Nigeria

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.

At the start of every school day, Martha Ayuba marks the attendance register of her class of about 50 pupils in Nassarawo Primary School, Jimeta-Yola, in Adamawa, northeastern Nigeria. The 38-year-old is the class teacher of Primary 3B. With a pencil in hand, she calls out names from the register. Each pupil answers, “Present, Ma”, before she ticks the box next to those who are “present” and crosses those who are “absent”.

Her worn attendance book is stuffed with handwritten names, erased marks, and faded ink. A leaking roof threatens to soak its pages, and a scurry of termites could erase weeks of work. Marking attendance is not just a routine; it’s a promise of accountability, and it appears on the report card at the end of each term and in the school’s database. 

However, across Nigeria, this ritual of paper and pencil is increasingly out of step with the country’s emerging Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), a national effort to build interoperable digital identity, payments, and data systems that serve citizens at scale.

Nigeria’s education system faces a tragic paradox: millions of children remain out of school, yet even those who attend often lack basic record-keeping and support. According to UNICEF, one in four primary-school–age children in Nigeria (about 10.5 million children) are not enrolled in school. In rural areas of Adamawa State, for instance, years of conflict and poverty have made schooling precarious.

At Nassarawo Primary School, Martha juggles teaching and attendance record-keeping duties. 

“There was a time when rain fell, and the register got wet,” she recounts. “I lost almost an entire term’s record, and no one could tell how many students were in class during those periods. I had to get another register and start afresh. Imagine if I didn’t have a backup?”

Several schools in Nigeria, including some public tertiary institutions, still rely heavily on manual recordkeeping, as Olubayo Adekanmbi, the CEO of Data Science Nigeria, notes. 

For Martha, that means precious minutes of class are spent on paperwork. This drudgery breeds frustration. “I know these kids by heart,” she says, “but we have to write it down. Otherwise, next year the next teacher won’t know what happened to them.” She keeps one copy at school and one at home, fearing theft or damage. Yet neither copy can travel with her if the children move to a different school or state. Even a single register lost in a fire or flood can erase months or years of history.

Why paper recordkeeping fails

Manual registers not only burden teachers; they distort national planning.

In Nigeria’s basic education subsector, school funding, teacher allowances and student support programmes all hinge on accurate attendance and enrolment data. Each child “counts” not just for classroom pride but for allocation of resources. For example, the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) earmarks School-Based Management Committee (SBMC) funds (for feeding programmes, sanitation, and learning materials) based on pupil numbers. In 2024, UBEC disbursed SBMC – School Improvement Programme support funds to 1,171 schools in all 36 states. 

If Martha’s register fails to reflect every student, such support might not reach deserving children. A missing name in the data could mean missed school meals, missing textbooks, or even being excluded from government scholarship programmes. Hence, school officials cannot adjust to “changing patterns in attendance” or identify which children need support.

Beyond individual schools, the absence of reliable data hampers policy and planning. At best, education officials compile annual school census figures, but these are months old and riddled with errors. Many rural schools report at a snail’s pace, if at all, because principals must physically carry piles of handwritten forms to local government offices. 

Recognising this gap, Nigeria has begun transitioning toward a national Education Management Information System (EMIS) built on District Health Information System Version 2 (DHIS2). An overview of the UNICEF-supported says Nigeria is “moving from fragmented, manual processes to a unified, digital platform”, aiming for “real-time, accurate data for evidence-based planning and decision-making”. 

In plain terms, that means that if Martha could click an app on her smartphone to log her attendance, higher-ups could see up-to-the-minute figures: student dropouts, teacher absences, resource gaps, and everything else. Real-time school data would highlight, for instance, which classes are short on books or which districts have the most teacher vacancies.

What Nigeria is doing

The Nigerian government has taken tentative steps toward digitisation. 

In 2024, UBEC launched a digital quality assurance platform to evaluate schools electronically. This system is designed to stream data on school infrastructure, teacher qualifications, and learning resources into a centralised dashboard, replacing laborious paper inspections. Although the platform is operational within UBEC’s inspection and monitoring system, nationwide adoption is still scaling up as infrastructure, connectivity and digital capacity in schools improve.

Similarly, the Federal Ministry of Education unveiled the Nigeria Education Data Initiative (NEDI) to build a “single, secure platform” of educational data across basic and tertiary levels. 

NEDI aims to “leverage the National Identity Management Commission’s (NIMC’s) unique identification number” – the national ID, “for accurate student tracking”. In other words, each child’s attendance and progress would be linked to a lifelong digital ID, so that Martha’s tallies could follow her students even if they moved schools or states.

At the state level, pilots are underway, but slow. 

A consortium led by HISP Nigeria and UNICEF is rolling out a District Health Information System Electronic Management Information System (DHIS2 EMIS) module in twelve states, including Adamawa, to “improve education planning and outcomes for millions of children”.

Local education authorities have been trained to use tablets and smartphones to enter enrolment, attendance, and infrastructure data directly into the system. In Bauchi State, for example, ministry officials held workshops for local supervisors to practice uploading school census data via mobile devices. 

Complementing government action, non-governmental organisations and agencies have jumped in. For instance, Data Science Nigeria helped launch the Gates Foundation-funded EdoCert, a digital certificate registry piloted in Edo State. EdoCert uses Sunbird, an open-source, “digital public good” to archive students’ exam results and transfer credentials online. EdoCert has since secured 1.9 million paper certificates since its launch. Its developers emphasise that the same approach could be used for attendance records. Experts point out that collecting comprehensive data could help “better track and adapt to changing patterns in school attendance” and guide the allocation of resources such as the national school lunch programme.

Meanwhile, other partners focus on connectivity. 

UNICEF’s GenU9ja initiative, local telecos, and the Federal Ministry of Education are racing to wire schools to the internet. By early 2025, more than 1,000 public schools had been connected via routers and provided with devices for digital learning, according to UNICEF. Training modules have been rolled out to thousands of teachers on basic computer skills and e-learning platforms. These efforts aim to lay the foundation for any future digital register: after all, you cannot click an app without power or Wi-Fi.

Even so, Martha and her peers remain on the front lines of a slow handover from paper to digital. 

Lessons from elsewhere

Nigeria is not alone in this challenge. Across Africa and the global south, educators have confronted broken attendance systems with creative digital fixes. In Rwanda, for example, the Ministry of Education introduced a mobile attendance app for teachers in 2025. Teachers simply log in and tap each day’s present students. The app immediately flags prolonged absences so that counsellors can intervene before a child drops out. At the end of 2025, more than 2,300 schools were enrolled in the system, and the government hopes that rapid data collection will reduce dropout rates. Rwanda’s example shows that with modest smartphones and training, even large rural systems can leapfrog paper. 

In India and Uganda, UNICEF piloted a simple SMS/voice system called EduTrac. Community monitors phone schools daily to collect attendance via interactive voice-response or text. Since school records can be altered later, EduTrac’s immutability ensures honesty: once a teacher reports numbers, they cannot be changed. In India, EduTrac covered over 15,000 schools across four states by 2015. Cluster coordinators, each overseeing about 20 schools, used it to verify reports and spot chronic absenteeism. 

The system required only basic phones and connectivity, making it ideal for remote villages. UNICEF noted that EduTrac has cultivated a culture of accountability: teachers and school heads know their numbers are being checked in real time.

What needs to change

Nigeria needs a pragmatic overhaul of its attendance system. Obaloluwa Ajiboye, an innovation governance specialist who has worked at the African Union, UNDP, and UNICEF, said one practical way to address gaps in student tracking is to assign every child a unique digital identity built on Nigeria’s existing framework, managed by the National Identity Management Commission. 

“By linking school attendance records to a single, nationally recognised ID number, each child would retain one continuous education record, even when transferring between schools or moving across local government areas,” Obaloluwa noted. He explains that this kind of consistency is central to what DPI is designed to achieve. If properly implemented, it would allow attendance data to follow the child rather than remain tied to a specific school. 

However, Obaloluwa added that such digital solutions will fail without power and connectivity. 

Although internet penetration has increased across Nigeria, about 41 per cent of the country’s population remains offline, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission. According to Obaloluwa, the government should prioritise solar panels, school internet, and devices (tablets or laptops) for teachers.

Nigeria’s GenU9ja programme shows what is possible: it connected over 1,000 schools and trained 63,000 educators in one year. Scaling such programmes nationwide, with specific funding for data systems, is critical, Obaloluwa noted. 

Additionally, Olubayo Adekanmbi, CEO of Data Science Nigeria, noted that schools like Nassarawo Primary School should be equipped with affordable digital registers that work even without constant internet access. “Many of the needed solutions already exist: for example, Sunbird (used by EdoCert) can run on laptops or tablets offline and sync later,” he added. 

Olubayo said that the attendance register should not live in isolation. “It must feed into larger platforms (UBEC reports, state EMIS). Systems should be interconnected to include open APIs so that daily attendance synchronises with the annual school census”. In practice, that means digital systems built on standards (the way EdoCert operates).

Martha believes that “if only we had a quick way to mark attendance, I could spend that time helping the kids”. Nigeria has various frameworks and local and international support to make the shift, but how long will it take to achieve?

This report is produced under the DPI Africa Journalism Fellowship Programme of the Media Foundation for West Africa and Co-Develop.

When Catherine Bello received a text message from the World Food Programme (WFP) in August 2025, she was excited. She had been anticipating it ever since she applied for the Anticipatory Action Response (AAR), a WFP programme that provides “multipurpose cash assistance” to reduce the humanitarian impact of flooding in vulnerable communities. 

Catherine lives in the Jimeta-Yola metropolis, an area in Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria, that has experienced repeated flooding. A mother of four, she is a retired public-school teacher who now sells kunun zaki (Hausa for corn juice) to make ends meet. 

She had hoped that the ₦208,184 AAR support would help her expand her business and save more to support her family. 

However, that excitement faded when she arrived in Yola for data capture.

Officials asked Catherine to provide her National Identification Number (NIN) for verification. To her shock, the system flagged a mismatch. The name on the beneficiary list appeared as “Bello O. Catherine”, while her NIN record read “Catherine Bello”.

“It was the same NIN I gave them while filling the form,” she says. “They told me the name they saw didn’t match, so I couldn’t be captured.” 

A missing middle-name initial was enough to exclude her from receiving assistance. Instead, she was advised to reconcile her records with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).

Across Nigeria, thousands of people, like Catherine, are locked out of essential services because of missing initials, misspelt names, and minor inconsistencies that trigger verification failures.

Nigeria’s digital identity system was built to include and connect millions of citizens to welfare, banking, education, and other opportunities. But for a growing number of Nigerians, the same system is becoming a barrier to accessing those services.

Identity as the backbone 

Nigeria’s emerging digital public infrastructure (DPI) rests on three foundational pillars: digital identity (NIN); digital payments and financial inclusion (Bank Verification Number (BVN) and the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS)); data exchange; and verification infrastructure. 

At the centre of this system is the NIN, managed by NIMC. By late 2025, Nigeria had issued about 127 million NINs, roughly 60 per cent of the population, but millions remain unregistered or mismatched. Under the World Bank–supported Identification for Development programme, Nigeria aims to scale capacity to 250 million records and reach 85 per cent population coverage by 2027.

Digital identity is no longer optional. It is now increasingly required for SIM card registration, bank account linkage (NIN–BVN integration), social protection enrolment, scholarship applications, and access to tax and government services.

In theory, this integration promises efficiency, transparency, and inclusion. In practice, data inconsistencies, limited interoperability, and infrastructure gaps expose citizens to the risk of exclusion.

Experts warn that when people lack a valid digital ID, they can literally be locked out of basic services. Dennis Amachree, a national security analyst and former Assistant Director at the Department of State Security, notes that the rural-urban divide and the lack of enrolment infrastructure leave many, especially the elderly and rural populations, without the documentation they need to fully participate in banking, travel, and government services. 

Meanwhile, the World Bank notes that Nigeria still has “a considerable gap” in identity coverage, especially among women, persons with disabilities, and other vulnerable groups. The global financial body observed that the lack of any recognised ID “prevents individuals from accessing critical government services, participating in the digital economy, and financial inclusion”. 

For instance, Catherine’s hope of benefiting from the welfare package was dashed; a tiny database error translated into lost hopes.

SIM-NIN linkage – Security births exclusion

Alpha Daniel, a trader in Jimeta Modern Market, faced a different but related problem.

In 2024, the Nigerian Communications Commission, the country’s telecom regulator, demanded that all mobile phones be linked to NIN or risk being shut off. In September of the same year, millions of Nigerians woke up to find their SIM cards blocked. Alpha was one of them. 

“I did everything right,” he says. “I went to the MTN shop, gave them my NIN, but after two tries, my line was still blocked.”

This was a familiar pattern. By mid-2024, telecoms reported that 13.5 million lines were barred for NIN non-compliance (8.6 million on MTN, 4.8 million on Airtel). By August 2024, Nigeria had linked 153 million SIMs to NIN (96 per cent of active lines). But that last 4 per cent represented some 6–7 million SIM connections that could no longer send or receive calls. Many complained that even after they finally registered or re-registered, their lines remained locked. 

As one subscriber with Airtel put it, “Painfully, I have done this linkage at least twice, but still the line was barred”. 

The government’s goal was to reduce phone-based fraud and make the digital economy safer, but for many Nigerians, losing a phone line means losing opportunities and even contact with relatives.

Ruth James, a graduate of Modibbo Adama University, Yola, had a scholarship application derailed when Nigeria’s ID system struck again. In early 2024, Ruth logged onto the Petroleum Technology Development Trust Fund (PTDF) scholarship portal and entered her details. The portal displayed a “NIN validation failed” message and locked her out. 

“I filled out the form perfectly,” she says. “Then it said my NIN verification failed. I kept trying different browsers, but nothing worked. There was a help icon for failed verification on the portal. I clicked and sent several emails, but there was no response.” In the end, Ruth missed the deadline and lost a chance at much-needed financial aid.

Many federal programmes, from scholarship funds to youth training schemes, now require NIN verification. Online forums are filled with frustrated applicants: Jobs Inform noted dozens of “Not eligible” errors from a NIN mismatch or “verification failed” during registration. 

These stories show how minor technical issues in Nigeria’s ID system can translate to a lack of access to education, banking, and social support, all of which are increasingly tied to digital identity. 

Government policies and infrastructure gaps

The Nigerian government is aware of these issues. In 2024 and 2025, it rolled out several projects to strengthen Nigeria’s DPI, the foundational systems that underpin services. For example, the revised National Digital Identity Policy for SIM Card Registration explicitly ties SIM-NIN linkage to curb fraud. 

The authorities also launched a NINAuth smartphone app in late 2025, which President Bola Tinubu hailed as “a milestone in our nation’s digital public infrastructure journey”. Tinubu has repeatedly emphasised that a “credible and inclusive National Identity Management System is fundamental to our national development goals”. In practice, the NINAuth app is meant to simplify identity checks for banks, hospitals, and government agencies, thereby reducing the need to manually look up each person’s NIN. However, the platform has not seen widespread adoption.

On the data side, Nigeria enacted a new Data Protection Act in June 2023, replacing the previous regulation. The new law imposes stricter rules (including special protections for children and a “duty of care” on data controllers). It was also a condition for the World Bank–supported Digital ID4D project. 

These efforts are already yielding results: linking NIN with financial systems (NIN/BVN linkage) coincided with a jump in financial inclusion from 56 per cent in 2020 to 65 per cent by 2023. However, digital experts note that Nigeria’s DPI remains fragmented. Many government platforms and private services do not fully share data, forcing citizens to repeatedly verify their identity. Network outages and limited registration centres (especially in rural areas) still slow down NIN enrollment. 

Worse, some Nigerians distrust the system after reports of lax data security. Khadijah El-Usman, a Senior Programme Officer for Anglophone West Africa at Paradigm Initiative, a digital rights group, warn that “the NIMC’s role is to secure this data. They have failed to do so”, referring to recent incidents where NIN data were allegedly sold on private websites.

Turning challenges into opportunities

Experts in digital governance say Nigeria must turn these challenges into opportunities for reform. Vincent Olatunji, National Commissioner and CEO of the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), stresses that effective identity management must be built on harmonised policies, secure technologies, and inclusive systems to strengthen national digital trust. “Effective identity management requires harmonised policies, secure technologies, and inclusive systems,” he noted, linking strong governance with citizens’ confidence in digital IDs. 

Likewise, Iremise Fidel-Anyanna, Head of Application Security, Governance, and Security Operations at the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), warns that “data privacy is the foundation of digital trust,” noting that privacy and security are essential to citizens’ willingness and ability to participate in digital services. 

Chy Ameh, a digital identity expert based in Abuja, stresses the need for stronger privacy and trust protections, arguing that “to ensure the privacy and security of individual personal information, implement robust data protection measures such as strong encryption, secure authentication, consent and control over personal data, compliance with regulations, and regular audits” to distribute responsibility between both government and private actors.

Several other experts also highlight infrastructure bottlenecks and low public awareness: “Network glitches, poor connectivity, and limited registration centres impede effective ID rollout,” they note. In addressing this, experts urge large-scale outreach and education programmes to help people understand how and why to register for a NIN.

In simple terms, these experts say Nigeria needs to make digital ID registration easier by opening more NIMC centres in underserved areas and reducing unnecessary bureaucracy. There should also be clear public information campaigns, in local languages, to explain what the NIN is and why it matters. To build trust, the government must fully enforce data protection laws and ensure people’s personal information is safe.

Finally, better coordination among the government, banks, and telecom companies is needed so that systems work together smoothly and people do not have to repeat the same processes.

Best practices and cautionary tales

Globally, there are lessons for Nigeria. India’s Aadhaar programme, the world’s largest biometric ID system, now covers about 95 per cent of India’s population. Aadhaar made government transfers and SIM registration much smoother, but not without controversy; it has faced numerous legal challenges over data privacy and mandatory linking. Nigeria can learn from India’s experience by building strong privacy safeguards before demanding universal linkage.

In Kenya, the Huduma Namba initiative aimed to create a single ID for all services, but was suspended by the courts in 2020. Privacy advocates there won a ruling saying that collecting biometric data (even GPS or DNA) without adequate legal protection was unconstitutional. Kenya’s case shows that inclusion programmes can backfire if citizens fear their data will be mishandled. Nigeria’s reforms, such as the new Data Protection Act and the planned changes to the NIMC Act, seem aimed at avoiding such mistakes.

In Estonia, nearly 100 per cent of adults have a government-issued electronic ID card, and all state services are accessible online. This allows citizens to vote, pay taxes, and use healthcare portals seamlessly. Achieving this took decades of investment in both technology and public trust. For Nigeria, such a level of integration is a distant goal, but it shows what’s possible if the digital ID becomes reliable and user-friendly.

Bridging the divide

Catherine, Alpha, and Ruth all share a sense of being stranded by a system that was supposed to help them. Their stories reveal that digital infrastructure failures can be as damaging as physical ones. As President Tinubu himself put it, Nigeria must “eliminate unnecessary bottlenecks and ensure that every Nigerian has access to essential services without the frustration of bureaucratic delays”.

To avoid leaving people like Catherine on the sidelines, experts say the government needs to act on multiple fronts: fix the glitches, protect people’s data, and make the system easy to use. Only then can Nigeria’s grand digital ID ambitions translate into real help for its people.

This report is produced under the DPI Africa Journalism Fellowship Programme of the Media Foundation for West Africa and Co-Develop.

Two children he found while fleeing the Ngoshe attack clung to his hands, struggling to keep up as they stumbled across the uneven ground. Behind them, armed terrorists pursued, closing in. 

From the distance, smoke rises, and shouts echo. The children stumbled again. Solomon Ali Talake pulled them and kept running. He could not run at full speed, and yet the terrorists would kill him if they caught up. So, he made a quick decision. 

“Run that way,” he told the children, pointing toward the bush, while he turned in the opposite direction. He was spotted, however. He darted behind a tree, his chest pounding. 

For a moment, he froze there, whispering a prayer under his breath.

Some hours before, Solomon could not have imagined that his life would change so completely. He is a primary school teacher in Ngoshe, a community in Borno, northeastern Nigeria, where he spends his days teaching pupils to read and write. On the evening of March 3, his routine unfolded like it always had. He returned home from school, sat with his family in the compound, and had dinner.

Then the gunfire began.

Terrorists stormed Ngoshe that evening, attacking a military base before spreading through the town, setting houses ablaze. Reports say the attackers killed over 100 and abducted over 300 more, but survivors said the casualty is too many to count. They said the assault, which lasted for several hours, forced thousands to flee the community that had been resettled only a few years ago as part of the government’s post-conflict programme. 

“They attacked around 6:25 p.m.,” Solomon recalled.

His house sits close to the military base, so the first sounds came from there. The attackers, he said, struck the base before moving toward the community.

The military returned fire, according to Maina Bukar, another resident of Ngoshe who is now displaced in Maiduguri.  “But they were overpowered, so they withdrew.”

When residents saw soldiers pulling back from the base, panic spread through the village. Families ran in every direction, but the terrorists followed. They caught up with some people and opened fire. Others were cut down as they tried to escape.

Solomon ran towards the bush, along the path leading to Pulka. The terrorists pursued and almost caught up. He hid behind a tree, three houses away from home. The terrorists spotted him but got distracted by movements in a nearby house. They rushed in to search.

Solomon seized the moment. “I climbed the tree and hid among the branches,” he recalled. “I remained there throughout the night.” The sound of the chaos echoed through the night. 

Hours earlier, the village had been filled with children returning from school, farmers preparing their evening meals, and Muslim families preparing to break their fast.

The sounds of the attack did not remain confined to Ngoshe. Residents in Pulka, about ten kilometres away, also heard the gunfire.

“We heard it as soon as it happened,” said Muhammad Tela, a resident of Pulka.

Pulka sits close to Ngoshe, separated largely by a stretch of land and the hills of the Mandara Mountains. Both communities are towns in the Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno State.

“Ngoshe to Pulka is about a 25-minute drive because of the condition of the road,” Maina explained.

The two communities are closely connected. Every Tuesday and Friday, traders from Ngoshe travel to Pulka for trade under military escort, Maina said.

On the night of March 3, however, the market routes fell silent.

A return that promised safety

For Solomon’s family, returning to Ngoshe once felt like the beginning of a new chapter.

In October 2020, the Borno State government resettled displaced people in the town after rebuilding homes, schools, clinics, and other public facilities destroyed by Boko Haram insurgents in their violent and prolonged effort to topple democracy and establish what they believe to be an Islamic state. The activities of the terror group has killed over 35,000 people and displaced millions. 

The Borno State government’s move was presented as part of a broader transition into what officials described as a post-conflict recovery phase. Solomon’s father, Ali Talake, believed in that promise.

Years earlier, when the insurgents first overran Ngoshe and neighbouring communities, he had fled across the border into Cameroon. From there, he eventually made his way to Maiduguri, where he lived inside the Federal Government College, volunteering as a security guard.

But his thoughts rarely left Ngoshe.

“My father was a farmer and a livestock rearer,” Solomon said.

When news spread that the government had begun resettling displaced residents, Ali Talake decided it was time to return. “We returned to Ngoshe on October 15, 2020,” Solomon said. Like many others, the family began rebuilding their lives there.

For six years, Ngoshe once again stood as home.

The community had access to basic facilities. “There is a clinic,” Maina said. “There are doctors and drugs.” The town also had clean water and schools.

Security presence was also significant. Residents say the formation consisted of personnel from the military and volunteer outfits like the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), Nigeria Forest Security Services (NFSS), and surrendered terrorists, popularly called “the hybrid.” Solomon said there were about 300 soldiers stationed in Ngoshe. Maina corroborated this. In addition, “there are about 400 personnel of the CJTF, NFSS, and vigilantes,” he said. Before the attack, Maina estimated, about 10,000 people lived in the community.

“They patrol the town at night,” he said of the security operatives. “They would start patrolling by 6 p.m. until 6 a.m. the next morning.”

Despite that, residents said they did not always feel safe.

The town had faced insecurity before. “A similar major one [attack] happened on June 21, 2025,” Solomon recalled. Like in the recent attack, the community was overrun. “They did not kill anyone or burn buildings during that attack,” Solomon said.

Security later improved, and the town gradually returned to normal. But residents, especially farmers, could rarely venture beyond one kilometre from the town, Maina said. “Those who go beyond that are often abducted or killed by terrorists.” 

For large-scale cultivation, people often travelled to Monguno and communities on the outskirts of Maiduguri, the state capital, such as Jakana. Adamu Zakariya, a resident of Ngoshe who had returned to Maiduguri months earlier to harvest his crops, agreed. “After harvest, we would return with the crops to Ngoshe,” he said. But this time, he decided to remain in Maiduguri because of a security job he recently got, while his family stayed in Ngoshe.

“Two weeks ago, they abducted some girls who had gone behind the mountains to gather firewood,” Maina said. “No ransom was demanded, and they were never returned. We later heard they had been married off, including a 12-year-old.”

Young boys were also at risk. “They would kill young boys who go out of town,” Maina said.

Before the recent Ngoshe attack, some residents had heard rumours. “Although we don’t know the authenticity, there were rumours that the terrorists would come to break their fast with us,” Solomon recalled. Such rumours circulated within the community and even reached security personnel. Some residents relocated. Others stayed.

The night of the violence

From the top of the tree Solomon climbed, he could see the village below. “They burnt all our houses, including my own room. I saw them,” he said. The attackers moved through the settlement, setting homes ablaze and pursuing residents who tried to escape. 

At one point, several terrorists gathered beneath the tree where Solomon was hiding. “They were arguing,” he said. He held his breath and prayed. “I asked God to cause confusion so they would not look up.”

One of the fighters suggested firing at the tree. “Let me have this gun and scatter this tree,” Solomon remembered him saying. Another replied, “No, just leave it.” A third asked for a torch to check the branches. Again, someone stopped him. The men eventually moved away.

From his hiding place, Solomon said he saw about 27 attackers moving through the area. Some carried cutlasses and knives, others held guns. He recognised rifles such as AK-47s, although some weapons were unfamiliar to him.

Maina and his family also fled towards Pulka when the attack began. 

“They came on motorcycles,” Maina said of the attackers. “Bullets were flying everywhere. The whole place was lit with gunfire.”

He arrived Pulka around 1 a.m., barefoot.

Media reports of March 6 state that a yet-to-be-identified terror group has claimed responsibility for the attack. However, testimonies from survivors revealed that the attack is suspected to have involved terrorists from both the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Jama’atu Ahlussunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad (JAS).

“Those who attacked the military base left immediately after taking vehicles and weapons,” Solomon said. They withdrew toward the direction of Pulka but veered into the bush before reaching the town.

“It was those on the mountain who attacked the community,” Solomon said, referring to JAS fighters based in the Mandara Mountains. “Afterwards, they climbed back up.”

For the JAS terrorists, residents believe the attack may have been retaliation. On Dec. 19, 2025, the Nigerian Army announced that troops of Operation Hadin Kai had killed a terrorist commander and several fighters in the Mandara Mountains the previous day. Maina said the commander was later beheaded by members of the CJTF.

“They cut the heads of some of them,” Solomon said of the soldiers killed during the recent attack. “I was told they killed about ten soldiers.”

Adamu said some former JAS members who had previously surrendered were living in Ngoshe with their families. “When those members of JAS from Ngoshe attacked the town with their colleagues, they took away some of their family members,” he said. “Especially young men and women of reproductive age.”

He added that the attackers also killed some who had previously defected from the group. Tracking and killing defectors has been a recurring tactic among the JAS terror group. In November 2025, HumAngle reported cases of former terrorists being tracked and assassinated across Borno.

“The terrorists took what they could carry from the military armoury and set what they could not carry ablaze,” Maina said.

“It was said the soldiers from Pulka drove into buried mines on the way to Ngoshe,” he said. “Two of the soldiers were my friends. One died, and the other was injured.”

The road between the towns has long been dangerous. “The terrorists dig holes along the road and bury mines inside them,” Maina said.

The use of roadside explosives has become increasingly common in recent months. In April 2025, Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) planted along the Maiduguri-Damboa road killed at least seven passengers and injured several others.

Muhammad said soldiers from Pulka remained near the border and helped injured survivors reach the hospital in Pulka.

On March 6, Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu, condemned the attack, describing it as a “heartless assault on helpless citizens.” The president then charged “the military and other security agencies to work urgently to rescue those kidnapped by the terrorists.” As well as “intensify their efforts to protect civilians nationwide and prevent attacks on military installations in the North East.”

At dawn, Solomon saw the attackers switch on a generator and begin the call to prayer. He realised it might be his chance to escape.

“I climbed down at 5:10 a.m. and ran,” he said. “When I heard them saying they would check trees and uncompleted buildings after burning the houses, I knew I had to leave when I got the chance.”

He hid again until about 6 a.m.

The morning after

By 7:10 a.m., he had reached Pulka, where many survivors had gathered.

“Most people came barefoot,” Muhammad Tela said. “Others carried the elderly on push carts. Some even brought the corpses of loved ones.”

Many arrived carrying whatever they could salvage: bags of clothes, goats, and small belongings gathered in haste. Others fled further: toward Maiduguri, Cameroon, and Abuja.

Media reports later suggested that about 100 people were killed and more than 300 abducted. Survivors say the numbers are difficult to confirm.

“They cannot be quantified,” Maina said. “But the people I reached Pulka with and those we met at the entrance, including women, children and the elderly, were about 2,000 from my estimation.”

Solomon saw two children being abducted while they were fleeing.

Two of Solomon’s nephews were also taken during the attack. One is 14 years old and the other is 11.

Later, when soldiers briefly returned to Ngoshe, Solomon returned as well. His father had been killed. “He was 68,” he said. From his father’s body, Solomon collected two small items: a cap and a wallet.

“They are something to remember him with,” he said. Victims like Solomon’s father were buried two days later in a mass burial.

The new fear

Recent months have seen a wave of attacks by ISWAP fighters across Borno, particularly targeting security formations.

A member of the Nigerian Forest Security Service (NFSS) said terrorists attacked a military base in Konduga on March 5 and burned several buildings. The base, located near an area known as “High Bridge,” lies close to Malari.

According to him, the terrorists killed several soldiers and took away vehicles and weapons.

Earlier, on Feb. 14, terrorists attacked a military base in Pulka. Two days later, troops launched a counter-operation that reportedly killed a commander and recovered ₦37 million. On Feb. 5, terrorists attacked a military base in Auno, a community close to Maiduguri along the Maiduguri-Damaturu road, according to a military source who asked not to be named. On Jan. 26, terrorists attacked a military base in Damasak, killing seven soldiers and capturing 13 others, including their commanding officer. Eleven managed to escape. 

Earlier, on Nov. 14, 2025, 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. On Nov. 20 of the same year, they attacked a CJTF base in Warabe, killing eight people and leaving three others missing. And on Dec. 25, a suicide bomber detonated at a mosque in the Gamboru Market area of Maiduguri. Five people were killed, and 35 others were injured.

Terrorists have also targeted reconstruction projects.

On Jan. 28, about 30 construction workers were killed in Sabon Gari, Damboa. Earlier, on Nov. 17, 2025, workers fled after terrorists stormed a construction site in Mayanti, Bama.

Resettled communities have also come under repeated attack. On Sept. 5, 2025, fighters attacked Darajama in Bama, killing at least 63 people, including five soldiers, and burning about 24 houses. Many residents fled again.

Umara Ibrahim, a professor of International Relations and Strategic Studies at the University of Maiduguri, said the attacks may be intended to undermine government 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 in a February interview.

He added that such violence may also serve a political purpose. “It may be a way to counter government efforts by shaping public perception that the authorities cannot be trusted on security,” he said.

Pulka itself had once been abandoned when insurgents seized the town. After the military retook it in 2017, residents gradually returned. More recently, the government resettled refugees from Cameroon there. On Jan. 28, the government resettled about 300 Nigerian refugees from Cameroon. On Feb. 8, it resettled 680 more.

But the Ngoshe attack has revived old fears. “People don’t feel secure,” Muhammad said. “They think the community could be displaced again. Everyone is thinking about where to go.”

Communication also became difficult. For several days, residents said, there was no network across Gwoza, leaving families struggling to confirm whether relatives were alive.

Adamu’s brothers later travelled from Maiduguri to Pulka to retrieve their displaced relatives. Maina did not remain in Pulk as his parents urged him to leave immediately for Maiduguri. Still, he worries about those left behind. He believes the community needs stronger security.

In the days that followed, Solomon also travelled to Maiduguri. Though he is the seventh child in his family, he is now the only available adult son able to organise their next steps. His stepmother and siblings remain displaced. 

“I am looking for a house to rent so I can bring them here,” he said. Looking back, Solomon says he had always worried about returning to Ngoshe.

“We had no neighbouring villages,” he said. “We were surrounded by bushes and mountains.” Sometimes, he warned his family. “One day these people might take over,” he recalled telling them. Now the village has emptied again.

And Solomon, a teacher who once spent his days in a quiet classroom, is searching for shelter in a distant city while carrying the memory of a night he survived by hiding in a tree.

Christie Garba is a 38-year-old mother of seven who lives in Billiri, Gombe State, in Nigeria’s North East. She lived in Yobe State with her family before the Boko Haram insurgency hit the region. At that time, attacks had happened in nearby places, and they had not reached her community directly.

Christie and her family had stayed about four months after the attacks started, but as the violence escalated, the soldiers warned residents that the situation had become too dangerous to remain. The curfews that followed made everyday life almost impossible.

In this episode of VOV, we tell the story of how Christie and her family moved to Gombe State and how she survived starting a new business.

Reported and scripted by Sabiqah Bello

Voice acting by Rukayya Saeed

Multimedia editor is Anthony Asemota

Executive producer is Ahmad Salkida

Nigeria’s Bola Tinubu was elected on promises to tackle the nation’s widespread violence and address two of its root causes: Poverty and corruption. But with the country going to the polls next year, has he delivered on his “Renewed Hope” agenda?

Mehdi Hasan goes head-to-head with Daniel Bwala, Tinubu’s once staunch critic-turned-Special Adviser on Media and Policy Communications, on the administration’s record in office and where he stands on his past accusations against his current boss.

Joining the discussion are:
Ayisha Osori – Director, Open Society Foundations Ideas/Workshop Lab
Aanu Adeoye – Journalist, Financial Times
Tunde Doherty – UK chairman, All Progressives Congress

As part of its sixth-anniversary celebrations, HumAngle, Africa’s leading conflict and humanitarian crises reporting newsroom, held a training session on “ethical dilemmas in conflict reporting” on Tuesday, March 3, in Abuja, North Central Nigeria. 

The session, which brought together HumAngle editors and reporters, was led by award-winning journalist Sally Hayden and focused on the challenges and responsibilities of reporting from conflict zones. 

Founded in 2020, HumAngle has been at the forefront of covering insurgency and mass displacement, publishing investigations and exposés on state failure, human rights violations, climate vulnerability, abductions, disappearances, and systemic corruption.

According to Ahmad Salkida, Founder and CEO of HumAngle, the training is part of its bold agenda to transform the newsroom into a lasting knowledge institution.

“The initiative reflects our commitment to equipping journalists with skills that align with global standards, ensuring they are prepared to navigate the complexities of reporting in conflict-affected regions while maintaining professional integrity,” he said. 

Ahmad also revealed that over the last six years, HumAngle has consistently shifted the world’s gaze to underreported stories, fought for accountability, and demanded justice. “When we started HumAngle, we knew the road would be tough, but we also knew it was necessary. We set out to create a platform that would not only report the news but transform it into a tool for change,” he added. 

The CEO also highlighted plans to strengthen digital security and newsroom resilience by expanding the scope and quality of fellowships and investing in capacity-building initiatives. He added that a key part of this vision is establishing permanent institutional infrastructure, which he described as critical to sustaining HumAngle’s mission and impact in the long term.

“Going forward, our newsroom focus will be on scaling investigative capacity across the Sahel, expanding immersive and data-driven storytelling, and deepening transitional and reparative justice and reporting,” he noted.

Through interactive discussions, Sally unpacked the ethical grey zones that define conflict reporting: access negotiated under restrictive conditions, the burden of bearing witness, and the solitude of decision-making in volatile environments. Drawing on years of reporting from Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Lebanon, Palestine, Nigeria, and beyond, she shared practical frameworks for risk assessment, personal safety, and editorial judgement.

“Sometimes, you face situations that no one has ever faced because you’re the only one in that specific place at that specific time, so sharing experiences helps other journalists who may be there some day,” she reflected. 

Drawing on her years of experience covering conflict-affected regions such as Iraq, Syria, and Sudan, among others, risk assessment and decision-making were also central to the discussions, equipping attendees with frameworks to evaluate personal and organisational safety in volatile contexts.

One such moment came in 2025, when she reported from a Syrian prison housing suspected Islamic State members. The access was conditional.

“We were told we could go to the prison as long as we followed certain rules. We could not ask how the prisoners were or about other things. Most importantly, we could not tell them about current events. We were told this was for security reasons.”

Sally and the attendees further discussed how ethical reporting in conflict zones demands constant negotiation between access, accuracy, and accountability.

Equally pressing was the psychological toll of the work. She spoke candidly about trauma, burnout, and the importance of self-awareness. In conflict reporting, she stressed, it does not merely document suffering; it absorbs it.

“When you’re constantly surrounded by insecurity, it can be helpful to find something to do rather than constantly be lost,” she advised, urging journalists to cultivate routines and boundaries that protect their mental health.

According to Saduwo Banyawa, HumAngle’s Adamawa and Taraba Correspondent, the conversation made her realise that “it is okay to feel stuck as a journalist at times and when one gets unnecessarily pressured or has their mental health strained, they should prioritise self-care.”

Over the years, HumAngle has prioritised the mental well-being of reporters and other team members through an Employee Assistance Programme, which offers confidential, one-on-one counselling sessions with our in-house licensed clinical psychologist.

Recently, the newsroom introduced an Anti-Burnout Work Policy that has embedded a three-month rest period into newsroom staff contracts while still providing full annual pay. 

“HumAngle’s reporters routinely work in and around conflict zones, camps for displaced people, and communities living with violence and trauma. This kind of journalism demands not just technical skill but emotional stamina and deep empathy, and the costs are often borne silently,” the CEO noted. 

Reflecting on the training, Sabiqah Bello, Multimedia Reporter, described it as both relevant and validating to the experiences of conflict reporters.

“It was particularly insightful because it came from a journalist with extensive, cross-regional experience covering conflict and war, and who has had to confront the realities of that work firsthand. It was especially valuable that we explored ethical dilemmas faced in conflict reporting,” she added. 

Bala Abubakar rises before dawn, fetching water and checking his irrigation canals. He grew up in Gurin, a community in Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria, where rice cultivation has fed generations. To operate a thriving rice farm, Bala says he needs good seedlings, fertilisers, and perhaps a loan to tide him over. 

In 2024, members of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) in the state got subsidy inputs through the Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), a programme designed to de-risk agricultural lending for low-income farmers. Bala went to the nearest cybercafé to register, hoping to benefit from the initiative.

The registration required him to enter his National Identity Number (NIN) before he could access the loan. At the café, he entered his name and the NIN, but the system failed to verify him. The café attendant told him that his record was not found and advised him to try his bank’s verification number (BVN). He tried, but the system still failed him. Disappointed after visiting the cybercafé, Bala trudged back home. 

Like Bala, other farmers faced a similar problem. One farmer, Sani Bukar, tried to access the Growth Enhancement Support under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP),  an initiative designed to improve smallholder farmers’ access to agricultural inputs through an electronic, voucher-based system. He only received a “verification failed” message, despite having a phone number linked to his NIN.

“They have our pictures and fingerprints now,” Bala says, referring to the recent biometric enrollment drive. “But those pictures are in Abuja. Here in my village, what do I have?” 

His story reflects a deeper tension in Nigeria’s emerging Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) ecosystem. Although Nigeria has made progress in several areas of DPI, alignment across them is uneven. The NIN, for instance, is managed by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), while the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) manages the BVN system to expand financial inclusion. In addition, SIM registration—conducted by mobile network operators—links phone numbers to individuals’ identities.

On paper, these systems should make agricultural targeting seamless, but in practice, they often operate in silos. 

Bala’s dilemma is built on concrete technical barriers. To access most federal or sub-national agricultural interventions today, a farmer must have a valid NIN,  a phone number linked to that NIN, a bank account linked to a BVN, and a registration in a state or federal farmer database.  If any link in that chain fails, the entire process most often collapses. 

A 2025 overview of Nigeria’s connectivity landscape notes that only about 38 per cent of Nigerians were online in 2024, with rural communities significantly lagging behind.

“Without stable internet, many agricultural tools are rendered ineffective,” said Tajudeen Yahaya, an agricultural extension expert. “Even simple SMS or app-based registration frequently fails in rural communities.”

Beyond connectivity, issues with identity and data persist. The NIN registry has enrolled over 120 million people, but reports indicate that many more Nigerians have yet to enrol, particularly those in rural areas. Bala’s village falls within that gap. 

The problem spans across multiple government programmes. Different states in Nigeria maintain their own farmer databases that conflict with federal government records. For instance, Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) offices may possess one list, while federal systems could have a different one. 

“We tell farmers to get on the portal, but many are not in our state ADP database,” says Victor Anthony, who spoke on behalf of the Chairperson of the ADP programme in Adamawa State. “And even if they are, the federal system says we’re not synced.” 

In 2025, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture officially launched a National Digital Farmers Registry. The minister, Abubakar Kyari, announced that it would be anchored and accessed through the NIN. According to Abubakar, the registry would eliminate ghost beneficiaries and ensure targeted delivery of inputs, extension services, credit, and insurance. The goal is a single unified platform that links NINs to farmlands, so that when a farmer applies, the system already “knows” him and his fields. 

However, a recent statement from the agriculture ministry noted duplications and inconsistencies in farmers’ records, making it difficult to support them.

Interventions

Many government parastatals and private institutions are working to improve digitalisation for farmers and rural communities. NIMC has expanded the number of enrolment centres under the World Bank–supported programme, aiming to register up to 150 million Nigerians. Mobile NIN vans now travel to rural markets and religious gatherings, reducing distance barriers.

In October 2025, the World Bank approved a $500 million Building Resilient Digital Infrastructure for Growth (BRIDGE) project to lay fibre optics across Nigeria. Over the next five years, 90,000 km of fibre will be added, expanding the national backbone from 35,000 km to 125,000 km. When completed, this network will connect every local government, thousands of schools and clinics, and even remote agricultural research stations. 

In local communities, farming cooperatives and technology companies are also contributing. The Extension Africa network has provided training to many local extension agents in digital tools, enabling them to act as “digital ambassadors” in rural areas. Some platforms are testing offline kiosks that permit farmers to download guidance and transaction records whenever they visit town.

The federal government’s renewed Agric Infrastructure Fund and various projects with agencies aim to equip these hubs with basic internet as part of a broader “Digital Village” initiative.  However, these fixes are works in progress. 

An African challenge?

Nigeria’s struggles are shared across the Global South, and other countries’ experiences offer cautionary lessons. In India, billions of dollars in farmer subsidies are paid directly to bank accounts via Aadhaar ID. The country is now rolling out Agri Stack, a digital initiative that gives each farmer a unique digital ID linked to land records. 

When the government mandated e-KYC for OTPs in 2023, nearly 5 per cent of beneficiaries were flagged as “ineligible” when verification failed. Many older farmers lacked a working linked phone, had worn fingerprints, or ran into a buggy face-scan app. 

With 70 per cent of the population in rural areas, agriculture accounts for 33 per cent of GDP in Kenya, but the country has struggled with piecemeal data. A recent study notes that millions of Kenyan smallholders remain “invisible to formal agricultural programmes”. In 2023, Kenya launched a national digital registry for farmers, but poor connectivity and low smartphone ownership are barriers, as in Nigeria. 

On the positive side, Kenya has explored linking its digital ID (Huduma card) to farm cooperatives and training agents in the field. Rwanda goes even further by running the Smart Nkunganire e-voucher system, in which registered farmers receive digital coupons for seeds and fertilisers based on precise plots. These programmes suggest that pairing farmer IDs with geotagged land data can dramatically improve targeting, but only if the data are entered correctly, experts said.

Ethiopia has introduced a National ID requirement for various services. The newly established National Agricultural Finance Implementation Roadmap (NAFIR) incorporates a Fayda ID, which is a 12-digit unique identification number provided by the National ID Programme (NIDP) to residents who meet the necessary criteria set by NIDP. This system is designed for farmers associated with a land registry containing 18 million plots. The World Bank highlights that digital identity could unlock rural finance at scale in Ethiopia, but warns that without addressing its infrastructure gaps, digital solutions risk remaining pilots.

What needs to change

Experts argue that Nigeria must double down on making its digital agriculture ecosystem inclusive and resilient. Frank Akabueze, a Nigerian-based digital identity expert, noted that IDs should be flexible to ensure seamless registration. He said the NIN may be central, but alternative pathways should exist. For instance, cooperative leaders should be allowed to register farmers offline (paper intake by trusted agents) and synchronise later, rather than requiring each individual’s smartphone.” 

“Voter card numbers should be made acceptable as interim IDs,” Frank said, noting the importance of equipping extension workers with portable biometric devices so they can register farmers on the spot, as some countries do. In India, the option of offline Aadhaar verification was eventually introduced to help offline farmers. 

The digital expert noted that all of Nigeria’s data siloes – NIMC, BVN, SIM records and databases should be harmonised. He stressed that legal frameworks like the new digital ID policy can mandate data sharing between agencies (with privacy safeguards). 

“Spelling mismatches and duplicates should be proactively cleaned: one approach is to use biometric deduplication, as India did at scale for Aadhaar,” he added. 

He also said the proposed National Digital Farmers Registry should connect to the NIN and verify existing records, such as the national farmers’ census, to minimise errors, such as listing the same farmer in multiple states or with different ages.

This report is produced under the DPI Africa Journalism Fellowship Programme of the Media Foundation for West Africa and Co-Develop.

When Ahmad Salkida first conceived HumAngle in 2014, the idea was audacious: build a newsroom dedicated to conflict reporting at a time when Nigeria’s media space was shrinking, resources were scarce, and insecurity was widespread. It would take six more years before that vision materialised. In 2020, HumAngle formally launched. Today, as the organisation marks its sixth anniversary, Salkida describes the journey as a roller coaster.

“It takes you to a peak where you feel unstoppable,” he says of building HumAngle. “Then suddenly, you’re reminded of the realities: financial strain, political pressure, operational risks. It’s a constant test of resolve.”

Yet, even amid the highs and lows, Ahmad is certain of one thing: HumAngle has become more than a newsroom. It is a platform of purpose. “I’m glad that HumAngle has been a vehicle that has helped so many young people to discover themselves,” he said. 

HumAngle’s roots are deeply personal. On Sept. 6, 2016, Ahmad returned to Nigeria after being declared wanted by the Nigerian Army over allegations that he had withheld information about the whereabouts of the Chibok girls abducted by Boko Haram. Following interrogation, he was released by the Department of State Services without charge.

When he resettled in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, Ahmad began refining an idea that had been forming for years: a media platform dedicated to conflict, one that would amplify the voices of victims and survivors rather than merely echo official narratives. He envisioned a newsroom that would not only report on violence but also interrogate its causes, document its human cost, and advocate for a future in which the media could highlight pathways to peace—not just the spectacle of war.

HumAngle was born from that conviction.

Launching in 2020 meant confronting immediate adversity. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted economies and shuttered newsrooms worldwide. Independent journalism in Nigeria faced chronic underfunding, while security risks loomed over reporters covering insurgency, displacement, and corruption.

Still, HumAngle persisted. Three years later, the peacebuilding advocacy arm, HumAngle Foundation, was launched. What began as a small, mission-driven team evolved into a diverse newsroom of nearly 40 staff members, pushing the boundaries of how conflict is reported in Nigeria and across Africa. The organisation adopted an innovative approach, blending deep investigations with ground reporting, data journalism, GIS mapping, and even virtual reality documentaries.

From stories on insurgency and mass displacement to exposés on bureaucratic failure, climate vulnerability, abductions, disappearances, and systemic corruption, HumAngle carved a niche as a trusted source for underreported narratives.

“It was supposed to be a general interest publication, but considering my long and rough experience with the Nigerian security sector, the escalating insecurity across the country, and the media black hole surrounding various dimensions of the conflicts, it made more sense for it to be a niche platform,” according to Ahmad.

Behind the scenes, however, the burden was immense.

“Every morning, I walked into the HumAngle building, feeling the weight of a mission at odds with its environment—carrying not just the hopes of nearly 40 staff members, but also the invisible pressure to prove that public-interest journalism can exist in a society that has never been structured to sustain it,” he recently wrote.

Amidst the struggle, deep investigations, ground reporting, data stories, GIS maps, VR documentaries and stories of insurgency, displacement, bureaucracy, climate vulnerability, abductions, disappearances and corruption continue to emerge. 

Despite acknowledging that HumAngle is “far from achieving its target objectives,” Ahmad speaks with unmistakable gratitude. “I am proud of everything HumAngle has nurtured.” 

In Nov. 2025, Ahmad Salkida was selected for the 2026 Yale Peace Fellowship, alongside 13 other global peacebuilding leaders. “Being selected for this fellowship validates the work I am doing with HumAngle, and I look forward to gaining more insight to improve our processes after the fellowship,” he said. “Peace is achievable in our lifetime. And fellowships like this ensure that that belief is not only a feeling, but a destination that can be reached through small incremental steps.”

He maintains that the fellowship, along with several other recognitions the newsroom has received and the impact it has recorded, serves as fuel to do more.

Six years on, HumAngle stands not merely as a newsroom, but as proof that even in fragile environments, journalism can be courageous, innovative, and deeply human. 

As part of the sixth-anniversary activities, a book-reading conversation was held on Monday evening, March 2, with award-winning Irish journalist Sally Hayden. Her book, “My Fourth Time, We Drowned on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route”, explores the harrowing realities faced by refugees, weaving together shocking personal accounts with a broader investigation into systemic failures—highlighting NGO negligence, corruption within the UN, and the disturbing economics of modern slavery.

Sally, while commending HumAngle’s work in documenting the human cost of insecurity in the Sahel, emphasised the importance of independent journalism in the region and the use of appropriate, generally acceptable language when reporting on conflict and displacement.

“Journalists have the duty to question the languages they use, especially when describing people in the face of conflict, migration crisis or displacement. If I were to rewrite this book today, I would probably correct certain descriptive words or language,” she added. 

Every March 2, HumAngle Media marks its anniversary. This year, the award-winning newsroom turns six, a milestone for a publication that has dedicated itself to covering conflict, humanitarian crises, and development challenges across Africa.

This year’s anniversary is marked by reflection and knowledge-sharing activities. On Monday, award-winning Irish investigative journalist Sally Hayden attended HumAngle’s editorial meeting, where she met the newsroom team. During the session, she described herself as “a big follower of the work” and added, “I’m star-struck,” expressing admiration for the organisation’s impact and growth over the years.

Founded in March 2020 by Ahmad Salkida, HumAngle was born out of a determination to report on conflict and terrorism with nuance, depth, and humanity. Over the years, Ahmad’s work – and that of the newsroom he built – has shaped both local and global understanding of crises across Nigeria and the wider Lake Chad region.

“HumAngle stands as one of the most consequential media institutions covering conflict, displacement, extremism, governance failures, and community resilience in Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin,” he said. 

From the outset, the newsroom set itself apart by centring people rather than power. Its investigations and analyses prioritise lived experiences, while holding authorities accountable. Through solutions journalism, HumAngle not only documents harm but also explores pathways to peacebuilding and conflict resolution across the continent. 

A HumAngle investigation on the social media interactions fuelling the ethno-religious violence crisis in Plateau State, North Central Nigeria, was recently shortlisted in the Outstanding Contribution to Peace Category of the 2025 Festisov Journalism Awards. 

For the editorial team, the past six years have been defined by innovation, resilience, impact, creativity, and challenge.

Mansir Muhammed, Senior Specialist in GIS, open-source intelligence, and emerging technology, describes the journey as deeply impactful. In 2023, he collaborated with HumAngle’s former investigations editor, Kunle Adebajo, on an investigation that uncovered mass graves in Nigeria’s North East.

“We had access to knowledgeable fixers who took our reporter close to these scenes. We then took pictures and collected supplementary information. We further probed the coordinates using open-source intelligence and geospatial tools, including satellite imagery and data, alongside contextual information,” Mansir wrote in a reporter’s diary. 

The investigation went on to win the Sigma Award for Outstanding Data Journalism in 2024, a recognition of the newsroom’s growing strength in digital and data-driven reporting.

“The award showcases the kind of work we have been doing with digital journalism and geographic information systems,” he said. He urged the public to look out for more innovations and impressive output from the newsroom. 

The Sigma Award is only one of several recognitions HumAngle investigations have received. Beyond accolades, however, the team points to something more important: measurable impact on communities whose stories might otherwise have gone unheard. 

Most recently, an investigation by Hauwa Shaffii Nuhu, the Managing Editor, won the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) Media Africa Award. The story explored the life of Modu Bakura, a 30-year-old resident of Bama, northeastern Nigeria, whose house was robbed in 2022, his wife killed, and his source of livelihood taken away. 

In its citation, the jury reflected on the story’s lasting power:

“There are some stories, even great stories, that one reads and immediately forgets. And then there are the stories that stay with you, that you think about days, weeks or even months later. Hauwa Shaffii Nuhu’s fascinating and heartbreaking profile of Modu Baraka – a trader in northeastern Nigeria whose life was unravelled by a robbery – is in the latter category.”

For Ibrahim Adeyemi, Investigations Editor, HumAngle’s defining feature is its editorial culture.

“We don’t tell basic stories. We ask critical questions which make our work distinct,” he said, adding that the most interesting thing about working with HumAngle is that every reporter is encouraged to think like an investigative journalist: to dig deeper, question assumptions, and follow evidence wherever it leads.

That philosophy has culminated in the development of the HumAngle Investigations Handbook, a practical guide designed to support reporters in producing rigorous, groundbreaking work.

Innovation at HumAngle extends beyond investigations.

“I’m proud to say that HumAngle is six. It’s been really fun watching HumAngle grow,” said Damilola Lawal, Creative and Innovation Manager at HumAngle. Working across animation, multimedia, motion graphics, and virtual reality, she has helped shape the newsroom’s visual and immersive storytelling. She describes her work as exciting. 

Looking ahead, she plans to push those boundaries even further. “I’m going to be diving into immersive storytelling and also look at creative and impressive ways that we can apply virtual reality,” she noted. 

HumAngle’s sixth anniversary will be marked with a week-long programme of activities, including editorial sessions and workshops with Sally Hayden. The sessions are aimed at strengthening capacity, refining processes, and scaling impact. 

In the years ahead, HumAngle plans to expand its investigative and storytelling capacity, strengthen digital security and newsroom resilience, and broaden its fellowships and capacity-building initiatives. Ahmad said that HumAngle remains committed to documenting Africa’s most complex conflicts, not only with rigour and courage, but with empathy, accountability, and an unwavering belief in journalism’s power to serve the public good.

Members of Nigeria’s Shia Muslim community are mourning Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was killed by a US-Israeli attack in Tehran. Demonstrators carried his portrait and waved Iranian flags while they dragged American and Israeli flags along the ground.

When he became Nigeria’s Inspector-General of Police (IGP) in 2023, Kayode Egbetokun vowed to fight criminality and insecurity with vim and vigour. He seemed determined to reform the police; he promised to improve officers’ welfare and make Nigeria a safer, better country for its people. As Usman Alkali stepped out of the IGP office and Kayode stepped in, Nigerians hoped he could deliver on his promise.

“I really can’t describe how I feel currently, but if I have to tell you anything, I will tell you that right now, I feel like a tiger inside of me, ready to chase away all the criminals in Nigeria. And some other times, I feel like a lion in me, ready to devour all the internal enemies of Nigeria. That’s my feeling right now,” he said during his decoration as acting IGP at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

On Feb. 24, the reign of the 61-year-old police chief came to an end. He was forced to resign, according to local media reports. His regime appeared to have dampened the high hopes for police reform in Nigeria, leaving the new IGP, Tunji Disu, a highly decorated police chief, with a legacy of a failed policing system.

Disu is a familiar name within the police force, having held various important roles and risen through the ranks. In 2021, for instance, he succeeded Abba Kyari, a Nigerian once-upon-a-time supercop, as head of the Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT). He was an Assistant Inspector-General of Police before emerging as Nigeria’s new IGP.

Born on April 13, 1966, Tunji joined the police force in May 1992. Appointed as acting IGP at 59, he is due to retire in April this year, upon reaching the mandatory age of 60. However, in 2024, the National Assembly amended the Police Act, 2020, enabling him to serve out his full four-year term as IGP, unless the president removes him.

He had led the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) of Lagos State Police Command successfully and presented himself as a diligent supercop throughout his career. While his antecedent might have been thrilling, he’s inheriting the disturbing legacies of his predecessor, leaving him a deep forest to clear. 

To understand what lies ahead, HumAngle engaged police officers, journalists, civic leaders, and human rights advocates, who not only reflected on the legacies of the former IGP but also outlined urgent priorities for the new administration. Their insights reveal both the depth of Nigeria’s policing crisis and the expectations riding on Disu to restore trust, improve welfare, and confront systemic failures within the force.

The legacy of human rights abuses

The NPF was infamous for several unlawful activities under the former IGP’s command, including high-handedness towards journalists demanding social justice and accountability. Journalists, whistleblowers, and media practitioners across Nigeria were targeted for simply doing their jobs, creating a climate of fear that undermined press freedom. On many occasions, journalists reported being beaten or threatened during arrests and manhandled at rallies, while editors said they received threatening calls warning them against publishing sensitive stories.

Over 80 incidents of attacks against journalists and media organisations were recorded in 2025, according to a report by the Media Rights Agenda (MRA), a non-profit organisation that promotes and protects freedom of expression, media freedom, and access to information in Nigeria. The report stated that arrests and detentions were the primary tools for suppressing media freedom and freedom of expression, constituting the most common form of attack, with 38 documented cases accounting for over 44 per cent of all incidents.

“In terms of perpetrators of attacks against journalists and violations of other freedom of expression rights, the Nigeria Police Force was identified in the report as the worst offender,” the report stated.

The police, under the former IGP, were also accused of weaponising the cyber law to incarcerate journalists seeking public accountability. Sometimes instigated by influential people within and outside government, the police have used this legislation to clamp down on journalists and activists despite the recent amendment. Digital journalists were even more targeted using Nigeria’s Cybercrime Act. In 2024, the National Assembly amended sections of the law following the ECOWAS Court’s declaration that they were inconsistent with Nigeria’s obligations under Article 1 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and with best practices.

The amended Cybercrimes Act 2024 has revised Section 24 of the 2015 law, which was previously used to prosecute individuals for “insulting” or “stalking” public officials. The updated amendment provides clearer definitions of the offences, focusing on computer-based messages that are either pornographic or intentionally misleading. However, despite these changes, the police have still been using this provision to intimidate journalists.

One interesting case, among several others, involved Nurudeen Akewusola, a senior journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR). In 2024, Nurudeen’s investigation exposed how two former IGPs, among others, were implicated in a shady multimillion-naira land deal involving property originally designated for police barracks in Abuja. The police detained Nurudeen and his employer, Dayo Aiyetan, over this story, asking the reporter to reveal his sources. He refused to name his sources, upholding journalistic ethics. 

The reporter and his employer were detained by the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC), which was purportedly probing a “case of cyberstalking and defamation of character” against the reporter and the executive director of the ICIR.

Two years later, Nurudeen told HumAngle that his experience with the police still haunts him. The incident has since made him worried about the safety of journalists and truth-seekers in Nigeria. He remembers how he was detained and mistreated when chasing any similar public interest story. 

“The incident also took a toll on those close to me. My family and loved ones were anxious and confused; calls kept coming in as people tried to understand what was happening and what might happen next. Watching them carry that fear because of my work was a heavy emotional burden,” he said.

Scores of journalists in Nigeria faced even worse attacks from police under the former IGP’s leadership.  Busola Ajibola, the deputy director of journalism at the Centre for Journalism Innovations and Development (CJID), told HumAngle that at least 40 cases of press freedom attacks were recorded under former IGP Kayode. The media civic leader said there seemed to be a culture of impunity against journalists that predated the former police chief and was more pronounced during his administration.

“We’re building an environment that lacks accountability,” she warned, noting that media oppression by the police could have grave consequences. “We’re denying the public of demanding accountability using the media. Media oppression also has impacts on the right to freedom of expression generally.”

Failed to rein in terrorist attacks

Despite his flowery promises to curb insecurity, the former IGP seemed to have failed to secure lives and property in Nigeria’s most volatile communities. Communal crises lingered for so long that they attracted global attention, and terrorism resurged with terrorists operating brazenly, especially in the northwestern region. Between 2023 and 2024, for instance, Nigeria grappled with widespread insecurity, particularly in the northwestern and north-central regions. Kidnappings for ransom surged, with rural communities and travellers along highways being frequent targets. Armed groups intensified their operations, often overwhelming security forces. The HumAngle Tracker recorded hundreds of deaths during this period, revealing the persistent inability of police institutions to contain violence.

Insurgency intensified within the northeastern region, spreading rapidly to the north-central states, including Nigeria’s capital city. Boko Haram and ISWAP factions raided villages, military bases, and convoys, leading to significant civilian casualties. This period also saw an increase in targeted killings and ambushes. 

Terrorist attacks expanded beyond the northern regions in 2025, with the South East Nigeria experiencing heightened violence linked to separatist movements and criminal gangs. Attacks on security personnel, government facilities, and civilians became more frequent. The HumAngle Tracker documented a rise in politically motivated violence, especially around election-related activities. Meanwhile, oil-producing areas in the South-South continued to experience militancy and pipeline vandalism, disrupting economic stability. By early 2026, the tracker data showed that insecurity remained entrenched, with no significant nationwide improvement.

In November 2025, however, the former IGP described how the police were fighting terrorism and armed violence in Nigeria, saying insecurity was not something that could be fought in silos. While addressing reporters at the Lagos Police Command in Ikeja,  the police chief said there must be synergy with other agencies and all communities for Nigeria to contain insecurity. He also advised Nigerians to stop spreading misinformation and falsehood about the police and other security agencies.

“When people spread falsehood against security institutions that are providing security, they are weakening the resolve of the nation,” he said. “So, let us all be committed to saying the truth about security agencies who are taking risks and providing security for the country.”  

Decentralised the Police Complaints Response Unit

At first, the former police chief introduced a policing model that appeared to prioritise public complaints. Barely four months into his role as acting IGP, he decentralised the Police Complaints Response Units (CRU) to cater to the disturbing trust deficits in the policing system. In August 2023, he ordered police commissioners to establish the state-based police complaint units. The CRU made contact information for police spokespersons available online and set up social media pages to engage with citizens nationwide. He said the purpose of decentralising the CRU was to create a conducive platform for interaction between the police and the public, particularly regarding officers’ unprofessional conduct.

“It is going to enhance police-community collaboration and build confidence with members of the public,” he said, appealing to the public to supply the police with information for transparency. “Officers who are going to man the CRU are going to be carefully selected; they are going to be officers with impeccable integrity.”

The CRU emboldened citizens to hold police officers accountable for their actions. The initiative brought several erring police officers to justice when citizens lodged complaints. However, the CRU decentralisation became defective when the police became reluctant to prosecute some officers caught in shady dealings. Journalists and civic actors who closely monitored the CRU said the initiative was promising at first, but it later flopped.

Daniel Ojukwu, a senior journalist with the Foundation for Investigative Journalism and Social Justice, said that while the former IGP must be commended for decentralising the CRU, he must also be blamed for ignoring significant citizen complaints against the police. Daniel covers police activities, seeking justice for citizens whose rights were violated by high-handed officers. The journalist also had his share of press attacks by police officers. He was arrested and detained – albeit illegally – by the force headquarters for an investigation he had conducted.

“Egbetokun did well with the CRU decentralisation, but of course, there were holes. We hope that the new IG will prioritise making the CRU work better,” he said.

HumAngle spoke with several police officers to inquire about the IGP’s general performance. Many of them believe he lost his way the moment he attained the highest position in the police force. Most of his promises, they said, were unfulfilled. Some of the officers we spoke with said he was a poor administrator who had the chance to reform the police but failed woefully. The officers begged not to be identified by name for fear of retribution.

“His administration made no sense,” one officer said bluntly. “We all thought he would be different, but our leaders are all the same.”

Setting the agenda for the new IG

On Feb. 25, President Bola Tinubu decorated Tunji Disu as the acting IGP, officially signalling a change in authority at the NPF. Interestingly, the newly decorated IGP vowed to enforce a zero-tolerance regime against corruption and human rights abuses. He told journalists after his inauguration that his leadership would ensure that police officers are well-trained to protect Nigerian citizens and engage them with utmost civility.

“I will let them (fellow policemen and women) know that the era of impunity is over,” he declared. “Most importantly, I’m going to drum it into them that we can never succeed without the cooperation of members of the public.”

His declaration seems to be a shift in tone for the police force. Beyond his heavy promises and rhetoric, Nigerians are eager to see how these promises translate into action. Civil society organisations, human rights advocates, and community leaders have long pressed for reforms that prioritise accountability, transparency, and respect for citizens. 

As Tunji steps into this role, civic actors are articulating their expectations of the new IG, underscoring the urgency of building trust between the police and the people they are sworn to protect. While some security experts believe the police seem to have neglected their counterterrorism role, other civic actors demand a safe space for journalists and activists to demand transparency in governance without being persecuted by the force. 

Busola Ajibola of CJID reiterated that, beyond flowery speeches about fighting impunity, the new IGP must take a clear stand, backed by action, against press freedom violations and investigate officers who unlawfully violate journalists’ rights.

“He should invest in re-training middle-level and low-ranking officers on human rights and press freedom,” Busola noted. “Most times when we engage with senior police officers, we realise that they appear to know the right thing, but the problem is usually the middle-level or low-ranking officers who have little knowledge of press freedom and human rights.”

Speaking about his years of experience covering the police, Daniel said it has become clear to him that the police force is highly underfunded. He asked the current IG to prioritise funding for the police. An officer who asked not to be named confirmed this, saying that a system that fails to properly finance the police automatically sets operatives against the people.

“These officers don’t even have fuel in their vehicles to run operations many times. How do you expect them to be effective?” Daniel asked. “People go to lodge complaints in police stations, they’re asked to pay.” He added that to make the CRU more effective, the police must have a speed dial number that’s responsive and easy to memorise, so citizens can contact the police quickly when they face any challenge.

Fifty-five-year-old Tabitha Iorchon used to work as a nanny at a rural primary school in her community, Demevaa, in Chanchanji District of Takum Local Government Area, in Taraba State, northeastern Nigeria. The job provided her with a steady income which she used to support her children and grandchildren who lived with her. She supplemented her earnings with farming. 

Tabitha loved her job and was very fond of the children she cared for. 

But that life has been snatched from her. 

In September 2025, terrorists invaded Demevaa and surrounding communities in Chanchanji District. “They killed pregnant women and ripped their babies out of their bellies. They slaughtered men and cut off the hands of many people,” she recounted. 

Tabitha is among those who escaped that night of terror. She, alongside other residents, fled to reach Chanchanji town, where they are now living in displacement. Her parents, who lived in a different neighbourhood and were weak and vulnerable, were left behind, but fortunately, they survived the attacks.

The genesis of violence

This is not the first time communities in southern Taraba have come under attack. However, locals say that early September last year was when the wave of violence reached Chanchanji District. It began with the discovery of two farmers dead on their farms. Before residents could make sense of the incident, more farmers were attacked and killed. The weeks that followed saw communities like Demevaa and Amadu raided.

Over the years, Taraba communities, such as those within Takum bordering Benue, have experienced attacks often described as farmers-herders clashes or carried out by local militia gangs. One of the most notorious figures linked to violence in the region was Terwase Akwaza, alias Gana, who, before his death, claimed that terrorists disguised as herders contacted him to carry out attacks in “about three states they want to [capture], being Plateau, Taraba, Benue…”. 

Since the Nigerian Army killed Gana in September 2020, his once-cohesive network has fractured into rival factions, with groups led by criminals such as Fullfire and Chen now operating independently and often violently in border areas.

Residents in Chanchanji told HumAngle that herders often come to graze in the area during the dry season, but clashes have never occurred. HumAngle contacted Lashen James, the Taraba State Police Command spokesperson, but he did not respond.

Life in displacement 

In the wake of the attacks, several displacement camps were established by non-government and faith-based organisations in Chanchanji town, an urban area in Takum to accommodate people fleeing the violence in Demevaa, Amadu, Tse-Bawa, Tse-Tseve, and other affected communities within the district. 

Tabitha and several other displaced persons sought refuge at one of the camps. There, they rely on humanitarian organisations for survival. Although the food supplies are inconsistent, she said they felt somewhat safer there.

“Old people and children were dying because there was insufficient food,” she noted. “Our yams, guinea corn, millet and cassava were all destroyed and burnt by the terrorists who attacked our people.”

Tabitha said that even the tents in the camp are not sufficient and the available ones are always overcrowded. “We just spread our wrappers on the floor to sleep,” she said. 

Despite the difficulties in the camp, the displaced persons persevered, hoping peace would eventually be restored. However, another wave of terror erupted on February 8, when terrorists attacked Chanchanji district and raided several villages. Locals said the terrorists returned the next day and unleashed more havoc.   

No terror group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. 

Avangwa Emmanuel, a resident of Tse-Bawa, told HumAngle that his father and three uncles were killed during the February incident. He noted that many others were killed in their homes that day. “They [terrorists] were heavily armed,” he added.

Avangwa and others from his village are currently taking shelter at a secondary school that has been converted into a temporary camp.

“No water, no food, nothing. Everybody is just struggling. Our major problem here is food. Also, what we need is peace. If there’s anything the government can do to restore peace so that we can return to our homes and continue our work, that is all,” he said.

Amadu, another community in Chanchanji District, was among the hardest hit. Terkuma Moses, the community leader, said scores were killed, and locals have fled to displacement camps. HumAngle could not independently confirm the figures as the police authorities did not respond to enquiries. 

“The attackers come here daily. We’ve been living in perpetual fear. There have been many rape occurrences during these attacks,” Abraham Nyingi, a resident of Amadu, told HumAngle. He noted that no government official had been dispatched to assess the displaced persons’ situation. “We are at the mercy of humanitarian organisations. If the government really wants to help us, we would be very grateful,” he said.

“The environmental conditions are very harsh. Our children can’t go to school. We lack medical care,” he lamented.

In recent months, the worsening hunger has compelled some displaced persons to return to their communities. Tabitha said that none of those who left made it back. “They got killed,” she said. “Their bodies were found in the bushes.” 

Life at a standstill

The school where Tabitha once worked has remained closed since the crisis began. She has lost not only her livelihood, but also her sense of independence, as she cannot return home or secure alternative work. She continues to fear for her elderly parents, who remain in the village. She sometimes reaches them by phone, and they tell her they are also experiencing food shortages, as their barns were burnt during the attacks.

Tabitha described the displacement as the worst experience of her lifetime. 

“We lack basic things like food and we buy water since the camp doesn’t have a water supply. The harmattan season is still here, and many of us are still sleeping outside because all the rooms are overcrowded,” Tabitha said. 

With the new arrivals following the February 8 attacks, she said the struggle for survival has intensified. 

“I can’t further my education now. I can’t do any business. I’m just stuck here,” said Veronica Iorchan, a 22-year-old resident of Demevaa. 

When the attacks began in September, she was in her final year at the Taraba State Polytechnic in Suntai. By the time she completed her studies in October, instead of returning home to a joyous celebration, Veronica was informed that her community was deserted. The rest of her family had moved to the Abaya IDP camp. 

“I came straight to the camp from school,” she said, adding that she lost two of her uncles in the attack.

While the camp provides them with accommodation and food, Veronica said they must fend for themselves when it comes to obtaining hygiene products and toiletries, such as sanitary pads. Even though she is determined to seek employment in the host community, she feels unsafe whenever she leaves the camp. She dreams of a time when she can return home and make plans for her future.

A cry for peace

Tabitha looks forward to a time when she can return to her community, re-unite with her parents, resume her job as a nanny, and supplement her income with farming. 

“That will only happen if there is peace,” she said. 

While Avangwa is still grappling with the loss of his father and three uncles, he says the hardship at the makeshift camp intensifies with each passing day. He noted that Tse-Bawa is an agrarian community, and the crisis, which has persisted for about five months, has severely disrupted farming activities, as locals can no longer access their farms. Several farmlands and barns were also set ablaze in the attacks.

“So if we can have peace, then we can go back to our places and settle. All we need is just peace and nothing more,” he said. 

Abraham calls on the government to urgently look into the crisis. “Our people do not really need much from the government,” he said. “Just secure us.”

Residents say the government’s lack of concern for their plight has been deeply shattering. Recently, religious leaders affiliated with the Catholic Church led a peaceful protest in Jalingo, the state capital, calling on the government to extend security interventions to the southern Taraba area, which includes Takum and Donga Local Government Areas.

“As a matter of urgency, adequate security personnel should be mobilised and deployed to the hinterlands, where this carnage is taking place unabated,” James Yaro, a priest and Vicar Pastoral of Taraba’s Catholic Diocese of Wukari, told journalists. 

“The government at all levels must be deliberate in ensuring security guarantees and bringing enablers and perpetrators of these dastardly acts, or heinous crimes against humanity, to justice through their immediate arrest and prosecution, irrespective of their ethnic, political, and religious affiliations.” He added that, “IDPs require immediate intervention by the government.”

HumAngle wrote to the Taraba State Ministry of Special Duties and Humanitarian Affairs for comments but received no response at the time of filing this report.

Hauwa Abdulkarim was inside her house when the violence began. 

As evening settled over Woro, a village in Kaiama Local Government Area (LGA) of Kwara State, North Central Nigeria, on Feb. 3, the terrorists descended on motorcycles like a sudden storm. What began as a seemingly ordinary evening quickly turned into chaos, with about 170 people killed, their homes set ablaze, celebrations interrupted, and families forced to flee.

“Most of the youths were at the field playing football [on a school field close to the house]. Then we saw people running back home with the news that kidnappers had entered the town,” Hauwa recounted. 

At first, she did not panic. The terrorists had sent word days earlier, a letter to the district head saying they were coming to “preach”. When the motorcycles rolled in, there was confusion and fear.

Then the shooting started. 

“Upon entering the village [around 5 p.m.], they started shooting at people,” she said. The football field emptied in seconds. Inside her house, Hauwa and her husband tried to gather their children, counting them quickly and realising some were still outside.

“We were thinking about some of our children who were outside and those that went to the football field. The shooting continued until 5 a.m., the next day,” Hauwa added. 

But the terror was not continuous. It came in waves.

“When it was time for the call to prayer, they suddenly stopped,” she recalled. “They made the call to prayer for Maghrib and called out people to pray.”

The silence was almost as frightening as the gunfire. After the prayer, the shooting resumed. “They did the same for the late-night prayer, stopping briefly to make the call to prayer and observe it. Afterwards, they resumed shooting through the night,” Hauwa told HumAngle.

Later that night, everything suddenly became quiet: the gunshots stopped. That was when the residents began to hear the call to come out and extinguish the blazing fires.

Many were confused and afraid, unsure whether to come out to help put out the flames, flee, or stay hidden. 

Hauwa and her husband came out with other residents, but they were ambushed. “We thought they had gone, so we came out with buckets to save our homes. That was when they opened fire again. It was a trap and my husband was almost killed in that encounter. He hid in a ditch, as I ran inside to stay with my children,” she recounted. 

By dawn, the village was scarred by destruction — dead bodies with gunshot wounds to the head and cuts to their necks, houses reduced to ashes, the district head’s residence consumed by fire, and families shaken by the night’s events. 

The alternating rhythm of violence and prayer created a chilling atmosphere that has left Hauwa to grapple with both physical loss and psychological trauma. She described the ordeal as a mix of terror and deception, designed to lure people into vulnerability. 

The attack on Woro and neighbouring Nuku communities has displaced at least 941 persons and exposed glaring intelligence failures, despite prior warnings, and the growing influence of terror groups operating from the Kainji Lake National Park axis. HumAngle met with some of the survivors in Wawa, a town in nearby Niger State. 

Ibrahim Ismail Dan’umar, a community leader in Wawa who serves as the coordinator of the displaced persons, told HumAngle that the community has been providing the families with relief materials and accommodation, as there is no designated camp for them. 

“On our records, we have people from Plateau, Nasarawa, Kebbi, Kwara, and Niger,” he noted. “We decided to organise a breakfast for them and announced that anyone offering shelter to the displaced should bring them to the gathering. On the first day, we had 381 people, even though we only projected for 200.”

“The next day, we distributed food items, and by the third day, the Emir of Borgu and representatives of Kaiama Local Government came with support, which we shared among them. Now, we have 941 displaced persons — adults and children — here in Wawa,” he explained.

Amnesty International, a global human rights organisation, described the killings as evidence of systemic neglect of rural communities. In a statement, the organisation condemned the attacks as “vicious” and criticised the Nigerian government for leaving rural communities at the mercy of rampaging terrorists.

Following the deadly attacks, the Nigerian military has formally launched a multi-agency offensive  in Kwara and Niger states, code-named ‘Operation Savannah Shield’, designed to dismantle terrorist networks and restore security in the region. 

The initiative was flagged off on Thursday, Feb. 19 at Sobi Barracks in Ilorin by the Chief of Defence Staff, General Olufemi Oluyede, the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Waidi Shaibu, and the Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq. 

Unmasking those behind the terror

This attack is one of the deadliest this year.

In the weeks leading up to the Woro massacre, Sadiku’s faction of Boko Haram had already reached out to the community.  

According to the village head, Salihu Umar, a letter dated Jan. 8 — written in Hausa and bearing the signature of JAS (Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’adati wal-Jihad) — was delivered to him. The message requested a “private” meeting with local leaders for preaching and assured residents that no harm would come to them.  

Umar said he made copies of the letter and forwarded them to both the Kaiama Emirate and the Department of State Services (DSS) office in Kaiama. Despite this warning, no preventive measures were taken, raising questions about Nigerian security intelligence.

However, security sources revealed that the killings are part of a jihadist campaign commanded by Malam Sadiku, a notorious terrorist whose influence has steadily expanded across multiple parts of Nigeria’s North Central region. 

HumAngle has extensively documented how Sadiku, once closely aligned with Boko Haram founder Muhammad Yusuf and later Abubakar Shekau, has re-emerged at the forefront of a dangerous wave of insurgency. 

After a stint with the Darul Islam sect, he returned to Boko Haram with renewed zeal, positioning himself as one of Shekau’s most loyal comrades. Sadiku’s financial windfall from the infamous Kaduna train abduction gave him the means to expand his influence, strengthen his network, and spread Boko Haram’s radical ideology across Niger State and neighbouring states. 

With resources and reputation firmly behind him, Sadiku built a growing base of followers and fighters. Under his leadership, extremist teachings were not only revived but embedded into local communities, turning quiet rural villages into recruitment and indoctrination centres.

His trajectory, security analysts such as Yahuza Getso of Eagle Integrated Security note, reflects a long-term strategy of territorial control and ideological entrenchment, with this latest attack underscoring both the scale of his operations and the devastating impact on local communities. 

But he is not alone.

Malam Mahmuda, the leader of the Mahmudawa (an Ansaru faction), has also turned the Kainji Forest into a safe haven for his fighters. Despite previous arrests of their leaders, the group has replenished its ranks and rearmed its foot soldiers. 

According to Ahmad Salkida, HumAngle’s founder, who is one of the foremost experts on the protracted Boko Haram insurgency and the complex conflicts in the Lake Chad region, “The relocation of Sadiku and Umar Taraba, both veteran jihadist operatives, to the Kainji axis in 2024 marked a shift. Their presence injected technical expertise into a space previously dominated by loosely organised armed groups.”

He added that they are fragmented into smaller camps: some closer to the Benin border, acting as brokers linking criminal networks of jihadist actors. The Mahmudawa are said to facilitate training, arms movement, ransom negotiations, and sanctuary for fighters arriving from outside the region.

“Official claims regarding the arrest of their leader, Malam Mahmuda, remain unconfirmed in border communities, where continued attacks and coordinated leadership are still attributed to the group,” he noted. 

“If the Mahmudawa are brokers, the Lakurawa are enforcers. With an estimated 300 fighters, they have become one of the most active jihadist–terrorist hybrids affecting […] border communities. Operating from within and around Kainji Lake National Park, they routinely launch incursions into Bagudo and Suru LGAs, combining attacks on military targets with ideological messaging aimed at delegitimising the Nigerian state.”

Security sources and community accounts indicate that Sadiku’s group and Mahmudawa, linked to jihadist networks across West Africa, have long operated in the dense Kainji Lake National Park and Borgu Reserve, straddling Niger and Kwara states. According to the sources, this is an attempt to create another Sambisa: a hotbed for Boko Haram in the North East.

Local residents have repeatedly warned authorities about the presence of terrorist camps in the forest, but responses have been slow. Between September and December 2025, the Federal Government carried out aerial and ground operations in the area, yet the group remains influential. The forest’s vast terrain and porous borders have provided cover for training, recruitment, and staging raids. 

Getso believes that Sadiku’s Boko Haram has rebranded and reorganised remnants of Ansaru and JNIM cells, consolidating them into a formidable force in North Central Nigeria. He also revealed that the Woro massacre underscores the growing threat posed by Sadiku’s network. 

“Nigeria’s current counter-terrorism strategy is insufficient. There is a need for a comprehensive review of military doctrine and intelligence operations,” Getso noted.

A dream on hold

At just 22 years old, Ibrahim Ishaq Woro had recently graduated from the School of Health in New Bussa, Niger State. He had only returned home to Woro a year earlier and was in the process of applying for jobs when the attack shattered his community.  

On the day of the assault, Ibrahim was sitting at a tea stall when he spotted the terrorists approaching. Recognising them from a previous encounter, he fled — but minutes later, gunfire erupted across the village. 

That day was meant to be joyous, with three weddings taking place, including his cousin’s. Instead, the celebrations turned into a massacre. 

“The wedding was taking place at our house. Yahaya, my cousin, was killed. His wife and children were abducted and taken to the forest,” Ibrahim recalled.  

Like Hauwa, who described how false calls to prayer lured residents into ambushes, Ibrahim witnessed the same deception. “Those who hid inside were warned: ‘you either come outside or burn in your houses.’ Those who opened their doors out of fear were kidnapped,” he said.  

By dawn, Ibrahim returned to find the bodies of women, children, and men scattered across the community. His closest friends — Zakari, Habib, and Shamsudeen — were among the dead. 

His mother, three siblings, and several family members who came for the wedding were taken captive. “Personally, we lost 20 people from my extended family and about 50 are still missing,” he said quietly, while looking away. 

Like Hauwa, Ibrahim and other survivors fled Woro to Wawa and other neighbouring communities, with their belongings in wheelbarrows and on their heads, trekking for about 42 kilometres with swollen feet in search of refuge.   

Now displaced, their only plea is for the government to secure the release of kidnapped women and children, and restore safety so families can return home. 

“For those we have lost, we can only pray for eternal peace. But we need our loved ones back. That is why we are afraid to even return home,” Ibrahim said.

Officials in Wawa town, speaking on condition of anonymity, said discussions are ongoing with the district head to facilitate the safe return of displaced residents. The move, they explained, would allow survivors to access federal and state-level interventions more effectively once back home.