted the benefits of continuity that would come with his win. He has highlighted achievements under Talon, like tripling the national budget and posting the cotton-exporting country’s highest GDP growth rates in more than two decades.

He is also proposing new development hubs and expanding healthcare access.

Under Talon, “I had the honour of managing one of your most precious assets: your money,” Wadagni told supporters on the campaign trail in March. “I will do the job with the same seriousness and dedication,” he said.

On Friday, the final day of campaigning, he told supporters in Cotonou: “We are going to move forward, go even further with what began before your very eyes,” referring to a decade of economic transformation in the country.

Paul Hounkpe: The 56-year-old is the only opposing candidate.

A former teacher, he represents the Cowry Forces for ⁠an Emerging Benin party (FCBE).

He was formerly the culture minister under the government of ex-leader Thomas Boni Yayi of The Democrats. He also ran as a vice presidential candidate in the 2021 elections.

He is seen as a moderate, and has pledged to reduce the price of basic products and to secure the release of opponents imprisoned under Talon’s administration.

Hounkpe has campaigned on the perceived sidelining of citizens despite economic growth and flashy tourism projects under the current government.

What are the key issues?

Continuing Talon’s economic legacy

Economic growth sustained for a decade has been among Talon’s strongest achievements, and Beninese will be looking for a president who can sustain or improve on that.

Benin’s economy grew 7 percent in 2025 according to the International Monetary Fund, making it one of the region’s steadiest economies.

That’s driven by investments in trade, agriculture and infrastructure, including port expansions in Cotonou.

On the other hand, benefits have not been equally distributed across the country as poverty remains widespread in rural areas, especially in the poorer north.

Rising insecurity and political stability

Benin made headlines in December after a group of military officers attempted but failed to seize power. About 100 alleged coup planners are still in jail awaiting trial.

The coup leaders’ key complaints were the deterioration of security in northern Benin, where al-Qaeda and ISIL(ISIS)-affiliated armed groups from neighbouring Sahelian countries have increasingly launched attacks on communities. They said soldiers were “neglected” on the front lines.

Benin’s north is close to the tri-border area, a hotbed for armed violence. Lack of security cooperation with Niger and Burkina Faso, both now led by military leaders, has worsened the situation.

An attack by the al-Qaeda-backed Jama’at Nusrat al‑Islam wal‑Muslimin (JNIM) on Benin military posts last year killed 54 soldiers. Last month, another 15 were killed.

Candidate Wadagni has promised to defend the north by creating municipal police forces to guard border towns.

Shrinking democratic space

Talon has also been accused of dragging the country back into an era of autocracy, especially after authorities shut down cost-of-living protests in April 2024.

Beninese treasure the country’s reputation as one of West Africa’s most stable democracies in recent times, but critics say that has changed under Talon, and opposition groups accuse him of using the justice system to undermine other parties.

A constitutional reform in November extended presidential terms from five to seven years. It also established grounds for the president to nominate candidates to the Senate, which further raised the bar for opposition parties to enter parliament.

In January’s parliamentary election, Talon’s two allied parties controlled all 109 seats in the National Assembly.

Rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have meanwhile accused Talon’s government of cracking down on dissent through arbitrary detentions, restrictions on demonstrations, and pressure on independent media.

For Ike Uche and many others looking to flee the turmoil of gang violence in Niger State, North Central Nigeria, the eastern bypass area of the Minna metropolis was supposed to be a sanctuary. After years of hard work, Ike finally finished building his house, which is located behind the M. I. Wushishi Housing Estate along the bypass.

For him, the move symbolised a fresh start, a promise of safety, and a chance to raise his family in a peaceful environment. The quiet streets, the open plots waiting for development, and the hum of a growing community gave him hope that life there would be different from New Market, an area notorious for gang violence in Minna. Within a year of moving there, that dream began to die when gold was said to have been discovered in the community. 

For about five years now, the silence of his neighbourhood has been broken not by the laughter of children or the bustle of new shops, but by the metallic clang of shovels and the chaos of hundreds of illegal miners, mostly youths. 

Illegal miners had occupied lands within the community. Armed with weapons, cutlasses, and knives, and emboldened by impunity, they dig through residential lands in search of gold, carving scars into the earth and into the lives of those who lived there.  

At first, Ike thought it was a case of young people constituting a nuisance, but when he confronted the miners who closed onto his property, his worst fears materialised. The same day he confronted them in late 2024, his home was attacked. During the attack, miners rained insults, calling him an enemy of progress and telling him to mind his own business while they focused on theirs.

“They vandalised my house,” he said, his voice heavy with frustration. “People from the ministry came to my house and told me that the government will take action. It’s been over a year now; the situation has only worsened.”

His vehicle was damaged too; his windows were shattered, doors broken, and even his ceiling ripped apart.

“I had to shoulder all the responsibilities to fix everything myself,” he said, pointing to the patched walls and replaced fittings. For him, the cost was not just financial but also emotional: a constant reminder that the safety he sought had been stolen.  

Even after the attack, the miners threatened to attack again. What was meant to be a safe haven had gradually changed into a battleground, where the pursuit of illicit wealth outweighed the sanctity of family and home.

“If you come here during the rainy season, you will see more than one thousand people digging through people’s land,” he said. “It’s because we are in the dry season that their presence has reduced, but we still feel threatened by them.”

This climate of fear has silenced many residents. “That is why a lot of people are scared to speak about it publicly because they can be attacked by these boys,” he added.

For many people living in the area, safety has become a significant concern.

“How can one be safe in this kind of environment?” Ike wondered. “If I have another means to leave here, I would because we no longer feel safe here. This is not something somebody will start asking questions about; everybody knows that on the issue of gold mining, the government is not doing anything. The three-arm zone is not far from here; they are seeing it. It’s on the expressway, and they’re not taking any serious action. That is why they are doing it without any fear.”

The damage caused by illegal mining in Minna’s eastern bypass is not limited to land alone; it has seeped into the lives of residents, eroding their sense of safety and community. During field reporting, HumAngle observed how roads once passable have been torn apart by miners digging for gold, leaving behind networks of gullies and broken pathways.

Illegal mining in Niger State’s metropolitan area remains unchecked, characterised by blatant impunity and the failure of security agencies to take decisive action. Massive pits were seen scattered across vast lands. One of the pits was so deep that it held over 15 people in sequence as they disposed of debris. This massive pit sat close to a carcass that was now covered in debris.

Locals, including Muhammad Ndagi, claim that most miners are not originally from Minna, with many arriving from Sokoto and Zamfara in northwestern Nigeria. Armed with machetes, some illegal miners in  Minna are emboldened by weak enforcement, vandalising properties, including one belonging to an army general. Beyond the damages, illegal mining sites in Minna have become arenas of violence, where weapons are now part of daily survival. 

An illegal miner who simply identifies as Rugged explained that the practice began as a response to constant power struggles among young people in the state capital.

“Miners who are stronger or have the numbers tend to attack the weak ones to collect their gold or money. So, we decided to also come with our weapons in order to protect ourselves and avoid intimidation,” the illicit miner told HumAngle.  

Over time, the weapons were not only used against rival miners but also against residents and security personnel. Confirming what residents told HumAngle, Rugged admitted that when community members tried to stop them, they were chased away with threats.

“With the weapons, they were scared, and we would chase them away. We also use them to protect ourselves from security personnel who come to disrupt our activities,” he added.  

The presence of men, women, and children at these sites underscores how deeply entrenched their activity has become. Ndagi stated that attempts by Nigeria Civil Defence Corps (NCDC) officers to intervene are often met with hostility, as the miners retaliate as a gang.

“Whenever their vehicles approach, the miners start shouting ‘ƙarya ne!’ and throwing stones,” Ndagi said. “If anyone is arrested by the civil defence officers, the miners converge as a gang to fight them, and at the end they get released before returning to continue their operations.”  

“They have left mining activity in the hands of hoodlums who you can’t dare challenge even on your property, and as a taxpayer,” Ndagi lamented.

Residents expressed concerns over the possible consequences of these illegal activities, which include devastating effects on waterways as they expand towards homes, buildings at risk of collapse, and daily clashes involving machetes.

Girls in the pits of gold

Mining activities in the metropolis have also attracted many girls, including school-aged children, who abandon classrooms for the lure of quick earnings. Hannatu Audu, a 16-year-old student of Hilltop Model School, is one of them. She told HumAngle that on some days she earns between ₦10,000 and ₦15,000, and once made as much as ₦300,000 from selling gold. But the money comes at a high cost. In her pursuit of survival, she has nearly lost her life multiple times inside collapsing pits. 

On one occasion, after returning to retrieve her pan, the soil caved in and buried her completely. 

“I went into the pit to gather materials, and when I came out to look for water to wash and separate the gold, I realised I had forgotten my pan inside. So, I went back in to get it. That was when the soil collapsed and buried me for the third time,”  she recalled.

“My friend noticed I hadn’t come out. She saw fresh soil in the pit and shouted for help. People kept digging until they reached my waist; that was when I finally got to breathe. But as they continued, the pit collapsed again. I only woke up the next day to find myself lying on a hospital bed.” 

Since the incident, Hannatu has been scared to go back.  “I want to, because that’s where we feed from. But anytime I think of going there, I feel something bad will happen to me,” she said. Beyond the physical dangers, Hannatu told HumAngle that she and other girls face constant harassment. 

At the sites, men often demand sexual favours, threatening to deny access to pits or refuse assistance with heavy tasks if these are declined.

“There are instances where you need a stronger person to help you, especially in digging or pulling out the debris you intend to wash because it is heavy. So, if you decline their proposal, they will hate you and hinder you from even accessing the pits they have dug,” she noted. 

Women and girls in northern Nigeria’s mining sites face severe risks, including sexual harassment, exploitation, and life-threatening accidents, forcing many girls into vulnerable positions, where survival is negotiated not only through labour but also through resisting exploitation. 

Hannatu revealed that sympathetic miners intervene to protect them, but the environment remains hostile. “To cope, we form girls-only groups, working together to reduce dependence on men so that we can protect ourselves from predators. 

The dangers remain constant. Hannatu acknowledged that she has lost track of how many people have perished in the pits.

“For young girls like myself, mining is both a lifeline and a trap: because it is a place where we can earn enough to feed our families, yet where every day carries the possibility of violence, exploitation, or death,” she noted.

A broader crisis 

Illegal mining in Nigeria is not only an economic drain but is also a direct driver of insecurity. According to a 2025 report by the National Assembly Library Trust Fund, unregulated mining sites in the north-central and northwestern states have become fertile ground for armed groups. 

Terror groups impose “protection fees” on miners, smuggle minerals to finance weapons, and use mining fields as safe havens. In states like Zamfara, Kaduna, and Niger, the overlap between mining zones and terrorist camps is striking, with many illegal mining sites linked to violent networks, according to the report.

The report also emphasised that mining areas often function as ungoverned spaces, where state authority is absent and criminal groups thrive. Competition over access to gold pits sparks violent clashes, while communities are displaced and stripped of livelihoods.

Illegal mining in Niger State has found its way spreading to parts of Minna metropolis, carving deep scars into several communities and fueling gang violence. A report by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) ranks the state as having the highest number of illegal mining sites in Nigeria. Areas such as Shiroro, Munya, Rafi, and Paikoro Local Government Areas (LGAs) are the most severely affected. These areas, rich in gold and lithium deposits, have become magnets for unlicensed miners and armed groups.  

In Shiroro and Munya, illegal mining fuels insecurity. Armed groups impose “taxes” on miners, using the proceeds to purchase weapons and sustain violent operations. Communities there face displacement, with residents abandoning farmland and homes due to constant attacks. 

In areas like Rafi, illegal mining activities have led to environmental devastation, with road networks and farmlands destroyed by uncontrolled digging. In Paikoro and Minna’s outskirts, such as the Pmapi community, residents recount tragic accidents from collapsed pits and violent reprisals when they challenge miners.

In February this year, the Niger State Government ordered the immediate closure of illegal and non-compliant mining sites. The directive followed a joint inspection carried out by the State Ministry of Mineral Resources in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals Development.  

Leading the delegation, the state’s Commissioner for Mineral Resources, Qasim Danjuma, revealed that operators without valid federal licences and proper state documentation would not be allowed to continue operations. 

While the move signals the government’s renewed effort to curb illegal mining and enforce compliance in the state’s mineral sector, residents in affected communities in the metropolis believe the government is not walking the talk, as the menace persists. 

“Until the government has the political will to stop it, the situation can only get worse, especially as the rainy season is fast approaching,” Ike warned.

Abbas Idris, President of the Risk Managers Society of Nigeria (RIMSON), emphasised that unchecked illegal mining in Minna metropolis could lead to severe environmental damage and security challenges. 

Idris warned that illegal mining leads to the destruction of land, ecological balance, and loss of arable land that could have long term consequences.

“Land degradation increases the risk of flooding during the rainy season, leaving communities exposed to disaster. Also, mining activities undermine infrastructure, weakening roads and buildings, which creates hazardous living conditions and communities in the affected areas are bound to face heightened risks due to poor access to safe housing.”

“Most concerning is that illegal mining operations, especially in a state like Niger where terrorists are turning it into a sanctuary, can fuel crime, violence, and conflicts over resources where armed groups exploit the situation, worsening insecurity and displacing populations,” he added.

While criticising weak governance and ineffective law enforcement, Idris warned that unchecked illegal mining devastates society and traps communities in cycles of insecurity and deprivation.

HumAngle has shared the findings of this report with the Niger State government through the Chief Press Secretary, Ibrahim Bologi, who has failed to respond to the questions aimed at providing clarity on illegal mining in Minna metropolis.

Fuel shocks from the US-Israel war on Iran are rippling worldwide, as Strait of Hormuz disruptions push prices higher. From Nigeria to Vietnam and India, workers face soaring costs, longer hours and lost jobs amid a deepening global energy crisis.

The year was 1975. 

On a quiet afternoon in Bare, a farming community in Numan Local Government Area of Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria, Clement Coleman sat beneath a neem tree with an old friend. Alhaji Sadiki, a herder from the nearby village of Sabewa, had come to visit.

Clement had recently bought two calves, and he believed that Sadiki was best positioned to raise them. There were no contracts to sign, no witnesses to summon. By the end of their conversation, he handed them over to Sadiki. At the time, this was not unusual in Bare. It was the system.

Farmers routinely bought a handful of calves and entrusted them to herders they knew. In return, the herders were given access to farmland within the community, land they could not cultivate themselves because of their nomadic life and the demands of managing large herds. Farmers, in turn, worked those fields on their behalf. 

It was an arrangement built on mutual dependence. At harvest, farmers handed over the yields to the herders. When they needed money or access to their cattle, they turned to the herders to whom they had entrusted their animals. Over time, the cattle multiplied. Farmers who never grazed a single animal came to own sizeable herds. Herders, meanwhile, secured steady food supplies through farms they did not till themselves. Risks were shared, and so were rewards.

That afternoon, Clement and Sadiki sealed their agreement with a handshake.

The pact that fed generations 

For years, the system worked with remarkable ease.

Clement recalls how Sadiki managed the cattle as though they were his own, alerting him whenever one fell ill. “One time, the cows entered someone’s farm and destroyed their crops. Sadiki told me, and I went to the farmer and covered the loss in cash,” Clement told HumAngle. 

A decade on, by 1985, his herd had grown to four cattle. By 1990, it had increased to six. The herd continue to multiply. 

“They were healthy and big. I considered myself a rich man back then,” he recounted. 

The cattle became a financial lifeline. One time when Clement was short of funds and needed to pay for his children’s education, he went to Sadiki and one of the big cows was sold. He paid his children’s fees and used the balance to support his household. He continued to use the system for years to support his family. 

Others relied on the same system.

Buba Sarno, a lifelong herder in Mararaban Bare, never had time to farm. Yet, for four decades, each harvest season, he received about 25 bags of rice and 30 bags of maize. It was simple. All he did was seek land for free and reached an agreement with a local who tended to the farm on his behalf. If the farm required manual labour or fertiliser, Buba sorted it through the farm attendant. “With time, I also cultivated soya beans and other crops, and my family never had to buy food,” Buba told HumAngle. 

Magaji Yakubu, another herder in Mararaban Bare, told HumAngle that he combined grazing with both rainy season and irrigation farming, relying on locals to manage his fields. “I cultivated rice, guineacorn and soya beans,” Magaji noted. Like Sadiki, he tended farmers’ cattle.

The same arrangement played out in Bwashi community in Adamawa’s Demsa Local Government Area, where Theophilus Tapu built his livelihood around it. The 80-year-old farmer is a father of 10 and grandfather of over 40 children. He is considered an accomplished cattle rearer in his community, but Theophilus never led a herd to graze. Instead, he bought young male calves, handed them to trusted herders, and sold them at maturity. 

“I sold them to sort my needs and purchase more young ones, then hand them back to the herders,” he told HumAngle, adding that when some of the herders were migrating, they would hand over his herd to him, and he would entrust it to a new batch of herders. 

The cycle sustained him for over 60 years. 

By 2000, he had lost count of his herd. He explained that his relationship with the herders thrived to the extent that he didn’t have to follow them to the market; the herders sold the cattle and brought him the proceeds. 

It was, in every sense, a shared economy rooted in trust.

From trust to tension 

The trust began to fracture in 2017. 

That year, violence broke out between farmers and herders in several communities in Adamawa State, with Numan and Demsa among the hardest hit local government areas. What had once been isolated disputes escalated into deadly clashes, displacing communities and destroying livelihoods. 

Despite government intervention and multiple peacebuilding efforts, the violence has persisted for almost a decade. 

At its core, the conflict is about land and water. Farmers have accused herders of encroaching on farmlands. Herders, in turn, said grazing routes had been taken over.

In Bare, the turning point came in 2017, when a confrontation between a farmer and a herder spiralled out of control. “The herder took his cattle to the farm, and when the owner of the farm confronted him, things got out of hand, and they started fighting,” Jackson Amna, the District Head of Bare, told HumAngle. 

What began as a verbal confrontation that day turned into full-blown violence, leading to deaths and displacement. The clashes now follow a pattern, according to locals; they subside during the dry season and resurface when farming resumes with the rains. 

HumAngle has extensively covered the conflict in Bare and Mararaban Bare.

With each recurrence, trust erodes further. 

The long-standing system, in which farmers entrusted cattle to herders and herders relied on farmers for farm produce, is steadily collapsing across Numan and Demsa. Even though a few farmers still hand over farmland to herders, the District Head of Bare explained that it is rare. 

“During the 2017 conflict, some herders ran with people’s cattle and have not been seen to date,” Jackson said. “My herd was also taken away by the herder I entrusted them with, so I won’t give my cattle to somebody who can run away with them.”

Strained lives

The consequences have been profound.

When clashes between farmers and herders continued in Bwashi, Theophilus’ relatives urged him to retrieve his cattle from the herder he had entrusted to them. He noted that most herders had already started leaving the area at that time. 

“They [herders] were considered our enemies, and we could no longer trust them, but I knew some of them were good, but my people wanted me to do nothing with them,” he said. 

Theophilus succumbed and took over his cattle from the herder.

Not long after, thieves stole the animals he had struggled to manage himself. The old farmer doesn’t have a single cow to call his own. “I lost everything,” he said. “I’m very poor now, and survival is hard.” 

Theophilus had a well-planned retirement. He was to stop farming in 2024 and live off his herd, but now he says his entire life has been altered, and with many mouths to feed, he had to go back to the farm that yields little. 

Things didn’t change only for the farmers. In 2019, two years after the conflict began, the man who had given the farmland to Buba Sarno in Mararaban Bare told him never to set foot on the land again, so Buba migrated with his herd and family to Lamurde, a nearby local government area. In Lamurde, he tried to rent land for farming but couldn’t get any. 

“I went to a hill and established a farm there, but unfortunately, the soil is not good, and the land is not fertile, so my crops didn’t yield,” he said. 

Like Buba, several other herders who once lived in Bare have been displaced to settlements such as Sabewa, Ubandoma, and Mararaban Bare. However, since they are not indigenous to those communities, they told HumAngle that farming has become restricted as locals have taken over their lands and broken the pact that existed between them for generations. 

Magaji Yakubu, who lost his farmland at Mararaban Bare after locals took charge of it, has also retired all the cattle he had been tending for locals. “Feeding has become very hard for my family and me since the conflict began,” he stated. As someone who had access to large harvests in past years, Magaji said navigating a new life without owning farmland or grain is difficult. 

For Clement, the loss is both economic and deeply personal. Sadiki, the man he trusted for decades, disappeared with his cattle during the 2017 crisis. Although his phone rings occasionally when he dials it, no one has ever responded. Clement says he is not sure whether the man is dead or alive.

“Some say the herders around here migrated to Cameroon for safety due to the recurring clashes. We also heard that some have moved to other states. I’ve looked for Sadiki everywhere I can in the past nine years and haven’t seen him,” he said. 

He had planned to fund his children’s education by selling cattle. Without them, those plans collapsed. Even if Sadiki returns, Clement believes the relationship might not be as usual. 

“Right now, I believe he intentionally ran away with my herd,” he said. 

Searching for solutions

Efforts to restore peace continue, but progress remains slow.

The Justice, Development, and Peace Commission (JDPC), a faith-based organisation affiliated with the Catholic Diocese of Yola, has worked for decades to address the crisis. According to Jareth Simon, JDPC’s Project Manager in Adamawa State, land and water were the initial triggers, but new pressures have emerged.

“The one that is glaring to us now is the climate-related issues,” he said. “We’ve also seen where there is an increase in population, leading to more people wanting to cultivate more land.” Additionally, Jareth noted that displacement caused by the Boko Haram insurgency in the region has further intensified competition for resources. 

While most of Adamawa’s 12 LGAs have been affected by the farmers-herders crisis, Jareth said that JDPC’s engagements have identified Demsa, Numan, and Yola South as the hardest hit areas. “This is as a result of the number of cases that have been reported,” he said. 

To mitigate the crisis, JDPC’s approach focuses on community-led solutions, bringing together local government representatives, religious leaders, women, and persons with disabilities. Currently, about 415 stakeholders in conflict-prone areas are engaged in this initiative. 

“These are people who cut across the local structures at the local government level. That includes the local government representative and religious leaders from the Muslim and Christian associations. We have women’s representation and persons with disabilities,” he said. 

Jareth explained that people meet at least once a month to discuss issues related to peaceful coexistence, social cohesion, and community protection, and to identify local actions to mitigate them. “We don’t dictate to them. We only strengthen their capacity, and they themselves identify the leadership structure,” Jared said. 

In some communities, such as Namtari in Yola South, the approach has helped reduce clashes. “We have programmes for children like Peace Clubs, and we also have the one that targets adults using informal education and informal approaches,” he added. 

But challenges remain, particularly around funding and sustainability. “So we’ve seen where we’ve intervened, and then the projects have to end, but you also see that there is an increased need for you to also go out and support, and the funds are limited,” he said.

Jareth said that government authorities should set up and maintain multiple community-based interventions. “Because one of the gaps we’ve noticed is that from the community to the local government, from the local government to the state, there seems to be some gaps sometimes even in terms of information sharing,” he said. 

Government interventions to resolve the farmers-herders conflict across Nigeria have struggled over the years. For instance, the Rural Grazing Area (RUGA) scheme, introduced in 2019, was derailed by mistrust and controversy and later suspended by the former President Muhammad Buhari’s administration. 

Another intervention, the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP), remains largely unimplemented. It was initially introduced to “create a peaceful environment for the transformation of the livestock sector that will lead to peaceful coexistence, economic development, and food security…” 

The Plan, whose first phase execution was budgeted at ₦120 billion, has not been actualised. 

While Jareth acknowledged the efforts of the Adamawa State government in establishing a peace commission comprising committees across the LGAs, he said there’s a need to strengthen security across the locations. “We also want to see the government come out with policies […] that help resolve some of these tensions that arise as a result of scarce resources within these communities,” Jareth stressed. 

Government interventions and community-led peace initiatives continue, but the deep scars of mistrust, competition for land, and recurring violence make reconciliation slow and fragile.

What is being lost in Adamawa is not just a livelihood, but a way of life. 

It was just past 10:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025, when Allwell Nelson was abducted from her family residence in Dong, a community in Jos North Local Government Area (LGA), Plateau State, North Central Nigeria.

She and her niece had just finished bathing and were in their pyjamas, settling down to watch a film before bed, when her brother-in-law burst into the room.

“Armed robbers! Armed robbers! Call the police!” he shouted.

Her heart leapt. She grabbed her phone and called a friend who works at a nearby police station, barely ten minutes away, then tried to alert the neighbours. No one came out. Outside, the attackers struggled to break the front doors.

At the time, Allwell was serving with the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Bauchi, northeastern Nigeria. She had returned home to prepare for her wedding, scheduled for the following Saturday.

The attackers, armed with handguns, cutlasses, an axe, and a digger, operated for over 45 minutes, she recounted. They first went to the master bedroom, which was empty. Her brother-in-law had fled through the back door, jumping over the fence to get help. From there, they moved to the children’s room, where the children were sleeping, before arriving at Allwell’s room.

“We were five in my room,” she said. “Me, my sister, my one-year-old niece, my older niece, and my cousin. We ran into the bathroom and locked ourselves in.”

When the attackers found them, they asked after her brother-in-law, insisting they had heard his voice, but they told them that he wasn’t around. After firing a gunshot, the four kidnappers moved the family to the living room and continued questioning them. “They eventually asked my cousin and me to follow them,” Allwell said.

Before leaving, they went to the kitchen and packed foodstuffs such as noodles and garri. One of them never spoke; his face was covered, and he carried the food. They forced the victims through the fence and across a nearby river, pausing at one point to make a phone call.

“The question here is, who were they calling?” she asked. “The person who sent them [informant], or the security agency?”

A spreading pattern across Jos

Dong is a fast-growing neighbourhood, bordering the conflict-hit Bassa Local Government Area and the Jos Wildlife Park. Despite nearby security posts and military checkpoints positioned at both ends of the route into the community, kidnappings have continued. Notably, these measures were already in place as the attacks persisted.

But the pattern seen in Dong is not confined to a single neighbourhood. Across the Jos-Bukuru metropolis, which includes Jos North and Jos South LGAs, similar incidents have emerged, suggesting a far-reaching threat.

On March 24, Sunday Agang, chairperson of the Board of Trustees of Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), was abducted from his residence in the Faringada area of Jos North. Earlier, in January 2026, three daughters of the Managing Director of the Plateau State Water Board, Apollos Samchi, were abducted during an attack on his residence in Rantya, in Jos South, about a fifteen-minute drive away from Dong. 

In the same month, a retired Nigerian Army colonel was kidnapped in Rukuba Road, not far from Dong, and he was later rescued by security operatives. Barely weeks after Allwell’s abduction, Laven Jacob, a member of the Plateau State House of Assembly, was abducted in Dong. 

These incidents, alongside others that often go unreported, reinforce the sense that kidnapping in Jos has evolved into a citywide crisis rather than a series of isolated events. Between September 2025, when Allwell was abducted, and March 2026, at least four reported kidnapping incidents were recorded in the Jos-Bukuru metropolis. 

Similar incidents stretch back years. For instance, in 2022, a retired naval officer, Hellen Godos, was killed in her home in Dong by kidnappers, who were attempting to abduct her son.

The role of informants

Many of these incidents, residents and officials say, are driven by insiders within the communities themselves.

“The people work with informants,” said Peter, a community elder in Dong who gave only his first name. “They target specific people, who they believe are doing well.” 

He added that during a security meeting held in the community in December 2025, the role of informants was discussed as one of the major factors responsible. “These criminals don’t know the communities; they depend on people from within.”

Generally, kidnappers often rely on information from inside communities to identify their targets, quietly shaping who is taken and when. A recent HumAngle investigation in Kano State found how kidnappers targeted a man after local knowledge of his movements and finances was passed on to criminals. 

In December 2025, troops of the Joint Task Force, Operation ENDURING PEACE, neutralised a suspected kidnapper and arrested three alleged informants who were targeting Dong. In October 2025, the Plateau Police Command also arrested suspected kidnappers, including an informant who supplied foodstuffs to kidnappers in the mountainous Mazah community in Jos North. 

Even so, the sense that local knowledge is being used to enable abductions persists.

Chris Iyama, an influential civil society leader in the state, described a similar pattern after he was abducted on March 8 in front of his residence in Rayfield-Guratopp.

“One of them, I presumed to be the leader of the [kidnappers], called my name and wanted to be sure if my name was Chris. I immediately affirmed. That was the beginning of my ordeal as we walked through different forests, mountains…,” he said.

He added that they took him to a forest somewhere between Bokkos and Barkin Ladi.

Captivity, ransom, and survival

A fact-finding committee set up by the Plateau State government reported that at least 420 communities across 13 local government areas – particularly in Bokkos, Barkin Ladi, and Riyom – were attacked between 2001 and 2025, with more than 11,000 people killed.

“They have been taken over, renamed, and people are living there conveniently on lands they pushed people away to occupy,” said Governor Caleb Mutfwang. “For those who think that the current situation is a farmer-herder issue, let me disabuse your mind from that perception; it is a product of organised crime by malicious elements who do not want peace to reign in the state.”

Allwell’s abduction unfolded within that wider landscape. She and her cousin were taken towards Bassa LGA, another hotspot. In April 2025, terrorists killed 52 people overnight in Zike village, in the Kimakpa/Kwall District of Bassa.

She said they were forced to walk through nearby Dong Kassa towards the Rafiki-Miango axis in Bassa. Along the way, they saw a police truck, and the kidnappers made them squat in the bush. “We trekked for over an hour,” she said.

When they arrived in Bassa, the abductors, who she said did not speak Hausa properly but Fulfulde, led them towards an area where herders kept cattle. At the time, she was serving in the country’s North East, and she said she was able to identify the language. 

“When we got nearby, the people tending the cattle started shining torchlights at us and asked who we were and why we were in their territory,” she said. The kidnappers shot two of the herders who questioned them. “At that point, I felt like I was dying.”

Hannah Silas, a development worker in the region, said incidents like this can feed into cycles of violence. “For instance, when the herders wake up and see someone dead, they will assume it was the locals who killed them, and it will lead to reprisals that should not happen,” she said.

The Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) has stated that “bad elements” and criminals have infiltrated their ranks, masquerading as herders to commit kidnappings and violent crimes. Misidentification, in this context, risks reinforcing the very cycles of violence residents are trying to survive.

They continued walking until they reached the captors’ den.

Allwell and her cousin spent more than three nights in captivity. Unlike Chris Iyama, who said he “was beaten black and blue and at some point they wanted to pull the trigger on my head”, Allwell told HumAngle that they were not physically assaulted and were given food, but she described intense fear and psychological pressure.

“I remember I was sick at that time, and one of them went to town to get medication for me,” she recounted. “I couldn’t take it because I was scared.”

The abductors demanded ₦50 million. “I told them that I am a civil servant and I don’t have [such an amount of money],” said Solomon Dansura, her brother-in-law.

As the incident gained attention on social media, NYSC officials visited the family.

“The authorities knew about the incident, but nothing was done,” Allwell said.

While negotiations continued, the abductors threatened to kill her cousin if the ransom was not paid. The family tried to raise funds without assistance from authorities.

A ransom was eventually paid, and they were released on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2025. 

Allwell does not know the exact amount, but the last figure she overheard was about ₦5 million. “The security did not rescue us,” she said.

Chris Iyama also said his family paid a ransom, and that his release was arranged in a forested, mountainous area in Bokkos.

Security gaps and fading trust

For residents, these experiences are rarely reflected in official communication. 

Kidnap-for-ransom remains one of Nigeria’s most persistent security crises. Although ransom payments are illegal, families often treat them as the only viable option, citing slow responses from authorities. In some cases, influential public figures, including government officials, have openly crowdfunded ransom payments.

Between July 2024 and June 2025, at least 4,722 people were abducted across nearly 1,000 incidents nationwide, according to SBM Intelligence. Kidnappers demanded about ₦48 billion in ransom during that period, while families paid an estimated ₦2.57 billion. At least 762 people were killed in abduction-related violence.

Earlier in January, the Jos North Local Government Council launched a police outpost in Dong to improve security. 

“This police outpost is not just a structure of blocks and mortar; it is a symbol of our resolve to protect lives and property,” said John Christopher, the local government chairperson, at the launch. “For the people of the Dong community who have endured the trauma of insecurity and kidnapping, this facility represents hope, reassurance, and a renewed sense of safety.”

When HumAngle visited the facility, which is five minutes on foot from the main entrance to Dong, in March, it was deserted. Dry weeds filled the compound, the gate was locked, and no officers were present.

An 8 p.m. curfew imposed in Dong in 2025 was later relaxed in January, according to a security officer at a local church. “But once it is 10 p.m., you will not see people outside,” he said. “Some of the local hunters, who protect the community, recently engaged in a gun battle and killed a suspect, so the incidents have reduced.”

Even with that, some residents say they still feel unsafe. 

Sunday evenings are usually a beehive of commercial activity at Angwan Rukuba Junction, but it turned deadly on March 29, at around 7:45 p.m., when assailants opened fire on people at random in the area, located in Jos North Local Government Area (LGA), Plateau State, in North Central Nigeria.

Eyewitnesses gave differing accounts of the attackers’ arrival, with some saying they came in a red Sharon van, while others reported they arrived on motorcycles. They were described as dressed in black camouflage, with their faces covered, and armed with guns and cutlasses. The motive and identity of the assailants remain unknown, and no group has claimed responsibility.

At least 27 people were killed, including a pregnant woman, while others were injured, according to Dalyop Mwantiri, President of the Berom Youth Moulders Association.

Sunday Akintola, a resident, said the high number of casualties was due to people being caught unawares, as residents initially assumed the gunshots were stray bullets from officers of the National Drug Enforcement Agency, which “usually come to harass young men in the area”. “Once people stepped in, they were shot at close range, while others were chased and struck with machetes,” he noted.

Although there is a police station at the junction where the incident occurred, residents said the response was slow, alleging that some officers on duty fled when the attack began, before reinforcements later arrived from the state headquarters.

Alfred Alabo, the spokesperson of the Plateau Police Command, says they “are currently combing the nearby bushes to ensure that the suspects are arrested or dislodged”.

Angwan Rukuba is located just 10 minutes from both the Jos Main Market and University of Jos facilities, including the Senior Staff Quarters, Main Campus, and Permanent Site, as well as private housing for university staff and students. It also borders a large stretch of hills, including the popular Gog and Magog.

Notably, it is not a rural farming settlement or a mining community, but a densely populated, urban residential area with a diverse mix of residents, including students, civil servants, and traders. As such, the incident does not fit the typical pattern of farmer–herder clashes often reported in Plateau State.

“This is right inside Jos. It is a mixed community; it is really a melting pot because everybody is here, and an injury to one is an injury to all,” said Julie Sanda, Director General of the Plateau Peace Building Agency (PPBA). “It was an unprovoked attack.”

Violence in Plateau State is multidimensional, involving terror attacks, conflict between farmers and herders in rural communities, and ethno-religious tensions that have rocked the city since 2001. However, one thing is common about these incidents in the Jos–Bukuru metropolis: they often lead to revenge attacks among ethno-religious groups, driven by deep-seated mistrust, which has in turn contributed to polarised settlements.

“If you know anything about Jos, if this incident had happened ten years ago, I don’t think we would be here today. It shows the resilience of the people and their courage,” Julie said.

Shortly after the attack on Sunday, the Plateau State Government imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in Jos North LGA until Wednesday, April 1. However, residents took to the streets in protest, displaying the bodies of the deceased. Additionally, the University of Jos has rescheduled its ongoing semester examinations. Caleb Mutfwang, the state governor, also visited the community on Monday, March 30.

“I assure you that those responsible for this evil act will not go unpunished,” he said.

The state government has also reiterated its ban on commercial motorcycles in the Jos–Bukuru metropolis, which covers Jos North and Jos South LGAs. “Meanwhile, the hours of operation for tricycle riders (keke) still remain 6:00 a.m. to 7 p.m.,” according to Davou Gyang Jatua, the state Commissioner of Transport.

Residents who spoke to HumAngle said that, in recent months, unfamiliar motorcyclists — some of whom do not know locations within the metropolis — have been moving around. “Whenever I see keke and okada (motorcycles) out very late, I know there’s a risk of evil acts being perpetrated using them,” said Zoe Machunga, a Jos resident.

In the weeks leading up to the attack, some social media accounts had posted videos inciting violence in Jos, although it remains unclear whether such messaging contributed to the incident. The governor said the social media users responsible for the posts have been apprehended, a claim confirmed by Alfred, the police spokesperson, during a radio interview on Monday.

“Injustice has made healing difficult in Plateau State,” said Joseph Lengmang, a peace and security expert and former Director General of PPBA. “Peacebuilding efforts remain incomplete, and some underlying issues still need to be addressed.”

Iranian football players laid backpacks on a football pitch in Turkey to pay tribute to the children killed in a US-Israeli strike on Minab elementary school last month. The tribute came ahead of a friendly match against Nigeria.

Kano, Nigeria – On a bustling day in northern Nigeria, Marian Shammah made her way to the Sabon Gari Market, one of the largest electronics hubs in Kano state.

The 34-year-old cleaner was in need of a refrigerator, but with rising costs and a meagre income, she saw the second-hand appliances sold at the market as a lifeline.

After locating the one she wanted, she paid the vendor 50,000 naira ($36) and took it home. But just a month later, the freezer collapsed.

“Only the top half of the refrigerator was working, and the freezer wasn’t working,” said Shammah.

Her food spoiled, her savings disappeared, and she was soon back in the market searching for another appliance.

Although Shammah could have bought a new local appliance for just over 30,000 naira ($30) more, she – like millions of Nigerians – believes second-hand products from America and Europe “last longer” than new products sold in Nigeria.

Observers say this trend is part of a larger crisis. Nigeria has become a major destination for the developed world’s discarded electronics – items often near the end of life, sometimes completely dead, and frequently toxic because they contain hazardous materials. When they break down, they add to landfills, worsening an already dire e-waste crisis on the African continent.

Around 60,000 tonnes of used electronics enter Nigeria through key ports each year, with at least 15,700 tonnes already damaged upon arrival, according to the United Nations.

The trade in used electronic goods is powered largely by foreign exporters. A UN tracking study between 2015 and 2016 showed that more than 85 percent of used electronics imported into Nigeria originated from Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, China, the United States, and the Republic of Ireland.

Many of these imports violate international restrictions, like the Basel Convention, an environmental treaty regulating the transboundary movement and disposal of hazardous electronic waste to developing countries with weaker environmental laws.

Across West Africa, the Basel Convention’s “E-Waste Africa Programme”, a project focused on strengthening e-waste management systems across the continent, estimates that Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria collectively generate between 650,000 and 1,000,000 tonnes of e-waste annually – much of it the result of short-lifespan second-hand imports.

Health risks

The United Nations describes e-waste as any discarded device that uses a battery or plug and contains hazardous substances – like mercury – that can endanger both human health and the environment. Several of the toxic components commonly found in e-waste are included on the list of 10 chemicals of major public health concern maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO).

According to the WHO, used electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) presents a growing public health and environmental threat across Africa, with Nigeria at the centre of the trade.

“Much of the equipment shipped as used electronics is close to becoming waste,” said Rita Idehai, founder of Ecobarter, a Lagos-based environmental NGO, warning that devices imported and sold as affordable second-hand goods often fail shortly after arrival and quickly enter the waste stream.

The consequences are far-reaching. Many imported fridges and air conditioners, for instance, still contain CFC-based and HCFC-based refrigerants such as R-12 and R-22 – chemicals banned in Europe and the US for causing ozone depletion or being linked to cancer, miscarriages, neurological disorders, and long-term soil contamination. These gases live for 12 to 100 years, meaning leaking equipment adds to a multi-generational environmental burden.

After these imported items stop working or fall apart, informal recyclers then dismantle the electronics with their bare hands, Al Jazeera observed. In Kano, the recyclers inhale poisonous fumes and manage the heavy metals without protection. Their work earns them a meagre 3,500–14,000 naira ($2.50-$10) per week, they said, and the after-effects linger – including persistent coughing, chest pain, headaches, eye irritation, and breathing difficulties after long hours of burning cables and dismantling electronic devices.

The health crisis extends into Kano’s communities.

Among casual recyclers and residents who live close to e-waste dumps, many report symptoms that range from chronic headaches and skin irritation to breathing issues, miscarriages and neurological concerns, according to health surveys done by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. These ailments are consistent with longtime toxic exposure, the researchers said.

Recent field assessments conducted by Nigeria’s Federal University Dutse also stressed that in and around Kano state, where the Sabon Gari Market is located, there are rising levels of heavy metals in soil and drainage channels.

Dr Ushakuma Michael Anenga, a gynaecologist at the Benue State Teaching Hospital and second vice president of the Nigerian Medical Association, warned that toxic exposure from informal e-waste recycling poses grave health risks to communities in Kano.

“Exposure to heavy metals and refrigerant gases in e-waste causes extreme brief and long-term health issues, generally affecting the breathing and renal organs,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Common casual practices like exposed burning and dismantling result in direct, high-level exposure for workers and nearby residents. Children and pregnant girls are particularly inclined due to the fact that those toxicants can disrupt development or even skip from mother to unborn baby, [while] recyclers who work without defensive equipment face repeated, frequently irreversible damage.”

Profits over protection

In Sabon Gari Market, second-hand electronics are advertised as less costly lifelines for households and poor business owners burdened by inflation.

Many customers say foreign-used home equipment appears sturdier and seems like better value for money than new imports from the developing world. Meanwhile, others are just looking for cheap options in difficult economic times.

“I usually go for second-hand or foreign-used electronics because brand-new ones are too expensive for me,” Umar Hussaini, who sells used electronics at the market, told Al Jazeera.

“Sometimes you can get them for half the price of new ones, and they look almost the same, so it feels like a good deal at the time.”

But the last refrigerator he bought stopped cooling after just three months. With no warranty or guarantee, the seller refused responsibility.

“For weeks, we couldn’t store food properly at home, and we ended up buying food daily, which was more expensive,” he said. “However, I have to buy another one again.”

For small business owners like Salisu Saidu, the losses can be even more devastating. He bought a used freezer for his shop, believing it had been serviced. Within weeks, it failed.

“I lost a lot of frozen food, which meant I lost money and customers,” he told Al Jazeera.

Around his neighbourhood, broken electronics are often dumped out in the street, sometimes emitting smoke or sparks.

“There’s also a lot of electronic waste piling up around,” he said, calling for tighter import controls, proper certification, and mandatory warranties to protect buyers from being sold what he described as “damaged goods disguised as fairly used”.

Bought as bargains, sold as burdens

At Sabon Gari Market, another vendor, Umar Abdullahi, is surrounded by imported refrigerators, air conditioners and washing machines stacked tightly together.

The products in his shop are advertised as “London use” or “Direct Belgium”, while he negotiates the sale of a double-door fridge for 120,000 naira ($87).

Abdullahi’s store is where Shammah returned after the refrigerator she bought failed. But he admits that much of what he sells to customers arrives unchecked.

“We buy them untested from suppliers in Europe, and we also sell them untested so we can make our profit,” he told Al Jazeera.

This despite the fact that international rules under the Basel Convention, as well as Nigerian environmental regulations, prohibit the shipment of material considered e-waste – with penalties including fines and jail terms.

Nwamaka Ejiofor, a spokesperson for Nigeria’s National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), said the country does not permit the import of e-waste. However, the entry of used electronics is allowed under regulated conditions.

“The importation of used electrical and electronic equipment is regulated and may be allowed only where such equipment meets prescribed conditions, including functionality and compliance requirements,” she told Al Jazeera.

“Nigeria applies a combination of regulatory, administrative and enforcement measures to ensure that imported used electronics comply with national law and the country’s international obligations,” she added, listing out measures including environmental regulations, cargo inspection and verifying that imported equipment is “functional”.

However, despite this, some traders find loopholes in the system, including declaring cargo they plan to sell as personal belongings or second-hand household goods to avoid scrutiny.

Although NESREA says enforcement has improved, critics say the steady flow of mediocre goods continues largely unchecked. Even dealers at Sabon Gari Market acknowledge that most appliances are sold “as is”, without certification or guarantees.

‘Loopholes’

Behind the second-hand electronics trade is a network of collectors and exporters who source discarded appliances across Europe.

Baban Ladan Issa, who ships used electronics from Ireland to Nigeria, said items are gathered from weekend markets, private homes that are replacing old gadgets, and contractors clearing out equipment from offices, hotels and hospitals.

“Some suppliers mix working and damaged goods together,” he told Al Jazeera, noting that while he tries to avoid faulty items, not all buyers do the same.

Once assembled, shipments worth millions of naira are sent to Lagos through ships then down to sellers in the market in Kano state, sometimes packed in containers or hidden inside vehicles to reduce inspection risks.

Shipping records seen by Al Jazeera showed consignments labelled as “personal effects”, a classification that can limit detailed checks at ports.

Chinwe Okafor, an environmental policy analyst based in Abuja, said the problem is systemic.

“Exporting nations regularly take advantage of loopholes by means of labelling nonfunctional e-waste as ‘second-hand goods’ or ‘for repair,’” she told Al Jazeera. “In some instances, research estimates that over 75 percent of what arrives in developing countries is truly junk.”

“This permits wealthy countries to keep away from highly-priced recycling at home while pushing unsafe materials into nations with weaker safeguards.”

Ibrahim Adamu, a programme officer with the NGO Ecobarter, added that mislabelling, poor inspection technology and corruption at ports make enforcement difficult.

“The highest profits are captured by exporters and brokers who arbitrage the gap between disposal costs in Europe or Asia and the strong demand for ‘tokunbo’ goods in Nigeria,” he said, using the local name for used imported electronics.

To forestall this, he said Nigeria “must reinforce border inspections” and implement a policy whereby producers and manufacturers bear financial responsibility. At the same time, “the international network has to adopt binding bans that [hold] manufacturers and exporters responsible”, Adamu said.

Little oversight, mounting risks

Although Nigeria has regulations governing the import of electrical and electronic equipment, enforcement gaps keep exposing markets like Kano’s Sabon Gari to ageing and near-end-of-life appliances, locals say.

Ibrahim Bello, a used electronics importer with a decade in the business, said many shipments that arrive from Europe are in less-than-ideal condition.

“Around 20 to 30 percent of the items we receive have issues when they arrive,” he told Al Jazeera. “Some are already damaged, while others stop working after a short time because they are old.

“That’s just part of the business.”

Retailer Chinedu Peter gave similar estimates. “From what I’ve experienced, maybe 40 percent of the electronics have some fault as they come,” he said, adding that environmental and protection checks don’t happen as they are meant to.

“Such a lot of items enter without special checks.”

Both men feel that clearer rules and certified testing systems will improve trust. But until then, thousands of ageing, unsuitable products will continue to flood Nigeria.

Shammah, back at Sabon Gari Market just weeks after her refrigerator broke, was once again searching through rows of stacked appliances, hoping her next purchase might last longer than the last.

“I don’t really trust these fairly used appliances again, but I still have to buy something because we need it at home,” she told Al Jazeera.

“This time I’m thinking … I can buy a new one from a proper shop, even if it takes longer, because I don’t want to lose my money again.”

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For a long time, people in Bultu-Briya have lived in anguish; their environment seems to be at war with them, and they spend most of their lives fighting back. Climate crises like desert encroachment is eating deep into the community, killing fertile lands, and uprooting trees and homes. Drought has brought a plague to the land, drying up rivers and wells in the locality and across many communities in the Yusufari Local Government Area of Yobe State, northeastern Nigeria.

The climate crisis has triggered food and water scarcity, forcing villagers to move to urban areas in Lagos and Abuja, while hundreds of others have migrated to neighbouring countries like the Niger Republic and Cameroon. Those who refused to leave became the victims of the climate crisis. In far-to-reach communities like Tulo-Tulo and Bula-Tura, dunes have moved so close that hundreds of families have been displaced into the shadows of despair. Thirty miles away, in Zakkari town, locals say they have not harvested in more than seven years. Farmers have had to abandon farming for other menial jobs, as famine crept into the communities.

The curious cases of terrorism and insurgency have made lives even more difficult for people battling environmental crises. Thousands have been killed and displaced in the northeastern region due to recurring attacks from terrorists subjugating communities under the influence of radical Islamist ideologies. Local and state authorities appear to have lost touch with remote villages affected by the climate crisis, transforming once-populated areas into ghost communities.

The scourge of extreme weather and ecological collapse in the region has exacerbated a vicious cycle of poverty, food insecurity, and mass displacement, providing a fertile environment for extremist groups like Boko Haram to thrive. Environmental shifts have devastated climate-sensitive industries such as farming and fishing, which support 70 per cent of the regional workforce, leaving the youth highly vulnerable to radicalisation as a means of survival, according to a study by the Growing Thought Leadership Award.

“Climate change seems to act as a threat multiplier, since it worsens every component of the cycle of issues harming the area of Lake Chad,” said Camilla Carlesi, the author of the study. “The tendency to produce suicide bombers is greater in a community defined by mass misery and joblessness than in one in which the basic needs of food, education, health, housing, and sanitation are met.”

The reporting approach

For six months in 2025, HumAngle travelled to the fringes of villages affected by drought and desertification in Yobe State. Working with local journalists in Cameroon and the Niger Republic, we tracked the stories of Nigerian climate migrants seeking greener pastures in the neighbouring countries. 

What we found shows that state authorities’ mismanagement of climate funding has left communities helpless amid harsh environmental realities. Our reporting has however triggered some positive action by the government.

Our reporting documented first-hand accounts from villagers in the affected area. Most of them told HumAngle that contaminated water sources and barren fields have led to forced migration. HumAngle also conducted cross-border reporting across the Sahel, spotlighting the lives of climate migrants who are lost in host communities. We documented journeys into Libya, Cameroon, and Niger Republic, exposing the realities of forced migration as a transnational crisis rather than a localised problem.

Using satellite imagery and land-cover analyses from sources such as NASA’s GRACE mission and Landsat datasets, we validated villagers’ testimonies by showing vegetation loss, shrinking water bodies, and advancing desert dunes. The report also blends local testimonies, expert analysis, and UN predictions to triangulate the findings. For instance, villagers’ accounts of poisoned wells are juxtaposed with UNHCR warnings about climate-driven displacement, and expert commentary from the Global Centre for Climate Mobility provides policy-oriented perspectives. 

By tracking billions of naira earmarked for climate adaptation projects and contrasting them with the absence of results on the ground, the investigation exposes governance gaps and leadership failures in the state. 

Strategy for impact

To reach a wider audience, the investigation was produced in English, French, and Hausa, across four media organisations in Nigeria, Cameroon, and the Niger Republic. 

We published on HumAngle to target policymakers in the disaster and humanitarian sectors across the Sahel. TheCable, the Nigerian online newspaper, syndicated the story to a broader Nigerian audience. Echo Du Niger published the story in French to grab the attention of the Niger Republic audience. In Cameroon, we published both online and print versions via the Guardian Post to target young and traditional news consumers. We also produced a short video explainer in English and Hausa to reach local audiences.

These distribution plans were effective in educating locals and prompting them to hold the government accountable. Following the investigation, we launched online campaigns for change in local languages. One such campaign by HumAngle’s local reporting partner, Usman Adamu, caught attention on Facebook, garnering thousands of reactions and comments. In October 2025, Usman addressed the locals’ concerns about contaminated water in their rivers and wells, which was making life even more challenging. He noted that in the past, a local from Bultu-Briya village in Yusufari LGA had called him in a state of extreme distress and panic, about their current situation, as their water source had become completely contaminated – as we reported. 

“As it stands, the residents have to travel long distances to various valleys or neighbouring villages just to find water for their daily use and consumption,” Usman said.

HumAngle’s impact-driven reporting caught the attention of state and local officials, who reached out, promising to swing into action. For months, we didn’t just rely on their promises; we followed up with calls and messages.

A flicker of hope

In December 2025, the Yobe State Government, through the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) project, handed over 10 designated sites for the construction of hybrid solar-powered boreholes across 10 oasis communities in the Yusufari LGA to cushion the effects of climate-induced crises contaminating water sources in the area.  State officials said the intervention would enhance access to clean water, support livelihoods, and strengthen environmental stability in areas severely affected by water scarcity and climate-induced challenges.

Shehu Mohammed, the ACReSAL State Project Coordinator, remarked that the initiative aligns with Governor Mai Mala Buni’s directive to focus on communities without dependable water sources and those facing severe shortages. He said the effort is part of a broader strategy to restore oases and improve the living conditions of rural households.

“Let me assure you that by the grace of Almighty God, your communities will have access to safe and clean water within the next three months. This intervention is a direct response to the governor’s commitment to addressing water scarcity and improving community resilience,” Shehu stated.

The benefiting communities include Kafi-Kere, Boridi, Gaptori, Bula Ariye, Lawan Ganari, and Bulamari, all in Yusufari LGA. They were selected based on their urgent need for sustainable water solutions. Speaking on behalf of the contracting firm, AI-Import & Export, Mohammed Ali, the project manager, assured ACReSAL and the state government of quality service delivery and timely completion of the project. He emphasised the company’s commitment to carrying out the borehole operations in full compliance with the contract’s technical specifications.

Although the project has not been completed as of the time of reporting, locals told HumAngle that the initiative has given them a flicker of hope that a good water system will be installed in their communities after decades of drinking from contaminated wells.

Help is coming

Following HumAngle’s investigation, the Yusufari LGA chairperson, Adam Jibrin, said that at the local level, his government is committed to building solar-powered water systems in communities not covered by ACReSAL’s interventions. Adam wondered why the state government refused to work with them on the ACReSAL’s solar-powered water system projects.

“There hasn’t been effective stakeholder engagement before deciding to construct the boreholes. As LG officials, we are supposed to be contacted because we are closer and more aware of the needs of our citizens,” he said.

Adam had reached out to the affected communities spotlighted in HumAngle’s investigation to understand how to intervene. He said he had lobbied for more funding to execute massive water projects in the area, but there had been delays until recently. Adam became the LGA chairperson in December 2025, after the sudden death of his predecessor, who had laid the groundwork for the water projects upon reading HumAngle’s story.

“As I speak to you, I am in Damaturu to follow up about it so that the approval will be given. But even without the approval, we look at other opportunities to see how we can support our communities,” he told HumAngle. “You know the water issue is very broad and big in Yusufari. Since I became the chairman following my predecessor’s death, we have rebuilt many boreholes to use solar power. And of all the communities we have visited, they are severely in need of the water (like in Bultu-Briya).”

In Yusufari, hand pumps were installed in many communities, but the LGA chairperson said he has directed the Department of Works to conduct an assessment to convert all of them to solar-powered water systems. Adam said that when he went to Bultu-Briya, he confirmed HumAngle’s report that water sources are causing diarrhoea and stomach pain.

“You know this is government work, and we are only doing what is possible within our means; there’s a lot of concern regarding this water issue,” he added. “I know some used to travel far to get it, while others will not get it even if they travel. For Bultu-Briya, we reached out to them a few weeks ago to construct a hand pump, but they said they don’t want a hand pump; they want a solar-powered borehole.”

He noted that, following HumAngle’s story, the late LGA chairperson had ordered someone to go to Bultu-Briya to assess the need for a hand pump, but the villagers insisted they wanted a solar-powered one. “After my swearing in, the people of Bultu-Briya have come to my office regarding the water issue. I told them that, since they don’t want the hand pump, I will mobilise funds to construct the borehole to their needs. You know, the terrain of the place is also an issue, but that will not deter us from doing what is expected.”

The local administrator made these commitments when contacted over the phone earlier in March. Later that month, however, Yusuf Abdullahi, a community stakeholder in Bultu-Briya, told HumAngle that plans to install a solar-powered water system in the village had commenced. He said engineers have recently visited the construction sites and have pledged to complete the project as soon as possible.

Amid these developments at the local level, some climate migrants who left Nigeria for Cameroon joined hundreds of refugees repatriated into the country. About 300 Nigerians taking refuge in Cameroon’s Far North, including climate migrants, have voluntarily left the Minawao refugee camp to return home. On Jan. 27, they were transported in five buses, as part of an ongoing scheme to repatriate a total of 3,122 refugees from the camp. Most of them were displaced many years ago by a hail of insurgency and environmental collapse in the northeastern region.

HumAngle’s Investigations Editor, Ibrahim Adeyemi, has been announced one of the 14 journalists selected from all over the world to participate in the 2025 Journalism programme at the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE), a prestigious programme that trains professionals to navigate ethical dilemmas in the course of their careers.

The fellowship offers training to young professionals working in disciplines like journalism, business, religion, law, technology, and medicine. Each year, 13 to 16 fellows are chosen from each discipline through a rigorous selection process.

In June and July, Ibrahim will be joining other fellows in a two-week study across several cities in Germany and Poland to examine the historical events surrounding the Holocaust, how professionals acted during that time, and what journalists working now can learn from that conduct.

Ibrahim has done extensive work covering conflict and human rights violations in Nigeria and has received wide recognition for his work. An enterprise journalist covering humanitarian crises, defence, and security, he heads investigations and knowledge management at HumAngle. Although he studied English Language at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Ibrahim deploys accountability journalism to interrogate humanitarian crises, illuminating the grey areas in local and international conflicts. His work has produced remarkable impact, including justice for disadvantaged communities, a voice for the less privileged, punishment for exposed officials, and a contribution to global peace and security.

While his works have tackled criminality and injustice, they have also earned him both local and international journalism accolades, including the One World Media Award, the Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism, the Thomson Foundation Young Journalist Award, the Wole Soyinka Awards for Investigative Reporting, and the Kwame Karikari Fact-checking Award for African journalists.

Commenting on being selected for the fellowship, he said he was honoured. 

“I feel quite excited about the FASPE programme because it’s about journalism ethics,” he added. “As a humanitarian journalist, I face ethical dilemmas that require specialised training to tackle. I feel seen as a reporter and an editor covering delicate matters such as conflict, armed violence, terrorism, insurgency, and humanitarian crises. I strongly believe that this fellowship will not only equip me to tackle these ethical conundrums but also empower me to be a better journalist overall. Being accepted into the fellowship makes me even prouder of the work we do at HumAngle and of the unique techniques we deploy to tell human-centred stories.”

Ibrahim is the second HumAngle journalist to be selected for the fellowship. Last year, Managing Editor, Hauwa Shaffii Nuhu, was also selected. 

“I must thank my super boss and Editor-in-Chief, Mr Ahmad Salkida, for providing an enabling environment for us to thrive. My sincere appreciation also goes to HumAngle’s Managing Editor, Ms Hauwa Shaffi Nuhu, for recommending that I apply for this great fellowship, having seen the ethical dilemmas I often face in the course of my duties. I also thank the FASPE jury for considering me for this year’s programme. This means a lot to me, and I am most grateful to God Almighty,” Ibrahim said.

As Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, prayer, and reflection, entered its second week, specifically on March 5, terrorists from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) attacked multiple military positions in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, in a single night.  

The attacks killed at least 16 soldiers and officers. The following day, a suicide car bomb detonated near Njimya village inside Sambisa Forest, forcing Nigerian troops to retreat.

That same week, Nigeria’s Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa, convened a closed-door security meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. When he came out, his explanation for the rise in attacks was unusually direct.

“As usual with the terrorists during the Ramadan period,” he told journalists, “they feel when they die, they are going to heaven, so they are ready to commit any offence or get killed because they believe there is a reward.”

He assured Nigerians that security forces had adjusted their strategies. “You can see in the past few days we’ve taken over those locations. We’ve killed their commanders and taken over their assets. We’ll continue to do more,” he said.

The assurance arrived against a backdrop of twelve confirmed attacks on Nigerian military bases since January 2025 — eleven of them in Borno State alone.

However, the violence did not stop. 

On March 17, three suspected suicide bombings rocked Maiduguri, killing at least 23 people and wounding more than 100 others. The military said the attacks were carried out by “suspected Boko Haram terrorists”. Earlier, on March 6, terrorists from Jama’atu Ahlussunnah Liddaawati Wal Jihad (JAS), also known as Boko Haram, attacked Ngoshe in Borno’s Gwoza Local Government Area (LGA), abducting over 300 people and killing more than a hundred.

The real question is whether Ramadan genuinely drives this violence, or whether it merely overlaps with a war that was already escalating. HumAngle’s analysis of Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED)’s five-year data shows the answer is both. 

But only one part of that answer is getting worse.

Sacred month recast as a season of war

Just as it encourages insurgents to migrate to Africa, the Islamic State, ISWAP’s parent organisation, has long designated Ramadan as what its propaganda formally frames as a “season of jihad and harvest”. 

The ideological foundation reaches back to events central to Muslim memory.

Prophet Muhammad waged his first major battle, the Battle of Badr, in 624 CE, during Ramadan. The conquest of Mecca in 630 CE also fell within the month.

For ordinary Muslims, these are historical moments shaped by circumstances. For jihadist organisations, they are annual instructions.

While mainstream Islam understands Ramadan as a month of fasting, prayer, and restraint, jihadist ideology inverts this completely. In their reading, violence is not a departure from religion — it is its highest expression. For them, history is more than a context; it is a whole calendar.

JAS was the first Nigerian jihadi organisation to work from this theology, though inconsistently. Its former leader, Abubakar Shekau, was unpredictable. During his time, attacks came when opportunity appeared, not when doctrine demanded. 

ISWAP, which split from JAS in 2016, partly over Shekau’s methods, brought a different discipline. Trained by Islamic State commanders who operate on fixed ideological cycles, ISWAP insurgents do not treat Ramadan as one month among twelve. They treat it as a deadline. For them, the 2026 attacks were deliverables.

What the data shows and what it doesn’t 

Between 2021 and early 2026, Nigeria recorded 20,317 violent incidents involving armed groups: battles, explosions, and attacks on civilians, according to ACLED. Of these, 1,774 occurred during the months of Ramadan. That is roughly one in every twelve incidents nationally occurring in a month that lasts one in twelve months. On the surface, there is no obvious spike.

The total number of annual attacks also climbed sharply, from 3,269 in 2021 to 5,242 in 2025, a 60 per cent rise in four years. Ramadan months tracked that general rise without breaking dramatically above it. When you count incidents per day rather than per month — which is fairer, since Ramadan is only 30 days — the Ramadan daily rate of 9.5 attacks only sits slightly below the non-Ramadan daily rate of 10.2. If anything, the country as a whole is marginally quieter during Ramadan than outside it.

But that national picture hides a more important local one.

Borno State alone accounts for 277 of Nigeria’s 1,774 Ramadan incidents — more than Zamfara and Kaduna combined, two states notorious for non-jihadi terrorism. Most of Borno’s violence traces to either ISWAP or JAS. And ISWAP’s Ramadan record tells a completely different story from the national trend.

In 2021, ISWAP recorded zero Ramadan attacks in the data. By 2022, that number rose to 7; by 2023, 16; by 2024, 12; and by 2025, 19. In the first three weeks of Ramadan in 2026, the figure had already reached 31, ISWAP’s highest Ramadan count on record as of the time of filing this report.

Every other major actor in the data, including communal militias from Kaduna, Zamfara, and Katsina, unidentified armed groups, and even the Nigerian military, shows a flat or inconsistent Ramadan pattern. ISWAP alone shows a line pointing upward, year after year, specifically during the holy month. 

What does this mean at the national scale? ISWAP accounts for just 85 incidents across all Ramadan periods in the dataset — 4.8 per cent of all Ramadan violence in Nigeria. The majority of other attacks during Ramadan are carried out by non-jihadi terrorists, communal fighters, and unidentified groups with no relationship to the Islamic calendar whatsoever. 

From the data, we can deduce that Nigeria’s broad Ramadan violence problem is a governance crisis. But  ISWAP’s Ramadan violence problem is an ideological one — and it is the only one that is systematically growing.

 The tactical evolution

What distinguishes ISWAP’s Ramadan 2026 campaign from previous years is not its scale, but its method.

The group has launched at least twelve coordinated attacks on military bases and infrastructure across Borno State since January 2025 alone — a pace comparable only to its 2018-2019 operational tempo, the period when it briefly seized Baga, the Lake Chad headquarters of the Multinational Joint Task Force.

The March 5 night assault hit multiple locations simultaneously. 

In April 2025, fighters detonated IEDs on bridges along the Biu-Damboa road, cutting off military reinforcements to a surrounded town. This is a deliberate encirclement strategy designed to isolate and starve bases of supply.

The weapons have changed, too. ISWAP insurgents have used armed drones, rocket-propelled grenades capable of destroying armoured vehicles, and suicide car bombs. These are not the weapons of an organisation improvising from local materials; they suggest sustained external supply chains.

Reports indicate that foreign insurgents have also entered and compounded the situation. At least ten have been killed in the past two years during engagements with regional security forces, including a Senegalese national previously resident in Sweden. Cameroonian forces also killed additional foreign insurgents in February 2026 near the border. 

The internationalisation of ISWAP’s fighter pool reflects the Islamic State’s central documented effort to reinforce its West African province ahead of what its propaganda calls the Ramadan offensive season.

State-backed regional cooperation, meanwhile, has deteriorated. Niger’s withdrawal from the Multinational Joint Task Force in March 2025 disrupted intelligence-sharing arrangements and opened corridors along the Nigeria-Niger border, which ISWAP has since exploited. 

The geography of an insurgency 

The ACLED data draws a line across Nigeria. To the North East of it, in Borno and Yobe, jihadist Ramadan operations follow a doctrinal tempo. But in the northwestern region – in Zamfara, Kaduna, and Katsina – and in the North Central, Ramadan-period violence is driven by land disputes, ethnic militia competition, and criminal enterprise. These conflicts share a calendar window, not a cause.

The distinction matters. Strategies built to counter ISWAP’s religious framing will not reduce militia attacks or cult violence in other states. Operations designed for terror suppression in Zamfara are poorly suited to ISWAP’s organised, doctrinally motivated attacks in Borno. Nigeria is not fighting one war during Ramadan. It is fighting several actors with different motives.

The northern Muslim-majority states make this clearest. Kano recorded 18 Ramadan incidents across five years. Jigawa recorded five. Gombe, three. These are some of Nigeria’s largest Muslim populations. 

However, the infrastructure that turns a holy month into an operational order – the preachers, the propaganda, the pipeline from grievance to detonation – is not spread across Muslim Nigeria. It is concentrated, almost entirely, around Lake Chad.

Overall, Nigeria’s conflict is worsening across all months, actors, and regions. A 60 per cent rise in four years is a trend that contains every other story, and  Ramadan does not create that trajectory. But for one group, in one geography, with one ideology, it sharpens it.  And that group is growing faster, fighting harder, and planning more carefully than it was this time last year.

With trade between the two countries at a record high, Charles is using the two-day visit to highlight the pair’s deep cultural and commercial links.

The UK’s King Charles III has welcomed Nigerian President Bola Tinubu at Windsor Castle in the first state visit by the leader of Africa’s most populous nation in nearly four decades.

More than 1,000 soldiers were out in force on Wednesday for the diplomatic show of soft power by the royal family.

With trade between the two countries at a record high, Charles is using the two-day visit to highlight the pair’s deep cultural and commercial links.

Tinubu has made less formal visits to the United Kingdom several times during his tenure, and the two countries remain major partners in trade, aid and defence. London is also home to a large Nigerian diaspora of about 300,000 people.

Nigeria’s presidency said the visit signalled a “renewed chapter” and reflected a shared commitment to “advancing trade and strengthening diplomatic ties”.

Calling the visit “historic”, London announced Nigerian companies, including banks, are expanding operations and creating hundreds of jobs in the UK, strengthening it as a global hub for African business.

Nigerian flags and Union Jacks

King Charles and Queen Camilla greeted the president and his wife in Windsor, west of London, as artillery fired salutes.

Both Nigerian flags and Union Jacks fluttered amid the procession.

The Nigerian president and his wife earlier chatted with heir-to-the-throne Prince William and his wife Catherine, at a hotel in the town.

The party then rode in carriages to the historic Windsor Castle.

Later, the king and queen showed the president and first lady items from the UK’s colonial rule of Nigeria, which existed until 1960.

Later on Wednesday evening, a lavish state banquet took place.

On Thursday, Tinubu is expected to meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, as well as members of the Nigerian community abroad, according to the official schedule.

Missing from the official schedule is the traditional meeting between the visiting head of state and the British opposition.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, who is of Nigerian descent, has repeatedly publicly criticised the country she was raised in over corruption and violence.

The last Nigerian state visit to the UK took place in 1989, although Tinubu was received by Charles in September 2024.

Before the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in 2022, Charles also visited Nigeria four times as prince of Wales.

Tinubu’s visit went ahead, despite a deadly bombing in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno State on Monday, which killed 23 people and injured more than 100, with the president condemning the attacks and insisting “Nigeria will not succumb to fear.”

Umar Muhammad Mustapha had just stepped out of the mosque when he heard someone say an explosion had gone off in the Maiduguri Monday Market area on the evening of March 16. He panicked and asked when. “Just a moment ago,” someone replied, “while we were praying.” 

Immediately, Umar began dialling his nephew’s number as he rushed toward the scene without first returning home. “The phone kept ringing, but he did not answer. A few moments later, it prompted ‘switched off’,” he recalled.

That was when the panic deepened. 

“I began dialling those whose shops were close to ours.”

Umar sells gabgab at the market. His nephew, Muhammad Ibrahim, makes the local incense while he sells it. The 27-year-old has been with Umar since he was nine. 

As he moved through the city that Monday evening, his thoughts raced ahead of him. “I began to imagine the condition in which I would meet him,” Umar said. “Is he alright? Is he alive? Is he dead? Is he injured? And how bad his injuries might be.”

They both work at the market, but that day, Umar stayed at home. 

That night, at around 7 p.m., three explosions simultaneously rocked parts of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital in northeastern Nigeria, including the Monday Market, the Post Office area along Ahmadu Bello Way, and the entrance of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH).

As he hailed a tricycle to rush to the market, Umar was restless. “I felt as though the keke was not going fast enough and kept urging the driver to go faster,” he said. 

From the market to the ward

Before he reached the market, Umar’s phone rang, and Muhammad’s name was displayed. But when he answered, a different voice spoke. “Come to the emergency ward of General [State Specialist Hospital],” the person said.

In that moment, uncertainty gave way to reality. “An explosion occurred; he was affected,” the person continued. “He was brought to the hospital. You are the last person he talked to, so we are reaching out.”

The blasts at the market and the Post Office were especially devastating. The two locations sit minutes apart. Traders had closed for the day and were heading home when the first explosion tore through the Elkanemi junction, near the market.

In the immediate aftermath of the first blast, many people scattered and ran towards the Post Office area. Muhammad was among them. At the time Umar was trying to reach him, he had already escaped the market blast. In the confusion, he could not hear his phone. As he ran towards the Post Office area, another explosion went off. 

It caught him, and he sustained injuries to his chest and legs. 

When HumAngle visited the hospital on Tuesday, March 17, Muhammad could not speak, only nodding when spoken to. Umar said he was scheduled for surgery later in the evening. 

Other survivors also carry similar stories.

Mohammed Babagana Bukar had just bought a pair of shoes for Eid al-Fitr, which is in a few days, with money he earned as a porter at the market. When the blast happened, the 15-year-old said, “We panicked and began running towards the Post Office when another one went off, close to where the flyover is being constructed.” 

He was brought to the hospital by a stranger. “He carried me as I could not walk.”

Fantami Modu didn’t escape the first blast that rocked the market; he was injured.

“It affected my leg,” the 40-year-old said. “We were brought to the hospital by the police.” Fantami sells clothing materials and earns about ₦7,000 daily. It is what he uses to feed his family.

Now, he cannot work. Beside him, his brother, Babagana, said they are contributing to support the household until he recovers.

According to the Borno State Police Command, 23 people were killed, and 108 were injured in the multiple bomb blasts. No terror group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Nigerian Army said they were “carried out by suspected Boko Haram terrorist suicide bombers”. 

“Preliminary information further indicates that the terrorists may have deployed multiple suicide bombers into Maiduguri with the intention of carrying out coordinated suicide bombings at crowded locations,” Lieutenant Colonel Sani Uba, Media Information Officer of the Joint Task Force North East Operation Hadin Kai, said in a statement.

At the State Specialist Hospital, where victims were first rushed to, HumAngle counted 13 survivors on admission. The hospital is less than two kilometres from the scenes. Of these 13, 11 were males and two females, with varying degrees of injuries to the arm, leg, and chest. 

Nurses at the hospital said at least 40 people were brought to the emergency ward that night, with many later referred to the UMTH. Only 14 survivors were eventually admitted, but one died on arrival. 

UMTH was also targeted that night. An explosion that went off at the hospital’s entrance. Although no civilian casualties were recorded, sources said that a suspected suicide bomber, who tried to enter the hospital on a bicycle before he was stopped by security operatives, died in the incident. 

A city remembering fear

For some residents, the events revived familiar anxieties. 

“We had just broken our fast and were waiting for a tricycle to return home when we heard the explosion close to the Monday Market,” Sulaiman Muhammad, a resident, recounted. “Less than 20 minutes after, we heard another one from the Post Office area. In panic, we scattered.”

He did not go to the scene. “It is dangerous,” he said. “I remember in one explosion like this inside the market at the peak of the [Boko Haram] insurgency, another explosion went off immediately people gathered to help victims.”

Now, those memories are resurfacing. “People are in panic,” he said. “We had begun to experience relative calm until the past few days.”

Sulaiman has sold shoes at the market for more than 20 years. He believes the attacks will affect business. “As you can see, no one is out [to sell],” he said. 

These incidents are part of a broader pattern of escalating violence.

The explosions came barely 24 hours after terrorists attacked a military base in Kofa, a community close to Ajilari on the outskirts of Maiduguri, on March 16. Joint security operatives repelled the attack, leaving many terrorists dead. 

However, before then, there had been attacks by terror groups across Borno State, including assaults on rural military bases and resettled communities like Ngoshe and Dalwa. Also, on Dec. 25, 2025, a suicide bomber detonated at a mosque in the Gamboru Market area of Maiduguri. Five people were killed, and 35 others were injured.

Taken together, these incidents point to what observers describe as a violent resurgence. HumAngle has reported that the terror groups operating in the region have undergone several technological shifts that have aided their expanded attacks and operations, including the use of artificial intelligence and drones.

For Umar, the incident has narrowed into something smaller, more personal.

Muhammad, he said, loves to read.

“He would read verses from the Qur’an after his morning prayer. And after breakfast, he would head to the market. And by evening, he would return home. He would read in the evening too, before going to bed.”

When asked what he hopes for, Umar paused.

“I would have hoped for more security or for more vigilance,” he said. “But what would an empty hope solve? Authorities know what to do. They would act properly if they intend to.”

“If they rebuild and you return, we will kill you.” 

That was the threat Abubakar Dalwa received before fleeing to Maiduguri, Borno State’s capital in northeastern Nigeria, on the night of March 8. Abubakar was sitting in the compound of his home in Dalwa, a recently resettled community in Konduga, a few kilometres from Maiduguri, with his children and wife. The children slept curled together on a plastic mat while his wife tended a pot over the fire. It was during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, and she was preparing the meal they would eat before dawn.

Then the gunfire came in rapid succession around 10:20 p.m. The children woke up as Abubakar and his wife rushed them inside the room. Moments later, someone began knocking impatiently on the door.

“Open this door,” the person shouted. Abubakar’s wife clung tightly to him. He stepped outside and opened the door. About ten armed men stood in the darkness. Most wore military camouflage. Others were dressed in black uniforms. Belts of ammunition hung across their shoulders, some trailing toward the ground.

“They told me, ‘Get out and leave for Yerwa [Maiduguri],’” Abubakar recalled. The terrorists said they had come to burn the buildings. “They told me the buildings belonged to the government,” he added. “They said their fight was with the government, not us.”

Abubakar did not argue. By then, it was nearly midnight. He gathered his wife and children and fled into the darkness. “We left without taking anything,” he said.

Behind them, the town burned, and three people were killed: a man, a woman, and her baby. The man’s daughter survived but was shot in the leg. She was later taken to the Maimalari Cantonment Hospital in Maiduguri.

By 2 a.m., Abubakar and his family had reached the city. Soldiers received them at a military checkpoint. They were displaced again. 

The assault on Dalwa was not an isolated raid. On the same night, another attack was unfolding hundreds of kilometres away in Kukawa. A member of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) stationed there said the terrorists attacked around midnight.

“They killed our men, including our Commanding Officer, carted away weapons and vehicles, burnt one building,” he said.

The seizure of weapons and vehicles during these attacks has become a recurring feature of recent raids across Borno, weakening security formations in rural areas and forcing some forces to consolidate around larger bases closer to Maiduguri.

How the attacks unfolded

In Dalwa, the attack lasted about an hour. A frontline member of the NFSS said the terrorists entered the town after overpowering the security units stationed there. “We knew they would overpower us from the first sounds of their gunfire,” he said.

Many of the terrorists carried heavy weapons, including PKT machine guns capable of sustaining rapid fire; others carried rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).

The terrorists strategically positioned themselves in Dalwa. “They went from house to house,” the NFSS member said. “They ordered residents to leave the town.” Then they began setting buildings on fire.

Security officers attempted to resist the attack. They sought reinforcements from Maiduguri, but the vehicles sent to support them ran into buried landmines. Two soldiers were killed in the explosions. “And so we retreated,” the NFSS member said.

According to the volunteer security operative, the attackers approached Dalwa in coordinated groups. One group blocked the road leading to Damboa. Another positioned itself at the entrance of the town near a cemetery on the outskirts. A third group advanced directly into the town to engage the security forces.

“They came through the eastern side,” he said. “That used to be the original Dalwa before the first displacement.”

The security volunteers estimated the number of attackers to be between 80 and 100. Most of them arrived on foot, while others rode on motorcycles, they said.

During the March 8 attack, only about 20 soldiers were stationed in the town. Volunteer forces, including members of the NFSS, CJTF, and repentant terrorists known locally as “the hybrid”, numbered fewer than 100. Five days before the raid, surveillance drones had spotted terrorists gathering in nearby areas. “We anticipated the attack,” the NFSS member said.

But anticipation did not stop it. “The attacks keep increasing,” he added. “More than the previous year.”

In Kukawa, the insurgents used similar tactics. A CJTF member stationed there said the attackers arrived in three coordinated groups. One advanced toward the military base. Another waited on the outskirts of the town. A third group positioned itself along the road leading to Cross Kauwa to ambush reinforcements. He claimed that more than 200 fighters participated in the assault.

“They came mostly on foot,” he said. “They were all wearing military camouflage.”

The fighting lasted about three hours. After the terrorists withdrew, the commanding officer of the base, Umar Farouq, pursued them with a convoy, which was later ambushed, and most of his men were killed.

A pattern of attacks on rural security

The recent attacks on Dalwa and Kukawa are part of a broader pattern. Across Borno State, terrorists have increasingly targeted military bases, convoys, and resettled communities, often ambushing reinforcements and seizing weapons and vehicles during the attacks. Security volunteers say these raids are gradually weakening smaller rural security formations and concentrating forces around larger garrison towns closer to Maiduguri, leaving many outlying communities increasingly exposed.

The incidents suggest a deliberate campaign by terrorist groups, particularly the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Their strategy appears to involve weakening security forces, isolating rural communities, and driving civilians out of resettled towns. These attacks are occurring against the backdrop of a significant government policy.

Over the past years, the Borno State government has implemented a resettlement programme to close camps for internally displaced persons and return families to their hometowns.

The resettlement schemes started in 2020 when the state government began rebuilding homes, schools, clinics, and public facilities in previously abandoned communities as part of what was described as a transition toward a “post-conflict recovery phase”. Thousands of displaced residents have been moved out of camps in Maiduguri and returned either to their original communities or to nearby host settlements considered relatively secure.

But the recovery effort depends heavily on movement. Contractors, labourers, and materials must travel from Maiduguri into rural areas. That movement has increasingly become a point of vulnerability. Roads leading to resettled communities have suffered damage or been mined, isolating towns and delaying military reinforcements. When security forces attempt to respond, they often encounter roadside bombs or ambushes along the routes connecting rural communities to larger bases. Military installations themselves have also become targets. Such attacks on bases allow terrorists to seize weapons, vehicles, and ammunition that can be used in subsequent operations while weakening already thinly stretched security formations in rural areas.

On March 5, terrorists attacked a military base in Konduga, burning several buildings. A member of the Nigerian Forest Security Service (NFSS) told HumAngle that several soldiers were killed, and vehicles and weapons were stolen. Two days earlier, on March 3, the insurgents attacked Ngoshe, a town under the Gwoza Local Government Area (LGA) that had been resettled since 2020. The attackers first targeted a military base before spreading through the town and setting houses ablaze. Local sources and survivors said the attack lasted several hours and forced thousands to flee. Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu, condemned the attack on March 6, describing it as a “heartless assault on helpless citizens” and directing security agencies to rescue those abducted.

Earlier attacks followed a similar pattern.

On Feb. 14, terrorists attacked a military base in Pulka, about ten kilometres from Ngoshe. On Feb. 5, another attack targeted a base in Auno along the Maiduguri-Damaturu road, according to a military source who asked not to be named. Several soldiers were killed, and vehicles were taken.

On Jan. 28, about 30 construction workers were killed in Sabon Gari in Damboa. The same day, terrorists attacked an army base in the town, killing nine soldiers and two members of the CJTF. A military base in Damasak was also overrun by terrorists, who killed seven soldiers, captured 13 others, including their commanding officer. 

Earlier incidents also targeted reconstruction efforts and security infrastructure. On Dec. 25, 2025, a suicide bomber detonated at a mosque in the Gamboru Market area of Maiduguri. Five people were killed, and 35 others were injured. On Nov. 17 of the same year, workers fled after terrorists stormed a construction site in the Mayanti area of Bama. In the same town, terrorists attacked the Darajamal community in September last year, killing at least 63 people, including five soldiers, and burning about 24 houses.

On Nov. 20, the attackers invaded a CJTF base in Warabe, killing eight people and leaving three others missing. On Nov. 14, terrorists ambushed a military convoy along the Damboa-Biu road. Two soldiers and two CJTF members were killed. Brigadier General M. Uba, the Brigade Commander of the 25 Task Force Brigade, was abducted and later killed.

HumAngle has previously reported that terror groups have undergone several technological shifts that have expanded their attacks and operations, including the use of drones. Despite the violence, the resettlement programme continues. On Jan. 28, the Borno State government received about 300 Nigerian refugees from Cameroon and resettled them in Pulka. The government later received 680 more refugees on Feb. 8.

Why are the attacks happening?

Umara Ibrahim, a professor of International Relations and Strategic Studies at the University of Maiduguri, said the attacks may be aimed at constraining the government’s resettlement efforts.

“Because their movements are observed and monitored, and perhaps challenged, it is not in their interest for resettlement to proliferate,” he told HumAngle during a February interview.

The attacks also serve a logistical purpose.

“Some of their tactics include ambushing and carting away weapons and supplies from peripheral bases in unfortified areas,” the professor said. “It also includes attacks on bases, especially in places where backup might take time to arrive.”

As attacks on rural bases continue, residents and volunteer security operatives say the shrinking presence of security forces in some outlying communities is raising fears that large parts of rural Borno may again become vulnerable.

Many of these families, now fleeing towns like Dalwa, had already experienced displacement. Some years ago, insurgent violence forced them to abandon their homes and seek refuge in camps around Maiduguri. When the government announced resettlement plans, they returned. They rebuilt their lives slowly. Children went back to school. Farmers returned to their fields.

Now they are running again, and the promise of returning home is once again slipping out of reach.

Kasuwan Daji, once a bustling village, now lies in haunting silence. 

The aftermath of the Jan. 3 terror attack has stripped the community and market of their familiar rhythm, leaving behind charred homes and empty streets.

In the village market, located in the Borgu Local Government Area of Niger State, North Central Nigeria, where voices once mingled in trade and laughter every Wednesday, only the wind now moves through its abandoned, burnt makeshift tents.  

When HumAngle visited the community in February, the village felt hollow, its people gone—either displaced, abducted, or buried. 

Amid the ruins, Sule Amadu, an elderly man in his late 60s, moved slowly through the debris of his burnt house, searching for anything that might have survived the flames. He was dressed in the same clothes he wore on the day of the attack. 

His quiet scavenging symbolised both survival and loss. 

“I was at the farm when I first heard the roar of their motorcycles heading towards our village,” he recounted. “Moments later, they began shooting sporadically. In panic, I exclaimed, ‘Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un’ [from God we are and to Him we shall return].”

Sule said the violence was relentless, as the terrorists aimed their bullets directly at people. 

“Those who tried to run were chased down by terrorists on motorcycles. Two of them rode together—one driving, the other firing at random. What was our crime?” he added, his voice carrying both grief and bewilderment. 

State authorities said no fewer than 30 people were killed in the attack. However, eyewitnesses who spoke to HumAngle say 57 people were buried that day, while 49 others were abducted, contradicting the official figures.

Sule narrowly escaped death. His younger brother was killed, and nine of his grandchildren and his son’s wife were abducted that day. 

“When the terrorists stormed in, I was trying to bag my millet. One of them chased me while shooting, but by God’s mercy, I escaped the bullets. I ran and jumped into the river to save my life,” he said. 

How the attack unfolded 

Sule was not alone in witnessing the chaos that engulfed Kasuwan Daji. HumAngle met another resident, Isa Mamman, who said he was among the first to notice the approaching attackers and raise the alarm in the community that day. 

He recalled how the attack began and how quickly it unfolded.

Isa was alone in a nearby bush around 4 p.m. when he noticed heavy dust rising in the distance and the sound of motorcycles approaching. He immediately ran towards the community to raise the alarm, where he met another villager who was also fleeing. Isa learned from him that the attackers had stormed in from the market axis.  

Within minutes, chaos engulfed Kasuwan Daji. 

Gunshots echoed across the village as people screamed and scattered. Terrorists on motorcycles fired indiscriminately, chasing down those who tried to escape. Shops and homes were set ablaze, and the once-thriving market became a scene of devastation. 

Just like Amadu, Isa narrowly survived, as he was shot at twice as he fled into the bush. From his hiding place, he watched helplessly as villagers were slaughtered and houses reduced to ashes.  

The violence stretched into the night as Isa remained hidden, fearing an ambush, while the community lay in ruins. 

“By dawn, when I came back to the community, lifeless bodies were scattered across the village, food storage facilities were destroyed, and every house and the market were burnt,” he said. That day, I escaped by God’s grace. I ran into the bush to hide, but I could still see what was happening. I saw our people being slaughtered like rams.”

Isa noted that, “There was no part of the community where we didn’t find dead bodies. Every house in Kasuwan Daji was set ablaze. Our market and storage facilities, where we kept food, were burnt down. We’ve all fled because we are terrified they might attack again.”

A new terror base

Field investigations conducted by HumAngle across the Kasuwan Daji, Wawa, and Babanna areas of the Borgu LGA of Niger State, in February show that terrorist factions are now entrenched in and around the Kainji Lake National Park axis. 

Terror groups such as Mahmudawa (Mahmuda faction), Lakurawa, elements of Ansaru, and Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS) led by Sadiku and Umar Taraba, as well as a newly emerged cell affiliated with Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, have turned the Kainji Forest Reserve into a safe haven.

These groups operate in interconnected networks rather than in isolation, exploiting local cover to conceal their movements. They conduct attacks in distant areas before retreating to established hideouts within the park’s surrounding communities.  

Kasuwan Daji is situated within this geographic corridor and has become a focal point due to its depth, accessibility, and lack of security presence. It sits about 14 kilometres from the Saint Mary’s Catholic School, where some schoolchildren were abducted in Nov. 2025.

The largely ungoverned terrain provides violent groups with mobility, supply routes, and escape paths across state and national boundaries. This strategic advantage has made the area increasingly attractive to extremist factions seeking to expand their operational reach.  

Recent incidents in Niger State and adjoining areas — including coordinated assaults on villages and high-profile abductions — have heightened concerns that extremist networks are embedding themselves beyond the country’s North East, their traditional stronghold. Their spillover into villages such as Kasuwan Daji, Agwara, Babanna, and Kaiama LGA of Kwara State underscores the emergence of a hybrid threat ecosystem in which ideology, criminal enterprise, and local grievances converge to reinforce instability.  

This evolving dynamic positions Kainji not only as a local security challenge but also as a critical node in the broader extremist landscape of the North Central region. 

Earlier attacks

The Kasuwan Daji attack of Jan. 3 was not the first. 

Months before, precisely in September 2025, residents told HumAngle that terrorists had entered the community and abducted several of its most significant figures. Among them was Usman Jatau, the village head, along with five others: Ibrahim Jatau (zone chair of Kambari), Anthony Yakubu Takura (youth leader), Mathew Ibrahim (head of vigilante), David (businessman), and Abu Agwara. 

To date, none of them has been heard from, a situation that has left families in anguish and the community without its leadership.  

After the abduction, Ajikali Jatau, the brother of the village chief and head of the Kasuwan Daji market, said the same attackers returned with greater brutality. 

“This time, their intent seemed clear—to wipe out the community. Villagers were slaughtered mercilessly, some tied with their hands behind their backs before being killed,” Ajikali told HumAngle. He believes the market was deliberately attacked because of its boom and constant business activities.

Ajikali told HumAngle how the market itself had its own history of struggle. 

“Before establishing Kasuwan Daji, we used to trade at Sokomba market every Wednesday. But after two young men from our tribe [Kambari] were killed and burnt there in broad daylight, we decided to stop going there. 

“One of the victims had tried to escape but was shot dead. The repeated harassment and targeting forced us to request that the market be moved somewhere else, but after several futile efforts, we created our own,” he revealed. 

For seven years, Kasuwan Daji market thrived, residents say, as they paid revenue to the local government—until it was reduced to ashes in the January attack.  

Displacement and human toll

More than 300,000 people have been displaced across 10 LGAs in Niger State, including residents of Kasuwan Daji, according to Governor Umaru Mohammed Bago. 

Hajara Shuaibu, a resident of Kasuwan Daji, is one of them. Her husband, Malam Shuaibu, a farmer, had made the village his home, cultivating produce with his family and planning to relocate there permanently. When the terrorists struck, Hajara’s world collapsed. Two of her younger brothers were kidnapped along with her husband’s other wife and daughter, forcing the family to flee to Papiri, a 14-kilometre drive from Borgu to Agwara LGA of Niger State, in search of refuge.

Before arriving at Papiri, Hajara said she and her children hid in the bush for three days, waiting for the violence to subside. 

“Our house was burnt to the ground, along with our belongings and food supplies. About two truckloads of grains and groundnuts that were harvested by my husband were destroyed in the fire, erasing our year-long hard work in a single night,” she said. 

Days later, her brother’s wife managed to escape captivity, only to return with devastating news: her husband [Hajara’s brother] and several others who had been abducted had been killed.  

The terror was felt even among the youngest. 

Suleiman, Hajara’s four-year-old grandson, was among the abducted persons from the attack but was later abandoned in the Gallah area of Agwara LGA, near the house of the village chief. 

His cries were said to be so persistent that the attackers eventually dropped him off before leaving with the other captives. 

Hajara said that the joy at seeing him [Suleiman] alive was quickly overshadowed by grief, as she remembered her slain brother and relatives still in captivity.   

‘We’re not thieves’

In the aftermath of the Jan. 3 attack, the Niger State Governor described Kasuwan Daji as a “market of thieves”, claiming that the community had become notorious for the sale of rustled cattle. He made the remarks during a condolence visit to the Emir of Borgu.  

Adding to the despair, he instructed the survivors to leave the Kasuwan Daji village altogether, even though no plans were announced for their relocation or resettlement, leaving families displaced, vulnerable, and uncertain of their future.

However, survivors of the attack strongly refuted the governor’s framing. 

Ajikali, brother of the village chief and leader of the now-destroyed market, told HumAngle, “We are not thieves. We are hard-working people, and the emirate is aware of us and our market. We are farmers—that is our business and what we are known for. We do not deal in the cattle business, so how can we be called thieves?”  

Sule also echoes this rejection of the governor’s claim: “I strongly disagree with the governor’s assertion that our market is ‘a market of thieves.’ We do not sell cows in Kasuwan Daji, yet he accuses us of selling rustled cows. He’s been misled by those around him.”

“The only thing I want is to have my grandchildren back. Even if they [terrorists] demand ransom, I have nothing to give except the clothes I am wearing. They burnt everything I owned—my food, my savings, and my animals were stolen,” he noted.

The Niger State Commissioner for Homeland Security, Bello Maurice Magaji, while reaffirming the government’s commitment to tackling insecurity through intelligence gathering and grassroots collaboration, also defended the governor’s branding regarding activities at the market, stressing that it was based on verified intelligence.

“We are adopting an intelligence-gathering strategy to understand the patterns of these crimes and attacks so that we can tackle the situation head-on,” the commissioner told HumAngle. He noted that the government is also engaged in advocacy to help citizens recognise early warning signs that may not have been obvious in the past. 

“Also, I believe that whatever information was released by His Excellency is based on facts that were made available. Our government does not simply go out to brand or profile people based on unverifiable information. Our government is too serious to speculate or issue statements without evidence. Therefore, we stand firmly by what the Governor said about the market,” he stated.

Investigation by HumAngle revealed that there are two markets with the same name: Kasuwan Daji. One is situated in Niger State, North-Central, and another in the Kauran Namoda area of Zamfara State, in northwestern Nigeria. 

Further checks also indicate that Kasuwar Daji Market in Kaura Namoda local government area of Zamfara State, is a popular hub for cattle rustling. Terrorists, in January, stormed the market and rustled over 500 cattle. 

Aminu Garba, Chairman of the Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria in the state, told journalists that the operation was not an isolated incident noting that similar attacks have occurred in the past, with one recorded about four years ago. 

He explained that the terrorists infiltrate the market and nearby villages during the day, monitoring livestock transactions before striking. 

It is not impossible that the Niger State government is mistaking one Kasuwan Daji for the other. 

For Isa Mamman, another survivor of the attack in Niger State, the governor’s words add insult to injury. He explains that he and Amadu stayed behind in the community because they had nowhere else to go, even as their livestock was rustled and nearly fifty women and children were abducted. 

“It has been almost two months since the attack, yet nothing has been done. Neither the state governor nor the district head of Kabe has visited our community. Instead, we were insulted and labelled as thieves. We pay revenue to the government, yet they claim our market is illegal. Now, we have no food, no peace, and countless lives have been lost, and nothing has been done.”  

Audu Danbaba is in his fifties but trudges like someone in his eighties. He walks carefully, sometimes raising his hands as if they were scales calibrating his body’s equilibrium. 

As he emerged from his house on Feb. 25, he moved with visible effort –  his feet swollen –  counting each step as if needles were being pressed into the soles of his feet. With a laboured exhale, he eased himself down onto a mat that faced his home. The house, made of mud bricks, is located in Nassarawa village, Gwarzo Local Government Area (LGA), in Kano State, northwestern Nigeria.

Audu cannot remember the exact date when the armed kidnappers pulled him from his house, but he does know that it happened roughly two months ago, maybe a little longer. “I spent about 40 days with them, and now I’m in my fourth week since I was released,” he told HumAngle.

Audu’s ordeal is a window into a calculated and expanding kidnapping economy that has quietly taken root in the Gwarzo LGA. Kidnapping in Kano is fuelled by informant networks, strengthened by a porous border with Katsina State, and maintained by a ransom cycle that is systematically draining the little resources left in the poorest communities of the northwestern region.

Late at night, he was lying down when he heard screaming. The attackers had already entered his home and were beating both of his wives and children. He rushed outside and asked what was happening. They told him directly that they had come for him. To protect his family, he surrendered.

“Here is where they tied my hands and started beating me with the butt of a gun on my legs,” Audu recalled, gesturing toward the spots he said still ache. “Then they pushed me forward, beating me and shoving me until we had walked a long distance through farmland and crossed a road.”

Audu could not recall how long they had trekked with him because he was barely conscious as they dragged him. His sense of measurement also appears faulty, as he confuses miles and kilometres several times while narrating his story.

And so they kept pushing him. 

“It was on the road that I noticed security operatives on patrol, as though they had received a tip and were following us. I tried to lift my head, and they struck me with the rifle butt and pinned me down. I couldn’t speak. We stayed like that until the patrol passed, then they pulled me up and kept beating me as we walked,” he added. 

What Audu described, the systematic beating of victims after abduction, has emerged as one of the most disturbing features of the kidnapping crisis in northern Nigeria. After reaching the forest, he said he was tied alongside another man who had also been abducted. The torture continued with such ferocity that the other man died a week after he was abducted. 

“After his death, his corpse lay there with me for two days before they took him away,” he said. 

Different clips showing how abducted victims are tortured by their abductors have recently been circulated online. One footage featured a member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) being tortured repeatedly by his abductors while pleading for help. In another widely shared video, three women were shown being struck as the abductors pressured them to urge their families to pay a ransom.

Another harrowing case is the testimony of a man published by a local media outlet in Zamfara, Maibiredi TV. The man narrated that his abductors burned one of his hands using molten rubber during ransom negotiations to force his family to speed up payment. Only two of his fingers remain. 

What is happening in Gwarzo?

At least five Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Kano share borders with neighbouring Katsina State, namely Rogo, Tsanyawa, Shanono, Gwarzo, and Ghari (formerly Kunchi). While Tsanyawa and Shanono have suffered the most attacks, Gwarzo is particularly vulnerable. The town’s western and northern borders are adjacent to Katsina’s Malumfashi and Musawa LGAs, which have been heavily impacted by terrorist activities for a long time. 

The dense and ungoverned forests in these regions provide terrorists with continuous cover for their operations. From there, locals say, they flow into Gwarzo.

Locals say that the first recorded case of kidnapping occurred on Dec. 14, 2025, when terrorists on motorcycles attacked the Kururawa community in the Lakwaya district of Gwarzo. They invaded the home of an elderly man known locally as Yakubu Na Tsohuwa and abducted him. His eldest son, Badamasi, was injured while attempting to stop the assailants from taking his father. Within the same week, a second kidnapping incident was reported.

Gwarzo’s security crisis did not start in December 2025. In January 2024, police operatives arrested Isah Lawal, a 33-year-old man from Giwa LGA in Kaduna, during a clearance operation in Karaye LGA along the Kaduna-Kano border. He confessed to fleeing a terrorist camp in Birnin Gwari due to internal gang violence and expressed his intention to establish a new camp in the Gwarzo-Karaye forest. This arrest, which was largely unreported at the time, served as a warning that the authorities did not adequately heed.

The Gwarzo-Karaye forest corridor, straddling Kano’s border LGAs and stretching toward Katsina’s ungoverned zones, had already been identified by displaced armed factions as a viable new territory. 

The December 2025 attacks followed a pattern that exposed how openly these groups now operate. Around 20 armed men were spotted in Danjanku village in Malumfashi LGA, heading toward the Kano axis, according to sources. The attack on Zurum Mahauta in the Gidan Malam Sallau community came at midnight on the same day.

To address the growing threat, the Kano State Government deployed forest guards to monitor the woodland areas around Gwarzo. These guards serve a dual purpose: overseeing the reforestation efforts critical to the state’s climate change response, and functioning as an early-warning layer for security threats emerging from the forest.

Dahir Hashim, the Commissioner for Environment and Climate Change, told HumAngle that the guards were recruited to tackle both challenges simultaneously: “Managing the forests because of their critical role in halting desertification, and providing rapid alerts whenever security threats are detected.”

HumAngle spoke to Abdullahi Hamza, who leads the team managing one of the forests in Mainika, Gwarzo. He is cautiously optimistic about the project, saying: “This initiative by the government has delivered results; at least for now, we have gone many days without a security incident inside Gwarzo, though there may be areas we are not yet aware of.”

There are two forests in Gwarzo. One is known as Dajin Katata, where the forest guard Musa Muhammad previously worked. 

“There were constant criminal incidents in that forest; the fear eventually led the previous government to fell the trees to deny criminals cover,” he told HumAngle. 

Musa was later reassigned closer to home in Mainika. He does not hide his discomfort with that decision. The felling of Dajin Katata, he said, was ecologically damaging — those trees were a bulwark against the advance of the desert. But he has made his peace with the logic behind it. 

“Security comes first,” he said. “You must be alive to breathe the shade of a tree.”

Kidnapping the poor for ransom

Why was Audu a target for abduction in the first place? By every visible measure, even within his own village, Audu is not a wealthy man. His mud-brick house sits among the more neglected on the street, unrepaired and unremarkable. 

He told HumAngle himself that shortly before his abduction, he had tried to sell his farmland out of financial desperation, but the offer he received felt so insulting that he walked away from the deal.

“The land was worth between three and a half and four million naira, but they offered me two and a half million naira. I felt disrespected, so I refused,” he said.

Then came a coincidence that, in hindsight, feels like anything but.

Around the same period, the Kano State government began disbursing outstanding allowances owed to former ward councillors across the state. Audu’s son, Anas, had served as a councillor between 2020 and 2023, which placed him among the beneficiaries. The payment, amounting to roughly ₦6 million, was not made quietly; the state government publicised it widely. Photographs were taken at the government house. Screenshots of bank alerts began circulating on social media, shared by recipients whose names and faces were now attached to a specific, traceable sum.

The publicity became something else entirely.

“Many people had their eyes on that money,” said Mallam Saidu, Audu’s neighbour. “There is a strong suspicion that it was this payment that drew the kidnappers to Danbaba’s house that night.”

Audu suspects the same. He says his captors told him, as they held him, that someone had directed them to him. They did not tell him who.

“They showed me about five people from a distance,” he said. “I could barely lift my head to look, and when I did, I didn’t recognise any of them.”

Later, during ransom negotiations, Audu says he kept hearing one side of a phone conversation — someone telling the kidnappers that they should push his family harder to bring more, insisting they had the money and should produce it.

Across northern Nigeria, kidnapping has evolved from opportunistic crime into a sophisticated industry, and at its operational core lies a network of human intelligence that security agencies have struggled, and often failed, to penetrate or counter.

Kano has witnessed a surge in kidnapping and criminal operations aided by local informants and snitches within the state’s localities. This development seems to have inflated security threats in local communities. Musbahu Shanono, for instance, is originally from Faruruwa in Kano but works in Lagos, in Nigeria’s South West. 

When HumAngle spoke with Musbahu in 2025, he described the creeping anxiety that now accompanies what should be an ordinary homecoming – the fear of informants making him a stranger in his own community.

“Now I only come at night,” he said. “No one should know I’m around. Not even my friends. Not until I’m sure it’s safe.”

According to security authorities across northern Nigeria, kidnappers conduct detailed advance planning before armed teams execute raids at vulnerable hours, overwhelming lightly protected targets and transporting captives deep into remote forest hideouts.

In 2021, the Zamfara State government announced the arrest of more than 2,000 suspected informants. The following year, the state went further to enact legislation prescribing life imprisonment for anyone found to have aided kidnapping operations or other criminal activity in the state.

Yet the problem has not abated. Security authorities across Nigeria acknowledge that informant networks remain one of the most intractable elements of the crisis, embedded in communities, operating in plain sight, and extraordinarily difficult to root out. 

Even Nigeria’s Minister of Defence, then-Chief of Defence Staff, Christopher Musa, admitted publicly in 2024 that informants were being used not only to identify and track targets, but to actively misdirect security forces pursuing terrorists.

“They make the troops go elsewhere, and when they get there, they meet nothing,” Musa said.

The price of coming home

Now Audu is back. But his return has cost his family everything.

“They only released me after we paid ₦8 million and three motorcycles,” he recalled.

The family sold whatever they could find. The farm that he had refused to part with for two and a half million naira, the offer he had walked away from as an insult to his dignity, went for only ₦1.8 million in the end due to desperation. 

“Then we went around asking for help – some people gave us gifts, others gave us loans,” said Anas, his eldest son. Today, after his father’s release, the family is saddled with a debt of approximately ₦4.5 million and has no clear idea where to begin repaying it.

Audu carries the weight in his body as much as in his finances. “Even after I returned, everyone who saw me broke into tears at the state I was in,” he said. “Doctors have examined me and given me medication, but the pain in my body has not stopped.”

His deeper anguish is the problem he cannot solve: how does a man who had nothing rebuild from less than nothing? “We sought help from every direction and found very little,” Anas added. “We are still appealing to the government, even if it is just to help settle the debt, because everything we had was consumed by this ordeal.”

For the remaining residents of Nassarawa and the villages clustered along Gwarzo’s edges, the haunting question is not about debt. It is about prevention and how to protect themselves from the fate that swallowed Audu before the kidnappers come again.