North-Central

Fatima ‘Teema’ Mahmud uploaded a short clip on her Telegram Status that morning; it showed a leaked intimate video involving individuals in northern Nigeria. The time was 8:13 a.m.; minutes later, she uploaded another one and another. By midday, she had uploaded dozens of similar pieces of content. By evening, there were hundreds.

Some of the updates advertised leaked, non-consensual intimate videos that had circulated across social media timelines in the region days earlier. Others promoted sex work services, paid erotic video calls, and private VIP groups featuring explicit videos of women, particularly northern actresses. Among them, and pinned prominently at the top of Fatima’s Telegram profile, were screen records of what she claimed were sexual and nude videos of children, advertised under paid access tiers.

The next morning, the cycle began again.

This reporting was never supposed to become an investigation into child sexual abuse material. It began with a simpler question: where do the leaked intimate videos that circulate on northern Nigerian social media end up?

Every few weeks, another such video appears. The names change, but the outrage follows a familiar script: WhatsApp groups begin asking for links, X users post screenshots before directing followers to Telegram, and Facebook pages recycle the same clips. For a day or two, timelines become courtrooms. Then attention shifts elsewhere, and the people at the centre of those scandals disappear from public conversation, but the links do not.

One such link appeared in May. An X account, now suspended, promoting what it described as a leaked intimate video involving a woman, instructed followers to continue on Telegram. Instead of downloading the material, HumAngle followed the trail, using a pseudonymous account to trace the same path thousands of other users take whenever another intimate video erupts across northern Nigerian social media.

For three months, HumAngle watched what that trail led to: an ecosystem that had evolved to survive platform bans, rebuild audiences almost overnight, and transform some of women’s most private moments into commercial products. Within that ecosystem, children appeared to have become one of its most valuable commodities.

Following the trail

It started with “Teematv” on X. HumAngle stumbled on the account promoting a teaser video following a scandal involving a Kaduna-based woman, whom HumAngle will not name to avoid re-victimising her. The X account claimed to have the “full video” and encouraged followers to access it on Telegram.

We created a pseudonymous account and followed the trail.

The first Telegram channel, “Teematv” (@teematv9), which is the main feeder channel and had over 40,000 subscribers before it got suspended in June, looked much as expected: pornography, leaked videos, and VIP subscriptions. But the longer the investigation continued, the less it resembled another anonymous pornography page. The channel did not exist in isolation. Every video and image posted linked to something else, and subscribers were encouraged to save the phone numbers provided by the administrators. “Add my contact,” she often tells subscribers. 

Once saved, these numbers unlocked Telegram Status updates, which promoted private VIP groups, which led to new administrators, who promoted replacement channels. When one account disappeared, another had already taken its place.

It felt less like browsing social media and more like walking through a marketplace where every stall owner knew the next. The journey was remarkably consistent, and the pattern held across every operator HumAngle traced; the public channels attracted attention, Telegram Status sustained it, and private conversations completed the sale. Each platform served a different purpose within the same business. X functioned as a storefront, where explicit clips and provocative teasers attracted attention and encouraged users to click through. Telegram became the marketplace itself, while WhatsApp and private Telegram conversations handled the transactions.

Looking closer, the structure reflected an operation built specifically to survive the content moderation it was navigating.

The pattern started with what appeared, and what did not appear, on X. Operators such as Teema used their X accounts to post pornographic clips into X’s video feed, content that the platform’s moderation has grown relatively permissive toward, and whose recommendation algorithm readily surfaces more of it once a user engages with it repeatedly. At no point during our three months of monitoring did HumAngle observe child sexual abuse material posted directly on X. 

Whether by experience or deliberate caution, the operators appeared to understand the distinction: ordinary pornography might slip through a platform that has relaxed many of its guardrails around adult content, but material involving children almost certainly would not survive there. The Telegram link attached to those X posts was, in turn, rarely the final destination. It served as an additional layer of security, requiring users to either save a phone number or send a private inquiry before anything further was revealed.

Only after that number was saved did the next stage begin, through Telegram Status. There, too, the same caution applied. Rather than posting material involving children directly, operators uploaded blurred collages or screenshots, with titles and scenes presented as proof that a fuller collection existed, along with a caption advertising group access and a price, directing interested buyers into a private conversation. Nothing that could be mistaken for the material itself appeared in a space Telegram or outside observers could easily flag; the proof of possession and the point of sale were kept one careful step apart. HumAngle observed screenshots of children naked and being abused.

The advertisements rarely remained online for long. Telegram Status updates disappear automatically after 24 hours, and the administrators appeared to exploit that feature deliberately, because the posts remain accessible on the profile itself to anyone who has saved their contact. On some days, one operator uploaded close to 200 Status updates, rotating through advertisements, teaser clips, and promotional graphics before repeating the process the following morning.

The result was a constantly changing catalogue. One day, the focus might be leaked intimate videos. The next, sex work services. Then paid video calls. Then another newly emerging leaked-video scandal that had just begun trending elsewhere on social media. The operators appeared to respond quickly to public attention: whenever an intimate video began circulating widely online, it often appeared inside the network within hours, repackaged as a commercial product, a short preview posted publicly with the full video available, administrators claimed, after payment. The scandals that dominated social media for a day or two became inventory.

Identifying the operators

There was one problem with Telegram usernames: they rarely lasted. By the time HumAngle finished documenting one account, another had often appeared. The usernames, invitations, and even profile photographs changed. But the people behind them did not.

To understand who was operating the network, our investigation moved beyond monitoring channels and focused instead on the digital traces the administrators had left behind, rather than the material they were advertising. The approach was deliberate: HumAngle had already decided it would not purchase access to private VIP groups or attempt to obtain any material advertised as involving children. 

Beyond the obvious ethical concerns, doing so could expose journalists to illegal content and compromise the investigation itself. Instead, we focused on the operators’ own mistakes, and the first was surprisingly ordinary: money.

Like any online business, the administrators eventually needed customers to pay. Across multiple Telegram channels and Status updates, Teema repeatedly instructed interested buyers to save a phone number before making enquiries or completing payments. Unlike her usernames, the number rarely changed. It became the first real-world lead.

A search through Truecaller, a popular caller identification service, returned the name “Fatima Mahmud”. One result was not enough, so the same number was cross-checked against Nigerian online banking applications, including OPay and PalmPay, both of which use registered phone numbers as account identifiers and display the associated account name before a transfer is completed. Both returned the same name. For the first time, the investigation had connected one of the network’s most active operators to a real-world name, confirmed through two independent verification methods.

Finding the person behind that name proved harder. Searching “Fatima Mahmud” and “Teema” on social media produced dozens of unrelated results, and many of the accounts connected to the investigation had already been suspended or had disappeared before they could be examined. So HumAngle changed direction, following relationships rather than names: Telegram usernames led to older accounts, older accounts led to replacement accounts, and replacement accounts led to suspended X profiles, each revealing another fragment of the same digital footprint.

The same process and the same dual verification through Truecaller and banking app records identified a second recurring figure in the network who used several online identities: Deejah, Nanadady, and Deharjah. Once again, the payment trail pointed to one name: Khadija Adamu.

Despite the frequent account suspensions and identity changes, traces of her activity remained visible. As recently as July 17, Khadija remained active. In a Telegram Status update, she told followers her phone had been damaged and appealed for financial support to replace it, posting her Union Bank account details. The account name she provided, Khadija Adamu Abubakar, was confirmed through a mobile banking application search, adding a third independent verification to the identity already established through Truecaller and her OPay and PalmPay records. Fatima’s administrator account was also active at the time of publication.

Khadija’s operation mirrored Teema’s in structure, but she operated across a considerably wider segment of the online sex trade, advertising leaked intimate videos, homosexual pornography, sex work, paid sexual video chats, sex toys, sexual stimulants, and VIP groups promoted as containing child sexual abuse material. Of that range, child sexual abuse material appeared to be one of her primary products, and her pricing across the board was consistently higher than Teema’s, with VIP access advertised at between ₦50,000 and ₦100,000. From what HumAngle observed, she made no attempt to obscure or apologise for any of it.

A further question remained: were the photographs attached to their profiles genuine? At first glance, they appeared convincing: young Hausa women in casual portraits and self-portraits, but reverse-image searches using Google Lens and facial-recognition software found that several did not belong to the account holders at all. Instead, they matched publicly available photographs of Hausa actresses and other individuals whose images had been lifted from elsewhere online. The people running the accounts had carefully concealed their own identities behind someone else’s faces.

Fatima addressed this directly in the description of her main feeder channel, Teematv (@teematv9), which had more than 40,000 subscribers before it was suspended on June 12. “I post pretty Hausa girls on my page. If you see your picture here, then know [that] you are pretty,” she wrote. “Some of you are complaining. I just leave compliments as the caption. I mean no harm. [It] is just for fun.”

A final search, this time relying on Facebook’s “People You May Know” recommendation feature after the administrators’ phone numbers were saved as contacts, surfaced a profile that strongly matched the identity already established for Khadija. Fatima’s case proved less conclusive; several profiles appeared, but none could be verified with sufficient confidence. The search stopped there. We do not possess the legal powers available to law enforcement agencies, but what the reporting established was enough: two operators had been identified through the payment infrastructure they themselves had created, and neither appeared to be working alone.

The product

The advertisements followed a consistent commercial logic, and the same pricing structure recurred across all operators and channels documented in this investigation.

Individual leaked Hausa intimate videos, after a short teaser had been posted publicly, typically sold for between ₦2,000 and ₦5,000. Buyers seeking larger collections were encouraged to pay for VIP memberships instead, which administrators claimed offered hundreds of additional videos. The advertisements suggested a tiered business: casual customers bought individual videos, regular customers subscribed, and those willing to spend more were offered access to increasingly exclusive groups.

At the top of the pricing structure were advertisements for group access explicitly involving children. Unlike the adult-content advertisements, which typically promoted individual clips, these posts promised something larger: a collection, membership, exclusivity. They were usually brief: a blurred collage or screen record, a short caption, sometimes only a few words, followed by a price. Most commonly, that price was ₦50,000, though some operators, like Khadija, advertised memberships as high as ₦100,000. The wording varied slightly from one administrator to another, but the sales strategy did not, and the same pattern appeared consistently across multiple Status updates, different administrators, and different channels over the three months of monitoring.

At first, HumAngle questioned whether the advertisements were genuine; exaggerated claims to lure paying customers are common online. But the consistency, repeated across unrelated administrators using nearly identical language, made coincidence difficult to sustain as an explanation.

Teema’s advertisements illustrated how the claims were built up over time. In a sequence of Status updates viewed chronologically, she claimed her VIP collection had grown from around 600 videos to more than 800, and eventually to over 1,200. HumAngle could not independently verify those figures, but documented them as part of the marketing strategy: growth itself had become a product, with a larger claimed catalogue used to strengthen the sales pitch.

The operators appeared to understand a basic principle of online commerce: that people rarely arrive intending to make their largest purchase but are guided towards it. Every stage encouraged the next. The channels resembled a subscription business more than an ordinary social media page. Only the product was different, and its advertisements did not appear hidden in obscure corners of the internet. They appeared alongside the same promotional posts advertising leaked intimate videos, prostitution, and paid video calls. Children were not presented as something separate. They were presented as another product category, another premium tier.

HumAngle also decided not to attempt to identify the children referenced in the advertisements. INTERPOL’s International Child Sexual Exploitation database, the tool specialist law enforcement units use to identify victims and offenders worldwide, treats abusive images and videos as evidence tied to real children, real locations, and real offenders, material to be handled by trained victim-identification specialists rather than pursued independently. Attempting to trace the children through the material risked compounding the harm the investigation was seeking to expose.

The network

For much of the investigation, Teema and Khadija appeared to be running separate operations: different Telegram channels, different X usernames, different pricing. It was easy to assume they were competitors. Then one Status update changed that.

While reviewing Teema’s Telegram Status one afternoon, HumAngle noticed she was no longer advertising her own channel, but Khadija’s. Only days earlier, one of Khadija’s Telegram accounts had disappeared or been removed before we could complete the documentation of its activity. The replacement account appeared almost immediately, and Teema introduced it to thousands of followers. Over the following days, the same promotion resurfaced repeatedly across dozens of Status updates before disappearing after 24 hours, only to return.

Tracing the followers who interacted with those promotions on X uncovered dozens of accounts exhibiting remarkably similar behaviour. When one profile disappeared, another announced its replacement. When Telegram removed a channel, fresh invitation links circulated through WhatsApp Status updates and newer Telegram accounts. The audience rarely needed to search; the network guided them. Investigators documented several accounts operating under different versions of Teema’s identity, including @teematv2 and @teematv3, with Khadija running parallel replacements under her own aliases.

Around them was a wider ecosystem. Channels such as AREWA GIDAN DADI, Arewagidanharkazallah, and Sadearharka surfaced repeatedly throughout the investigation.

HumAngle found no evidence that these accounts were all controlled by the same individual, nor could we establish that every operator knew every other one personally. What our investigation does establish is narrower but significant: the accounts consistently promoted one another, shared audiences, and directed followers towards replacement channels, forming a distribution network that platform bans repeatedly failed to disrupt.

The blind spot

The most surprising thing about the network was not that it existed, but that it appeared to operate in plain sight. The operators behaved less like people trying to disappear than people confident they would not be noticed. That raises a broader question: why did a network operating so openly prove so resilient?

Part of the answer may lie in language. Almost every account documented in this investigation communicated primarily in Hausa, and the cities referenced in conversations, such as Kano, Kaduna, Maiduguri, Katsina, Sokoto, and Abuja, pointed overwhelmingly to audiences in northern Nigeria. This was not simply a Nigerian online marketplace; it was a Hausa-speaking one. 

Researchers have increasingly warned that many widely spoken African languages remain “low-resource” from the perspective of artificial intelligence and automated content moderation. While Hausa is spoken by tens of millions of people across West Africa, there are comparatively fewer linguistic datasets and moderation tools to help technology companies automatically identify harmful content in the language, meaning abusive or exploitative content can be harder to detect at scale than equivalent content in English. 

Nothing in HumAngle’s investigation suggests the operators tried to hide the language they used; on the contrary, their marketing relied on local expressions and reflected the culture of Arewa social media. The same characteristics that made the network accessible to its intended audience may also have made it less visible to moderation systems built primarily around better-resourced languages.

This is not a uniquely Nigerian, or even uniquely Hausa-language, problem. Investigations in other parts of the world have documented strikingly similar patterns, in which mainstream platforms funnel users toward Telegram-based child sexual abuse material (CSAM) marketplaces that survive enforcement through rapid replacement. 

A BBC Eye investigation published in July found that Instagram’s advertising system in India was itself directing a test account toward paid child sexual abuse material sold through Telegram channels, with material advertised for as little as the naira equivalent of one US dollar; Meta’s own moderation team initially cleared one flagged advertisement as compliant with its policies, and only acted once BBC journalists sought formal comment. 

A separate investigation by Sudan’s Ayin Network documented Telegram channels operating an almost identical structure to the one described here: administrators charging roughly $30 for VIP access to material described as exclusive, channels going dark after reports only to be quickly recreated with subscribers migrated across, and content sourced from economically vulnerable communities with little legal recourse. 

Malaysiakini’s Kini News Lab has separately described Telegram as functioning as a “dark mall” for this kind of material, in which promotional content on more visible platforms consistently routes interested users toward Telegram, where moderation is comparatively lighter. 

Another investigation, conducted by the Brazilian outlet Núcleo with the Pulitzer Centre’s AI Accountability Network, found dozens of Telegram bots capable of generating AI-manipulated child sexual abuse imagery, most operating despite Telegram’s own public commitments on child safety.

These investigations point to a recurring global pattern. Broader research suggests the problem extends far beyond the networks examined in any single investigation. Research conducted by UNICEF Innocenti, ECPAT International, and INTERPOL across 13 countries in Africa and Southeast Asia found that, depending on the country, up to one in five internet-using children aged 12 to 17 had experienced online sexual abuse within a single year. Social media platforms were among the environments where children most frequently encountered the abuse. 

Nigeria was not included among the countries studied, leaving no comparable national estimate of how many Nigerian children may be affected. UNICEF and the WeProtect Global Alliance have warned that online child sexual exploitation is becoming increasingly complex as offenders adapt quickly to new technologies, encrypted platforms, and gaps in national responses, arguing that effective responses require cooperation between technology companies, law enforcement, child-protection organisations, and governments, rather than isolated moderation decisions by individual platforms. UNICEF Nigeria has separately noted that violence against children increasingly occurs in both physical and digital spaces, while support for victims remains limited.

As we identified the operators of these accounts, an obvious question emerged: if journalists could trace those digital footprints using publicly available tools, what prevented authorities from doing the same?

Nigeria does not lack the relevant laws. The Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act criminalises the production, distribution, and possession of child sexual abuse material, alongside offences relating to the use of digital platforms to facilitate unlawful activities, including the non-consensual distribution of intimate images.

The Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act recognises image-based sexual abuse, and children receive further protection under the Child Rights Act and the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act. 

The activity documented in this investigation appears to fall squarely within conduct already prohibited under Nigerian law. Over three months of monitoring, HumAngle found no public record of investigations or prosecutions specifically targeting the Hausa-language Telegram ecosystem documented in this reporting, even as channels disappeared, replacement channels emerged, subscribers migrated, and the marketplace continued operating.

The threat was not entirely new to Nigerian authorities. In 2023, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) said it had observed increasing cases involving child sexual abuse material, sextortion, and revenge pornography, and had established a Cybersecurity Response Team, in partnership with organisations including Meta and the United States National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). That year, the agency said it was investigating six cyber-tip reports involving online child exploitation and sextortion, drawing on NCMEC’s CyberTipline, the centralised reporting system through which tech companies and the public flag suspected child exploitation to law enforcement worldwide. What remains unclear is whether the Hausa-language network HumAngle documented had ever entered that reporting system.

The network appeared to exploit precisely the jurisdictional and institutional gaps that researchers have long warned about: Telegram channels directed users toward WhatsApp, WhatsApp conversations led back to Telegram, and X attracted new audiences, with each platform seeing only one part of the picture while the operators appeared to see the whole. Platform enforcement removed accounts. Law enforcement, at least publicly, appeared largely absent, aside from the small number of cases NAPTIP said it was already investigating. 

What follows

Before publication, HumAngle shared its findings with Telegram and NAPTIP, seeking answers about the network, its operators, and the apparent gaps that allowed it to persist. The advertisements, the Telegram links, the payment instructions, and the phone numbers had all been public. The operators had made no effort to hide them.

Artificial intelligence is steadily changing how the world responds to crises.

Governments use it to analyse satellite imagery after natural disasters, humanitarian agencies are testing AI to anticipate displacement before it overwhelms fragile communities, and researchers are applying machine learning to uncover patterns buried inside millions of records that no human could process alone.

These advances, while useful, expose a problem worthy of scrutiny.

Most AI systems are built on data that tells only part of the world’s story. Since they are trained largely on information from North America, Europe, and parts of Asia, they know relatively little about the realities of conflict in parts of Nigeria like Borno, Zamfara, Katsina, Diffa or the wider Lake Chad Basin. They struggle with Hausa, Kanuri, Fulfulde, Igbo and hundreds of other African languages. In addition, they often miss the informal power structures, survival economies, historical grievances, and social relationships that determine whether a community remains stable or slips into violence.

For example, despite advancements in AI content flagging on social media platforms, HumAngle’s reporting and research have consistently found that moderation systems that perform effectively in English often fail to detect incitement expressed in Hausa, Kanuri, Igbo, and other Nigerian languages. Language models frequently miss local expressions, figurative speech and cultural nuances, allowing harmful content to evade automated moderation. That is not simply a technical limitation. It is a human security challenge.

Africa has long faced a deficit in research, reporting, documentation, and structured knowledge about local realities. That gap is becoming one of the continent’s biggest constraints in the AI era. Large language models (LLMs) can only learn from information that exists. If communities, conflicts, languages, histories or ecosystems remain poorly documented, those blind spots are carried directly into the systems built on them. Building culturally informed and representative AI therefore begins long before model development. It begins with producing more reliable knowledge.

Kunle Adebajo, editor of Code for Africa’s African Academy for Open Source Investigations (AAOSI), has this to say: “Artificial intelligence companies have successfully scraped most of what exists on the Internet to train their models. But a vast amount of data lives outside of the shores of the Internet, especially in Africa. AI systems, for example, will struggle with geolocation because many parts of Nigeria are still not properly mapped. They will struggle with translating languages spoken by minority ethnic groups. Even languages spoken by tens of millions of people, like Amharic, are considered low-resource by AI companies and therefore aren’t prioritised, let alone those spoken by only a few million. There’s, of course, also the lived experiences of conflict victims, which aren’t reported online and which you can only understand through fresh field interviews. Even when all this information is integrated into the AI systems, we still have the risk of hallucinations. In matters of security, we cannot take any of these shortcomings and risks lightly, because lives are at stake. Security actors who are incorporating AI tools into their operations must do their due diligence and maintain strong human oversight over the processes.” 

The decline in funding for research and investigative reporting therefore comes at a critical moment. Every research project left unfunded, every environmental change left undocumented, and every local story that never enters the public record represents knowledge that remains unavailable not only to policymakers and researchers today but also to the AI systems increasingly shaping future analysis. The quality of future AI will depend, in part, on the quality and diversity of the knowledge produced today.

If the data is incomplete, the analysis will be incomplete. If the context is missing, the conclusions may be wrong. In fragile environments, inaccurate conclusions can delay humanitarian assistance, distort policy responses and, in the worst cases, cost lives.

Communities see the signals first

Conflict rarely arrives without warning, and the warning signs are rarely dramatic. They are usually ordinary changes that occur over time, not all at once. A weekly market suddenly stops operating, or fishermen abandon parts of Lake Chad. Parents stop sending children to school weeks before an attack while farmlands expand into traditional grazing routes, or herders begin avoiding ancestral migration paths that have remained open for generations. HumAngle’s reporting has repeatedly documented these patterns.

Months before major offensives around the Lake Chad Basin, local communities described unusual restrictions on fishing, increased taxation by armed groups after governments introduced ransom-payment restrictions, shifting movement routes, and growing pressure on traders. These were not isolated observations. They formed part of a broader pattern.

In northwestern Nigeria, our reporting has shown how armed groups shifted from pickup vans to motorcycles when security operations disrupted their mobility. We documented how kidnapping networks increasingly demanded ransom in CFA francs after Nigeria’s cashless policy disrupted access to large amounts of naira. We traced the emergence of new ungoverned forest frontiers, the expansion of illegal mining sites and the growing links between critical minerals, transnational migration and armed violence. These adaptations rarely appear in conventional datasets, yet they are recognised by communities living with insecurity every day.

Researchers increasingly argue that AI systems become more reliable when such verified local observations are analysed alongside conventional datasets, helping analysts identify patterns that would otherwise remain fragmented. 

Joshua Olufemi, Founder of Dataphyte, a data and research analytics company, believes that agenda-setting is critical to this. Speaking to HumAngle about some practical pathways, he mentioned “Multistakeholder agenda setting and strategic partnerships on critical infrastructure and local data modelling and innovation. ⁠Newsroom Viability and business case initiatives to build and sustain the ecosystem.”

Building AI that understands fragile societies

The proposed HumAngle AI and Human Security Lab is designed to explore how verified field reporting, historical conflict data, humanitarian information, environmental indicators, satellite imagery, where appropriate, and open-source intelligence can be organised to identify areas where risk is changing.

The objective is not to predict the exact time or location of an attack. Conflict is too complex for deterministic prediction, and responsible AI requires transparency about uncertainty. Instead, the approach focuses on identifying shifts in risk while ensuring that assessments remain explainable, transparent, and subject to human review.

For humanitarian organisations, even a few days of additional warning can allow food supplies to be prepositioned before roads become inaccessible, schools to strengthen protection measures before attacks occur, vulnerable communities to relocate before violence escalates or emergency resources to reach areas before displacement intensifies.

Journalism is structured evidence

Journalism is often viewed as a record of past events. Increasingly, it also provides structured evidence that can help explain how crises evolve over time.

For more than six years, HumAngle has reported on insurgency, communal violence, kidnapping, humanitarian crises and governance failures across Nigeria and the Lake Chad region.

Its investigations have exposed mass arbitrary detentions, documented attacks on schools, mapped displacement, tracked ransom economies and examined the evolution of Boko Haram, ISWAP and other armed groups.

Reporting on school attacks has gone beyond casualty figures to examine how fear empties classrooms, deepens inequality and reshapes communities. Investigations into kidnapping networks have documented how criminal economies evolve, how ransom systems adapt and how insecurity expands into areas once considered relatively stable. Each story contains verified interviews, timelines, locations, local terminology and community knowledge. They represent one of Africa’s richest public interest records documenting how insecurity has evolved across the Lake Chad Basin and the wider Sahel.

Adebajo argues that this type of journalism becomes even more valuable when its evidence is intentionally structured for computational analysis.

“Credible investigative journalism products and community knowledge can be used to train AI models that provide intelligence for crisis signalling and data-driven predictive research. But it has to be structured. The good thing is that AI tools can help with that structuring, so it doesn’t consume as much time. However, collecting information for AI training and collecting information for Investigative reporting are not the same thing.”

According to the investigative journalist and AI researcher at Code for Africa, “if you set your mind on achieving both objectives, it’ll also inform the kind of data you collect and how you standardise the process and schema across different scenarios. When you have such a big dataset from years of journalism, you can combine it with other security, satellite, and reporting datasets to draw out patterns and outliers. You can determine which areas are more susceptible to attacks and multiple displacements, which seasons, what time of day, etc.”

Beyond the statistics of political violence, you can also draw out patterns in the nature of the attacks and the experiences of victims. All these can help with better allocation of scarce resources in tackling the problem of insecurity, Adebajo argued.

Kofoworola Odozi, a media analyst and AI hobbyist, agrees. She believes deliberate archiving is central to this work. “Newsrooms and CSOs have to build a digital library that has local information and that they completely own and control. What this would do for us is that instead of relying on data that big tech companies gather, we collect more materials like notes from townhalls, local newspapers, budget hearing notes–things like that that you would not typically find in the data that big tech companies have. CSOs and newsrooms can gather that and use open source to document them.”

The media analyst also believes that media and CSOs have to move to a unified digital infrastructure. “Media and CSOs are very individualistic in the ways we work, even though we are all working towards the same thing. We should work towards an industry-wide consortium.”

Adebajo says there are some strategies working at Code for Africa.

“One thing we’re doing at Code for Africa in our fight against information disorder is to go beyond fact-checking to train people who edit Wikipedia articles and train AI models, so that we can put the fact-checks into a pipeline that feeds into quality AI data, because we understand that more and more people are getting their information directly from these models,” he said. “That’s another thing to consider when reporting on conflict, especially in the fight against misinformation and conspiracy theories. How do we get these dozens and hundreds of reports to be assimilated reliably into AI systems, which are not only disseminating information directly to people but are also feeding indirectly into other knowledge production mechanisms?”

Context matters more than computing power

Much of the AI conversation focuses on larger models, faster processors, and bigger datasets. Yet model performance ultimately depends on the quality and relevance of the information used to train it.

A global AI system may recognise the word “flood.” It may identify references to drought, migration or armed conflict. Yet it may completely miss why a cash policy disrupted kidnapping networks, why changes in seasonal border patrols altered irregular migration routes or why the discovery of lithium, gold, and other strategic minerals reshaped local security dynamics.

It may recognise extremist vocabulary without understanding how concepts such as hijrah, bay’ah or takfir carry different meanings depending on who is using them, where they are used, and the historical context in which they are invoked.

It may classify a dispute as ethnic when local communities understand it primarily as competition over grazing routes, irrigation access, taxation or political representation.

Without local knowledge, AI systems risk misunderstanding complex societies despite increasing computational power.

The next battlefield is information

Conflict no longer unfolds only on the ground. It also unfolds across phones, messaging platforms, and social media.

False rumours spread within minutes as old videos are recycled as evidence of new attacks. AI-generated images and synthetic audio are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from authentic documentation, and armed groups continue adapting their propaganda while misinformation and disinformation deepen mistrust between communities and weaken confidence in legitimate institutions.

HumAngle has documented how Boko Haram and ISWAP compete not only through violence but also through narratives that seek legitimacy, exploit grievances and shape public perceptions of governance, justice and religion.

Understanding these information ecosystems is becoming increasingly important for humanitarian response and conflict analysis.

The proposed HumAngle AI and Human Security Lab also explores how publicly available information can be analysed to better understand AI-enabled misinformation, extremist narratives, and digital conflict across African contexts, while respecting privacy, freedom of expression, and the principles of independent journalism.

Human judgement must remain at the centre

The growing use of AI in humanitarian and security settings has been accompanied by claims that algorithms will predict wars or replace analysts. Current evidence suggests a more limited role.

AI can support human decision-making by organising large volumes of information, identifying patterns and highlighting anomalies. Human judgement remains essential for interpreting those findings, questioning assumptions, and understanding context. Transparency about uncertainty, limitations, and data quality remains fundamental in fragile environments where analytical errors can carry significant consequences.

Africa and the future of humanitarian AI

The debate over AI in Africa has increasingly shifted from digital access to questions of data, governance, and representation.

Africa possesses extensive community knowledge, linguistic diversity, and historical experience that remain underrepresented in many AI systems. As governments, humanitarian organisations and researchers expand the use of AI in crisis response, these forms of knowledge are becoming increasingly important sources of evidence.

The proposed HumAngle AI and Human Security Lab’s focus is not AI for its own sake. It is the development of analytical tools that help humanitarian organisations act earlier, journalists identify emerging patterns, researchers organise complex evidence and policymakers make better-informed decisions.

If these approaches prove effective, AI may contribute to more timely humanitarian action, stronger evidence-based policymaking and improved protection for vulnerable communities.

For nearly two decades, Nigeria fought Boko Haram and its offshoots, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Ansaru, largely with bombs, bullets, and casualties announced in press briefings. However, the slow process of delivering justice through prosecution was the part of the counterterrorism machine that never quite got built properly. 

Thousands of suspects, many of them innocent, disappeared into the barracks and detention facilities of Giwa, Wawa, and the Borno Maximum Security Prison, some for a decade or more, without ever seeing a judge. HumAngle has reported extensively on that. Now, that is visibly changing.

At least 865 convictions were secured between January and July 2026 alone, according to Nigeria’s Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA). The convictions are part of the country’s Mass Trial Programme, a series of tribunal sittings. That figure represents more than half of all terrorism-related convictions the programme has produced since its inception, according to Zakari Mijinyawa, the ONSA’s Director of Legal Services.

However, ONSA has not released comprehensive data on acquittals, dismissals, plea agreements, or pending cases within this period, making it difficult to assess the programme’s overall prosecutorial performance or conviction rate.

In April, a federal court in Abuja convicted 386 people in a single sitting after four days of hearings before a panel of 10 judges, with sentences ranging from five years to life. In June, 12 more defendants were sentenced to death by hanging in cases spanning terrorism financing, kidnapping, and the 2022 massacre at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, where terrorists killed more than 40 worshippers.

The charges themselves read like a mirror of how an insurgency actually sustains itself: not only fighters but financiers, couriers, and suppliers. One man was sentenced to 20 years for selling cattle and goats to Boko Haram; the presiding judge, Justice Binta Nyako, called the offence “so gruesome” and rejected pleas for leniency. Another received ten years for exchanging roughly ₦750,000 with the group. A woman was convicted for ferrying hundreds of rounds of ammunition to a terror leader in the country’s northwestern region. 

This is prosecutorial attention to the economic scaffolding of terrorism – financing, logistics, and information-withholding; rather than a fixation on the terrorist with the gun, which has historically been the easiest and least useful person to punish.

Justice delayed – now being served 

Just as significant, though less publicised, is what has been happening on the other side of the ledger. The Department of State Services, under its current Director-General, Oluwatosin Adeola Ajayi, has spent the past year and a half reopening what officials describe as “inherited” detention files, including cases dating back to 2021 and 2022 involving people held for years on suspicion of terrorism before internal review panels ultimately found the allegations baseless.

A Kaduna farmer and herder, Nura Idris, arrested in 2024 over alleged Boko Haram links, was cleared and paid ₦3 million. A Yobe State resident, Ya’u Mohammed, received a similar package after two years in custody. Perhaps the starkest case is that of Sunday Ifedi, arrested with his wife, Calista, in 2021 over alleged links to the separatist group IPOB; Calista died in detention before either of them was ever tried. Sunday was released in December 2025 and paid ₦10 million, and the DSS says it now intends to rebuild the restaurant Calista once ran, in her name. Agency sources say more than 30 such cases have been reviewed and over ₦300 million has been paid out in total.

None of this restores what was lost. Years of a life lost, families destroyed, or a wife who did not come home. But as a matter of institutional behaviour, it is a genuine departure. Public compensation for wrongful terrorism detention remains unusual among West African security services. 

Even though it comes after years of pressure from human rights groups and media organisations, the reviews suggest a shift in institutional practice under the current DSS leadership, in which “we got this wrong” is no longer an unspeakable sentence inside Nigeria’s intelligence services. However, it is too early to know whether the approach will endure. 

For a country whose counterterrorism record has been shadowed for years by allegations of arbitrary detention, torture, and enforced disappearance in military custody, allegations HumAngle and other outlets have documented extensively, that is not a small shift.

Communities in the North East, particularly in Borno and Yobe, where terrorism has been ravaging lives, have long complained that indiscriminate sweeps net far more innocent men than actual insurgents. In 2014, for instance, 42 men from Gallari, a community in Borno State, were arbitrarily arrested and detained by the Nigerian Army. By 2025, more than a decade later, only five were still alive. Of those five, only three were eventually released. 

Each acquittal or compensation payout, in theory, is a data point against that particular grievance, and a small deposit into public trust that has been overdrawn for a generation. 

Still, an important puzzle remains why this shift is happening, and if there are measures in place to prevent further arbitrary or illegal arrests and detention of innocent citizens. An official with the DSS, who pleaded anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media, offered some insight into this. 

“The Director-General, on assuming office, directed that no arrest is made until all reasonable evidence is gathered about the offence being committed or believed to be about to be committed and the evidence is substantial enough to secure conviction in court,” they said. 

The halt of Operation Safe Corridor? 

It is against this backdrop that the Senate’s intervention on July 8 lands. Meeting to discuss a wave of attacks on military personnel,  prompted by the abduction and death in captivity of retired Major General Rabe Abubakar, the Senate adopted a resolution urging the federal government to halt Operation Safe Corridor (OPSC), the decade-old programme that screens, deradicalises, and reintegrates former Boko Haram terrorists who surrender rather than fight to the end. 

In July, Senator Joseph Ikpea, who represents Edo Central Senatorial District, made an additional prayer, seconded by former labour leader and Edo North Senator Adams Oshiomhole, arguing that pardoning and rehabilitating people responsible for atrocities makes no sense while their victims and the families of fallen soldiers receive comparatively little. The Senate wants surrendering fighters prosecuted instead, and “made to face the full wrath of the law”. 

The instinct is neither irrational nor new. Communities that watched OPSC graduates return home with vocational grants while widows of soldiers got condolence visits have voiced exactly this complaint for years. HumAngle’s own reporting from Borno has documented residents’ fury, alongside cases of the programme’s supposed “clients” turning out to be non-combatants swept up in raids and warehoused there simply because army cells were overcrowded. 

HumAngle understands that not everyone who goes through a deradicalisation programme was once a terrorist. Some of them can, in fact, be described as victims. Sources confirmed to HumAngle that whenever Boko Haram or ISWAP terrorists storm a village, they often prevent anyone from leaving and force residents to choose between joining the insurgents or being killed. For some people, the instinct to survive leaves them with little choice but to go along with the terrorists, hoping they will eventually find an opportunity to escape and surrender to the military. 

Even after surrendering, such individuals are usually required to undergo the deradicalisation process because of the time they spent under the control of the insurgents and the possibility that their beliefs or worldview may have been influenced.

There are also people who are made to undergo deradicalisation because they spent long periods in military detention facilities or prisons alongside high-profile terrorist suspects. The concern is that prolonged exposure to extremist inmates could have affected their thinking, even if they are later cleared and released. That was the case for Abubakar, a man who was once accused of belonging to Boko Haram but was later freed after authorities established that he was innocent. He told HumAngle that because of the years he spent in detention, he was still required to pass through the deradicalisation programme at Mallam Sidi, a facility in Gombe State that serves as the OPSC rehabilitation centre.

However, civil society groups such as the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and the CREAP Africa Initiative, in response to the Senate’s move, called for something more surgical: an evidence-based review of the programme’s screening and transparency, not its abolition.

“CISLAC commends the Senate for responding to earlier calls drawing national attention to the worsening security situation and reiterates that protecting the lives of Nigerians, upholding justice, and restoring public confidence in national security institutions must remain central to all government responses to terrorism and violent extremism,” stated its director, Auwal Rafsanjani. 

But the Senate’s prescription runs into an operational reality that the mass trials should make obvious: Operation Safe Corridor and the tribunal system are not rivals competing for the same defendants. They were designed, from the start, to sort two different populations: hardened commanders and financiers who should be prosecuted, and conscripted or coerced low-level members whom the military itself has long argued should not be, because there would be nowhere to put tens of thousand of them, and because the promise of a “safe corridor” home is one of the few incentives that reliably pulls terrorists out of the bush faster than bullets do. 

Babayo Sule, a security analyst, put it this way in response to the resolution: the programme exists precisely because years of a purely kinetic strategy failed to end the insurgency on its own; scrapping it removes one of the few levers that can shrink Boko Haram’s manpower without a single shot being fired.

“The Nigerian government will not have opted for the choice of deradicalisation except that Nigeria’s security architecture is overwhelmed by the multi-pronged and multidimensional challenges of insecurity across the country,” he said.

There is also a due-process irony the Senate seems not to have registered. The same week lawmakers called for suspending rehabilitation in favour of prosecution, courts were demonstrating, at unprecedented volume, that prosecution is now genuinely available and increasingly being used. 

The danger of the Senate’s resolution, then, is less that it is emotionally wrong (grief for a murdered general and for civilians killed for a generation is entirely legitimate) than that it collapses two distinct instruments into one, at the exact moment when both are showing, separately, signs of working. 

That distinction has, in fact, just been reinforced by the federal government itself. On Monday, July 13, the ONSA, through the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), unveiled a comprehensive set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for Nigeria’s Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme. Rather than expanding eligibility for rehabilitation, the framework seeks to formalise a process that has often been criticised as opaque by defining institutional responsibilities, referral pathways, case management procedures, human rights safeguards, and mechanisms for inter-agency coordination.

Perhaps more importantly, officials were explicit that DDR is not intended to replace criminal accountability. Abimbola Wońosikou, the NCTC’s Director of Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism, stressed during the validation workshop that individuals accused of serious crimes would continue to face prosecution through the appropriate legal processes, while only those who meet established eligibility criteria would proceed through rehabilitation and reintegration. 

In effect, the SOPs are intended to codify the distinction between those who should stand trial and those whose circumstances warrant disengagement and rehabilitation, an area critics have long argued lacked sufficient clarity and transparency.

“What needs to be done is to look at what is wrong, how to amend it and how to make it better. It is even better to expand the programme rather than discard it,” Babayo said.

This, HumAngle gathered, could include reforming screening, introducing tighter oversight of who qualifies as a “low-risk” defector, and ensuring faster referral of the genuinely culpable into the tribunal system. The newly adopted DDR SOPs appear designed to achieve many of these objectives by clarifying institutional mandates, strengthening oversight, and embedding human rights safeguards throughout the process. Such measures would address almost every grievance the Senate raised without discarding the one mechanism that has, for a decade, given terrorists still in Sambisa and the Lake Chad Basin forests a reason to walk out instead of dig in.

Whether these safeguards restore public confidence will depend less on the existence of the SOPs than on how consistently they are applied, particularly in deciding who qualifies for rehabilitation and who is referred for prosecution. 

Wrapped in a black cloth stained with her own blood, a three-month-old baby in a light green shirt was lowered into a grave beside eight other members of her family. They had all been killed in an overnight attack on Kum, a village in Riyom Local Government Area of Plateau State, in North Central Nigeria.

Residents said the attack began at about 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 11, and continued into the early hours of Sunday, July 12. By the time the attackers left, nine members of one family were dead, and the community head, Pam Yohanna, was critically injured.

Pam and his family were fast asleep when a loud bang jolted them awake. It did not sound like a knock, but like someone trying to force the door open. “The door was strong, so they couldn’t break in,” a resident, who declined to give his name, said.

Unable to force the door open, the attackers smashed a window and fired into the darkness, striking Yohanna. His screams for help alerted other residents of Kum village. Residents alleged that the attackers had blended into the area during the day by posing as herders before launching the attack at night.

The attackers then moved to the neighbouring compound, which was Pam’s larger family house. Unlike Yohanna’s house, the doors there could not withstand the assault, and the attackers forced their way inside. “They wiped the entire family,” the resident said.

When residents entered the compound after the incident, they found the corpses and sleeping spaces – mattresses, walls, and mosquito nets – soaked with blood, revealing where members of the household had been attacked while they slept.

Nine members of the family were killed. They were identified as Celina James, 38; James Yohanna, 21; Janet Yohanna, 18; Baby Jennifer Yohanna, three months; Sele James, 18; Melody James, 16; Reto James, 10; Endurance James, 8; and Peace James, 3. James and Janet had recently married and were the parents of the baby, Jennifer. Their daughter was buried alongside them and the other members of their family who were killed.

The family lived on the outskirts of the community, behind the Riyom Local Government Council Secretariat, and not far from a base of Operation Enduring Peace, a joint military task force in the region. The community is also located along the Jos–Kaduna–Akwanga highway.

Pam, who is also the community head, sustained life-threatening injuries and is receiving treatment in hospital.

“This is not the first time we are experiencing such an attack,” the youth leader said.

The attack, residents said, did not come entirely without warning. In the days leading up to it, residents had received intelligence about groups of people moving into the area with cattle. Rwang Tengwong, spokesperson for the Berom Youth Moulders Association (BYM), said he believes some of those moving into the area had been displaced from neighbouring Barkin Ladi and Bokkos local government areas following recent security operations by the Department of State Services and other security agencies.

Residents also raised concerns about the presence of drones during attacks in the area. Chollom Dung, the community leader of Kum, said drones were often seen flying overhead during such incidents, but residents did not know who was operating them. “We don’t know who flies them,” Dung said. “We are not safe.”

Rwang said the attackers came from neighbouring Fass and Mahanga communities, areas he described as having previously been inhabited by indigenous residents before they were displaced in 2004 and 2012. In 2025, the Plateau State Government said that at least 64 communities in Bokkos, Barkin Ladi, and Riyom local government areas had been forcibly displaced and taken over by criminal groups.

“They have been taken over, renamed, and people are living there conveniently on lands they pushed people away from to occupy,” Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang said.

Several residents and community leaders who spoke to HumAngle described the attack as “unprovoked” rather than a reprisal or communal clash, as such incidents are often labelled. “We have not had any issue of cattle rustling in this community,” Rwang said. “…As a youth association, when we notice criminal elements, even if they are from our communities, we hand them over to the authorities, because if we shield them, they will terrorise us tomorrow.”

More than 48 hours after the attack, no official statement had been issued by the Plateau State Government or the Plateau State Police Command. “We have lost hope in the government,” the youth leader said.

At the time of reporting, residents said there was no permanent security presence in the community. Police officers and soldiers visited briefly on Sunday morning, a day after the attack, before leaving. No arrests had been made.

The attack came despite repeated assurances from government officials, including President Bola Tinubu, that efforts would be intensified to end the killings and restore security in Plateau State. However, for residents of communities such as Kum, the continued violence has deepened frustration and raised questions about the effectiveness of those measures.

“There is no way that we have a big security base nearby and attacks happen and no one attempts to stop them,” said Dalyop Mwantiri, BYM’s chairperson. “We are calling for accountability, justice; we are calling for security to step up.”

For residents of Plateau, the concern over delayed security response is not new. In April 2025, after a similar attack in Zike, in Bassa Local Government Area, HumAngle visited residents who complained about the lack of response from security operatives despite a nearby military base.

The graves in Kum are among the newest markers of a season of relentless bloodshed across Plateau State. Data compiled by the Berom Youth Moulders Association shows that at least 121 people were killed in attacks across several communities between May and July 11, 2026. The killings cut across Barkin Ladi, Riyom, Bassa, Jos South, Pankshin, and other local government areas, with 62 deaths recorded in May, 43 in June, and another 16 in the first 11 days of July alone. HumAngle verified some of the incidents by comparing the records with media reports of individual attacks.

Competing accounts in Benue State

The violence was not confined to Plateau. While residents of Kum in Riyom were still coming to terms with the aftermath of Saturday night’s attack, two communities – Akpachi-Ogbuju village and Otukpo-Nobi, both in Otukpo Local Government Area of Benue State – came under attack on the same night, with violence reported on the evening of Saturday, July 11, and into the early hours of Sunday, July 12.

In Otukpo-Nobi, armed attackers struck members of the Inalegwu family at about 5:00 a.m., according to Eric Amodu, a resident who spoke to HumAngle from the Accident and Emergency Ward of the Federal University of Health Sciences Teaching Hospital, Otukpo.

“Six of them were attacked,” he said, adding that the mother died while the five others sustained varying degrees of injuries. Two of them were in critical condition at the Accident and Emergency Ward of the teaching hospital.

The Benue State Police Command confirmed that eight people were killed in the attack, while residents and local sources who spoke to HumAngle reported a higher toll. 

Eric said security operatives arrived in the community hours after the attack. “This is not the first time this community has been attacked,” he said. “It is not the second, third, or fourth. It is probably the fifth.”

Similar to residents in Kum, Plateau State, residents of Otukpo-Nobi said they had raised concerns with security agencies before the attack. Simeon Ikulonu, a youth leader in the community, said residents noticed unusual movements on the Monday before the attack and reported their concerns to security officials. They returned on Thursday to inform them that the suspicious presence had continued.

The attack has since triggered competing accounts about its cause and those responsible. In a statement, Tersoo Kula, Chief Press Secretary to the Benue State Governor, described the attackers as “armed herders”.

Eric, who was conducting ward rounds at the teaching hospital during the interview with HumAngle, said one of the survivors told him that one of the attackers she saw was a woman. HumAngle could not independently verify the claim.

Cletus Nwadiogbu, the Benue State Police Commissioner, described the incident as a “terrorist attack” and said the attackers used guerrilla tactics, striking communities before retreating into nearby forests. “They operate in the guerrilla warfare style. Once they attack, they immediately disappear into the woods, making it difficult to apprehend them,” he said.

Several reports have linked the attack to the killing of Ardo Risku Muhammad, the Benue State chairperson of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), an umbrella organisation representing cattle breeders in the country. However, Eric disputed the suggestion that the violence was only connected to that incident. “Even the route he was attacked on is a no-go route. You can’t go there without security,” he said.

Ardo was ambushed and killed on June 26 on a highway in Otukpo Local Government Area while returning from a peace meeting in nearby Ohimini Local Government Area.

The police have since arrested local leaders in the area as suspects linked to Ardo’s death.

MACBAN has also rejected suggestions linking its members to the attack. Ibrahim Galma, the state secretary of the association, said conclusions should not be drawn before investigations were completed. “Making such conclusions at this stage will only compromise the ongoing investigation being carried out by the Nigeria Police Force and other security agencies,” he said. He added that “Fulani residents” in Otukpo and surrounding areas had previously been displaced from the area.

Following the attack, residents protested, demanding greater protection from security agencies.

Benue has experienced repeated attacks on rural communities in recent years, contributing to widespread displacement across the state. A recent HumAngle investigation documented how several communities have been deserted after repeated assaults, with hundreds of thousands of people forced into displacement camps or temporary shelters.

“The attackers keep attacking, and people flee, and they take over, and it continues,” Eric said, echoing concerns raised by residents in Plateau State.

Benue State Governor Hyacinth Alia described the attack as a “barbaric and inhuman assault on the sanctity of life and the collective soul of the people”.

“We will not allow our communities to be turned into battlefields,” he said.

Human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, have called on Nigerian authorities to conduct an independent, impartial, and effective investigation into the attack on Otukpo-Nobi and Akpachi-Ugboju. The organisation said the violence had deepened fear and panic across Otukpo Local Government Area and urged the government to fulfil its responsibility to protect lives and property.

“The protests by youths in the aftermath of the attack show that people have had enough and seek an end to frequent attacks and abductions that have made life a hell in many parts of Benue State,” Amnesty International said.

The organisation also called for urgent measures to protect rural communities and hold suspected perpetrators accountable, warning that repeated attacks across the region have contributed to widespread displacement and a growing humanitarian crisis.

In the afternoon of May 31, 2026, the Anguwan Hausawa area of the Mokwa Local Government Area of Niger State, North-Central Nigeria, was thrown into mourning. The news of Abubakar Usman’s death in the lodge water had spread through the area, and people were trooping to the house to extend their condolences to his parents.

Abubakar, a 13-year-old, had gone out to play with his friends. Hours later, he was brought back lifeless while his other friend was rushed to the hospital, having drowned in floodwaters caused by a blockage the construction workers working on a culvert had put in to hold the water as they worked. 

As the lastborn of his parents, Abubakar was the kind of boy whose presence lit up every corner of the community. He attended the Islamic school close to his house, and his teachers admired how brilliant he was. Residents say he was respectful, and the elders in his community often praised him as he never passed by without greeting people warmly—a rare quality that made him beloved by all.

His father, Usman Shekare, an elderly man in his late sixties, stood heartbroken at the sight, lying on a mat, fixing his gaze on his beloved son. The only words he had the courage to utter were, “God gave him to me, and He has collected him back.”

What broke him further was a simple question: “What message do you have for the government?” He instantly broke down in tears, unable to speak further.

This tragedy is not an isolated incident. Just weeks earlier, residents told HumAngle that three boys fell into the clogged waters and were luckily rescued. The water continues to gather at last year’s Mokwa Flood site, fed by the heavy downpour flowing from the Zugurma and Yagbagba axis, and worsened by another source from gully erosion sites in nearby communities. 

Hussaini Ibrahim, the Spokesperson of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA), told HumAngle almost a month after the incident that the agency is not aware of any loss of life due to the blockage but will reach out to the community leader and affected family for further actions.

In Mokwa, the echoes of last year’s devastating flood still haunt the community. Residents told HumAngle that farmers had raised alarm before last year’s disaster, warning that water was accumulating, but their concerns were ignored until after the flood struck. Now, the same warnings are being repeated, with little sign of preventive action.

“Barely a year after the flood, Mokwa is once again staring at water lodging in the same vulnerable zones,” Isah Mokwa, a community leader and activist in the community, told HumAngle. “The bridge and waterway reconstruction, meant to symbolise recovery, has inadvertently blocked water channels, creating a dangerous buildup. As we speak, the town is sitting on a ticking bomb.”

Residents told HumAngle how the first rainfall they witnessed in May made them apprehensive. That evening, they revealed, the sound of rushing water sent shivers down their spines. Mothers were seen rushing to gather their children as fathers stood at the site of collapsed structures, staring at the lodging of water in the same flood-prone channel that swallowed over 150 lives and many homes last year, with hopes of it not wreaking havoc again. 

Studies indicate that the mental health and wellbeing of individuals, especially children affected by flooding in Nigeria, can deteriorate for extended periods, often lasting months or even years after the event.

The cumulative stress of rebuilding homes, restoring livelihoods, and coping with displacement has been shown to exert a heavier toll on affected populations than the initial impact of the flood, underscoring the need for comprehensive psychosocial support in disaster management strategies.

“The water was coming right from Yagbagba,” Ndako Usman, a resident, said. “It’s accumulating just behind the blockage. Once it gets bigger and more powerful, it could hit our homes again.” 

Hussaini told HumAngle that the blockage was caused by construction workers working on the ongoing drainage construction, and the management has taken swift action to address the issue.

“During last year’s flood, we were taken unaware, but we have taken proactive measures to ensure that it does not repeat itself this year. We have a monitoring team, and also volunteers who constantly update us on the flow of water so that we take immediate action.”

“Regarding the culvert, we have written to relevant stakeholders, including the Ministry of Water Resources, to study and assess the situation of the culverts to see if they can handle the water volume in case of a flood-related disaster and advise appropriately,” Hussaini added.

A catastrophe remembered

The fear is not irrational. In May 2025, Mokwa was the epicentre of one of Nigeria’s deadliest flood disasters in recent memory. Torrential rains combined with structural failures to unleash devastation that claimed hundreds of lives, displaced thousands, and left the town grappling with hunger and grief. 

Flooding has become one of Nigeria’s most persistent natural disasters, wreaking havoc on communities across the country almost every year. Heavy rainfall, poor drainage systems, deforestation, and the release of water from dams often combine to create devastating outcomes. 

In 2024 alone, floods claimed over a thousand lives, displaced millions, and destroyed farmlands and infrastructure worth billions of naira, but the situation dropped in 2025, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). 

The agency revealed that floods killed 241 people and affected 459,995 residents across 27 states and 128 local government areas. Also, the disaster displaced 158,588 people, injured 839, and damaged 54,684 houses while destroying 96,649 farmlands. 

Early warnings had been issued by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), but local authorities failed to act.

The disaster struck suddenly. Heavy rainfall battered Mokwa, but the real trigger was the collapse of a railway embankment and blocked drainage channels that redirected torrents into residential areas. 

Within hours, homes were submerged, bridges collapsed, and farmlands were washed away. Reports varied, but estimates suggested between 200 and 700 people lost their lives, and about 3000 houses and properties were destroyed, leaving families stranded in makeshift camps.

In the wake of the disaster, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, revealed that President Bola Tinubu approved the release of ₦16.7 billion for the immediate reconstruction of the Mokwa Bridge, which was destroyed by flooding, noting that the project would involve constructing a bridge with 10 spans. 

In the months that followed, HumAngle published a damning investigation into the Mokwa flood, among other issues. Our findings painted a picture of systemic neglect. The investigation established that gully erosion in Mokwa has remained a destructive force despite years of significant financial allocations. The erosion continues to expand, damaging infrastructure and farmland and worsening during rainy seasons. 

Equally, the report uncovered that billions of naira from ecological funds and World Bank loans were earmarked for erosion control, yet no substantial work has been executed. While officials claimed contractors were engaged, there was no evidence of transparent bidding processes. Field assessments confirmed that erosion control activities remain absent, exposing a gap between official pronouncements and actual implementation.

Last month, NEMA listed Mokwa among high flood-risk local government areas in Niger State for 2026. Yet on the ground, little seems to have changed. 

Isah Mokwa, the activist based in Mokwa, confirmed to HumAngle that the bridge constructed to contain the water has proven inadequate. According to him, the community braces for the worst, fearing that heavier downpours could unleash destruction far greater than before.

“Nothing has changed. In fact, the situation has deteriorated even further. In the same direction where the water started gathering before the flood, farmers have raised the alarm that water is already accumulating,” he said.

“We believe there is no accountability for the funds contributed to the state government. What happened to the billions donated after the 2025 flood? Even the shelter that was promised for victims of last year’s flood has not been provided. Just recently, there was a flag-off ceremony, but no contractor has been mobilised to the site, no details were given about the number of houses to be built, and no project timeline was shared,” he said.

According to residents, some of the affected families who were lucky to receive ₦500,000 ($360) in financial support last year to rent houses have exhausted their funds, and the majority are now struggling to renew their rent. 

For many in Mokwa, the suspicion is that the tragedy of 2025 has been reduced to a political talking point, while the lived reality of survivors remains ignored.

However, experts warn that Mokwa cannot afford another disaster. 

Abbas Idris, the president of the Risk Managers Society of Nigeria (RIMSON), in an interview with HumAngle, said that before now, the government should have taken a proactive disaster management approach through risk assessment and hazard categorisation.

This, according to the risk expert, would help not only the government and state emergency management agency but also residents to put in place measures or tackle the disaster even before it strikes.

In the longer term, Abbas revealed that the Niger State government must enforce urban planning regulations, preventing construction on floodplains and investing in climate adaptation strategies. 

“Neglecting risk assessments leaves communities defenceless when disaster hits,” Abbas stressed. “We must address corruption, weak governance, and poor ecological management as root causes of the crisis and pave the way for transparent, science-driven interventions to mitigate future disasters.”

It has been a year since the flood, and despite repeated appeals from the community, the state government, under the leadership of Umar Bago, has yet to provide a lasting solution. Families like the Shekare’s are still left to brace for waters that rise too quickly and claim too much.

And until their demands are met, Mokwa remains vulnerable — a place where the memory of one brilliant boy reminds everyone of both the fragility of life and the urgency for change.

The last time Abdullahi Alabi heard from his friend, Oluwafemi Adeyemo, it was a voice note. “I dey Terminus… I sey make I update you,” his friend said in Nigerian Pidgin. He was restocking his foodstuffs at the market, but he never came back.

Abdullahi and Oluwafemi had been friends and coursemates since they came on campus. “We became brothers, I knew his family, he knew mine,” Abdullahi said.

Two days before that, on March 29, terrorists had opened fire on residents and passersby at Angwan Rukuba, a busy roadside community in Jos, Plateau State, North Central Nigeria, killing at least 30 people. The Plateau State government immediately clamped a 48-hour curfew on Jos North, the kind of precaution the city has learned, through painful experience, to take, given how quickly such attacks can tip into ethno-religious reprisal violence.

When the curfew lifted on April 1, Oluwafemi, a final-year Quantity Survey student at the University of Jos (UNIJOS), had just received his upkeep allowance from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND). He headed to Terminus Market that morning, a 15-minute tricycle ride from where he and Abdullahi lived, to buy foodstuffs.

What made Abdullahi check his phone that morning was hearing that something was happening around Terminus. He wanted to know if his friends were alright. That was when he saw the voice note.

“I actually did not take it that seriously,” he said. But as the updates on social media got worse, he started calling. Oluwafemi’s number was not going through. He and other friends kept trying.

By evening, Oluwafemi had not returned and was still unreachable. Abdullahi called the family, who said he had not been in touch with them either. “I took permission from the family to file a missing person report, and we also made a post on social media,” he said.

Then another of Oluwafemi’s friends reached out. She sent Abdullahi a screenshot of her last chat with him. He had told her there was a fight at Terminus, that he had escaped, and that he had made it to Bauchi Road, near the university’s Main Campus. After that, nothing.

The next day, Abdullahi and other friends went from one police station to another. On the third day, they started checking mortuaries. That afternoon, a call came asking them to come to the Jos University Teaching Hospital to identify a body.

“When we got there, it was his body,” Abdullahi said, with a sigh. “He was attacked at Bauchi Junction. According to the autopsy, he sustained a gunshot wound to his back and was macheted as well.” He added that they were told that the police officers who brought his corpse to the hospital had intervened. The identities of the perpetrators remain unknown.

Oluwafemi was one of at least eight people killed in reprisal attacks that swept through Jos on 1 April, after the night of terror at Angwan Rukuba took on an ethno-religious colouration.

“Femi was ready to make a change in the world,” Abdullahi said. “A few days before his death, he sent a voice note in a group lamenting about how Nigeria is bad and what he thinks needs to be done to fix the challenges.” He never got the chance.

In that same voice note, obtained by HumAngle, Oluwafemi turned his frustration toward the government’s response to the recurring violence. Precautions like curfews, he said, were not enough. “What has curfew done?” he asked. “Make we speak up, abi na until dem kill everybody finish.”

Oluwafemi is not the first UNIJOS student the city has claimed. With over 40,000 students – according to its website – living and studying in Jos’s most volatile neighbourhoods, the university community has, for more than two decades, been one of the most consistent casualties of the city’s recurring violence. And with no meaningful change in how students are protected, many fear it is only a matter of time before the next name is added to the list.

Caught in harm’s way

To understand why Oluwafemi’s death is not an isolated tragedy, it helps to know the city he was living in. To outsiders, the speed with which violence can spread across Jos often appears bewildering. Yet the city has endured recurring cycles of conflict for more than two decades, fuelled by a complex mix of ethno-religious tensions, disputes over indigene-settler identities, political representation, land ownership, and access to resources. While many incidents are framed as clashes between Christians and Muslims, residents and researchers have long argued that the roots of the conflict run deeper than religion alone.

“…as is often the case with identity conflicts in Africa, these are socially constructed stereotypes that are manipulated to trigger and drive violence in Jos,” said Prof. Chris Kwaja, a Researcher at the Centre for Conflict Management and Peace Studies at the University of Jos, Nigeria, who also serves as the Plateau State’s Special Envoy on Peace and Security. 

“The ethnic or religious dimensions of the conflict have subsequently been misconstrued as the primary driver of violence when, in fact, disenfranchisement, inequality, and other practical fears are the real root causes. Capitalising on such conditions, many political rivals have instrumentalised the ethnic and religious diversity of Jos to manipulate and mobilise support. Each outbreak of violence worsens suspicions and renders communal reconciliation more difficult, deepening the cycle and further incentivising polarisation,” he noted. 

Over the years, many neighbourhoods have become identified with particular ethnic and religious communities, creating a city that is deeply polarised along social and geographic lines. Areas such as Angwan Rukuba, Terminus, Bauchi Road, and other mixed communities often function as fault lines where residents from different backgrounds live, trade, commute, and study side by side. When violence breaks out, fear, rumours, and reprisals can quickly travel beyond the immediate scene of an attack, drawing in people who had no connection to the original incident.

For students of the UNIJOS whose campuses, hostels, and daily routines are woven into these communities, that vulnerability is particularly acute. A journey to class, the market, or a friend’s place can suddenly become dangerous when the city descends into unrest.

Jos North is where most of the university’s campuses sit, including the Township Campus, Bauchi Road Campus, Naraguta Campus, the Jos University Teaching Hospital, staff quarters, and other facilities. Student hostels, both university-owned and private, are scattered all across the area. Angwan Rukuba, where the March 29 attack happened, is one of the neighbourhoods with the highest concentration of students. Meanwhile, Terminus Market, which borders it, has long been an epicentre of violence in the city.

Several residents and students who spoke to HumAngle said the university community is always caught in the middle when violence breaks out, which is hardly surprising, given how deeply the campuses and student hostels are woven into those areas.

Although no comprehensive data exists on the total number of students killed across incidents, HumAngle’s research — drawing on interviews with students and staff, as well as archival news reports — indicates that at least five students have died in every major episode of violence, and often significantly more.

In 2018, Shedrach ‘Kums’ Fenan, a 300-level Law student, was shot and killed by a stray military bullet near the Students’ Village Hostel during a similar crisis. That same year, the bodies of several students were found floating in nearby rivers. 

Plangna’an Daor, who studied law at UNIJOS and now works as team lead of the post-conflict rehabilitation and recovery desk at the Plateau Peacebuilding Agency, knew Kums personally. 

“I still remember how we were all glued to social media, checking on friends in different parts of Jos, asking questions and trying to understand what was happening,” she told HumAngle. “Imagine finding out that the student was someone you knew personally, someone with immense potential.” As an executive leader of the National Association of Plateau State Students at the time, she travelled with other students for the burial. “It was a stark reminder that students are not merely observers of conflict; they can become direct victims of it,” she said.

Aondona Kwaghaondo, a medical student at the university, almost lost his life when a mob attacked him in August 2021, along the Bauchi Road near the Naraguta Hostels, which sits between major university communities. “It was a very traumatising experience; till this day I am a bit triggered by similar sights and sounds,” he said. Aondona survived, but he sustained several injuries from the attack. 

During one of the crises, while she was a student, Plangna’an lived off campus near Dariye Park, barely 100 metres away from the main gate of the Naraguta Campus. “I remember the tension of that period vividly,” she said. “We could hear gunshots at night and constantly monitored developments around us.” 

The fear was not abstract. During that same period, Plangna’an narrated that a young man attempting to reach Bauchi Road Junction was stabbed after ignoring a neighbour’s warning and was brought to her compound, where a medical student provided first aid before he could be taken to the hospital. “The atmosphere was one of constant fear and uncertainty,” Plangna’an recalled. Her roommates told her, “This is not the time to sleep in a nightie. Wear trousers. Wear something that, if we have to wake up and run, you can simply get up and leave.”

She also highlights a dimension of the crisis that is easy to overlook: the particular vulnerability of students like Adeyemo, who are from outside Plateau State. “Those of us from Plateau State at least had some understanding of the context,” she said. “But imagine students who came from other states and had no understanding of the local dynamics. They arrived expecting a safe learning environment and suddenly found themselves navigating fear, insecurity, displacement, and uncertainty.” Many students, she notes, are simply unfamiliar with which areas are considered high-risk during periods of tension, and which routes should be avoided. 

Prof. Lazarus Maigoro, former chairperson of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) UNIJOS chapter, said the pattern has left the university community exasperated. “We have suffered untold damages in relation to loss of lives and property… each time there is a security breach in Jos, and as a union, we have tried to understand how the university community is always at the receiving end of each crisis in Jos,” he said. 

“In spite of all the provocations, we have continued to offer community service to all, irrespective of religion, culture and tribe; the university administration has, over the years, made overtures to host communities in terms of undergraduate admissions and staff employment, yet our students and staff are killed at the slightest provocation, however far the epicentre of the crisis from the institution.” 

Plangna’an, who now works on post-conflict recovery, points to structural factors that compound the danger. The communities surrounding the university include areas with high concentrations of informal settlements, illegal structures, motor parks, and markets. “Some of these spaces have become hideouts for criminals, street gangs, drug users, and other vulnerable groups susceptible to recruitment into violence and extremism,” she said. Students living off-campus must pass through these environments daily.

As Prof. Maigoro noted, the attacks not only threaten the security of life and property within the university community but also disrupt the academic calendar, causing students to spend more than the stipulated number of years to complete their programmes. “Some who were meant to spend four years will end up doing six, that is, if there are no labour union strikes,” said Liamhuan Akpenmo, a student of the university’s Faculty of Education. 

For instance, Adeyemo got admission in 2019, but by the time of his death, he had spent seven years on a five-year programme, his progress interrupted by the COVID-19 lockdown and the 2021 crisis that forced the university to close.

The evacuation

When the situation following the March 29 incident worsened, the university management rescheduled the semester examinations and placed academic and related activities on hold.  Prof. Ishaya Tanko, the vice-chancellor, also announced the evacuation of students from hostels, in collaboration with the Plateau State government.

In the days that followed, specifically from April 2, other state governments and private individuals began sending dozens of buses to evacuate students who were indigenes or residents of those states. More than 1600 students were reportedly evacuated by about seven state governments, including Benue, Delta, and Kaduna. Such arrangements are often collaborations with state student union groups and relevant state government ministries.

“It was all familiar,” said Liamhuan, a student who first experienced a similar evacuation in 2021. She and her younger sister, who is also a student, left for Benue; other students travelled as far as Lagos.

Then, even as the crisis was still unfolding, the university management announced that examinations would go ahead. “It was abrupt,” said Liamhuan. The city was not yet safe. A 6 p.m. curfew was still in effect. In one press statement issued around that time, the Student Union Government advised students to either split their journey into two legs or arrive early enough to beat the curfew. Social media was still full of missing-person posters.

“Let me state clearly that since the beginning of the crisis, no single breach of the peace was recorded on any of our campuses,” the Vice Chancellor said at a press briefing. But students like Oluwafemi, who died during the incident, were attacked in areas immediately surrounding the university, a distinction that offered little comfort to those who had lost someone.

For instance, in August 2021, at the peak of a similar crisis, a 100-level microbiology student of the university was murdered by a mob at a filling station, near Dariye Park – where Plangna’an lived – which is located adjacent to the university. 

HumAngle reached out to Emmanuel Madugu, the university’s Deputy Registrar for Information and Public Relations, for comment on how the university intends to prevent casualties among students and staff. Madugu acknowledged the request and indicated that he would respond after consulting the relevant units, but had not done so at the time of publication.

An alumnus of the university with knowledge of security matters, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there is only so much the institution can do. When students and staff are attacked outside the university environment, he noted, the university’s hands are largely tied. The responsibility, he argued, falls primarily on the state and federal governments to secure the city.

For Liamhuan, the management’s decision to continue with the session reflected a pattern she had seen before. “I prefer to leave because the school environment does not feel safe, and everywhere feels threatened. So, home is where I feel safe, and if anything happens to you, it is you and your family that will bear the burden.” She added that the situation is even more difficult for students like herself who live off campus, largely due to a lack of sufficient student hostels.

“Even those on campus are not protected,” Liamhuan added. She once lived in one of the student hostels at the Naraguta Campus before moving off campus. “Students are still attacked by mobs when they are close to the school facilities.” Aondona’s testimony confirms this. Additionally, a viral video during the recent incident showed a man who was attacked right at the entrance of the university’s Naraguta Campus, which houses the administrative building and most of the faculties and student residences.

Although armed security posts existed near university campuses around 2017 and 2018, HumAngle observed that most of those posts no longer exist, and security is now mostly provided by unarmed officers of the university’s Security Division. More recently, through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, a police station was constructed at the Naraguta Hostels Gate, along the Jos-Bauchi Road, but students say it is insufficient.

When HumAngle visited the campus in June, no police officers were seen on the grounds, but an unarmed Security Division security guard was at the gate.

For Abdullahi, authorities do not need to wait for violence to break out before they start mapping how to protect the students and the rest of the university community. “If there are checkpoints at flashpoints like Bauchi Road, when a crisis starts, there will be an immediate response, ensuring that killings are avoided,” he said, adding that surveillance cameras can also be installed.  

During a condolence visit to Plateau State after the March 29 attack, Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu, disclosed that the Federal Government would deploy an artificial intelligence-enabled network of over 5,000 digital cameras to help law enforcement agencies combat insecurity in the state. At the time of this report, the project had yet to commence. 

The General Officer Commanding of the 3rd Division, Maxwell Khobe Cantonment, Major Gen. Eyitayo Oyinlola, visited the university during the recent incident “to assure the Vice Chancellor of the Division’s high priority of securing the University in the face of threats to the lives of its community”. But students who were on campus during the incident said little to no security was actually provided.

Younglan Taylong, the university’s Student Union Government president, did not respond to requests for comment. However, students who spoke to HumAngle, including Abdullahi, say the union was supportive during the crisis, providing information, aid, and evacuation support to students.

In the absence of protection, students have had to fend for themselves. Another student, a recent graduate who declined to give his name for fear, recalled that during tense periods, particularly in 2021, students would mobilise to act as a vigilante force around the hostels at night. 

“Sometimes, we will just carry kitchen knives, I do not even know what we were thinking,” he said.

What can be done?

For those who have spent years studying or working on the crisis, the frustrating reality is that the recommendations are not new. The Greater Jos Master Plan already includes provisions to relocate illegal motor parks, markets, and informal settlements away from critical public institutions, such as the university. Similar proposals have appeared repeatedly across various commissions of inquiry. “Many remain unimplemented,” Plangna’an said. “There is a need for greater political will to translate these recommendations into reality.”

Among the measures she and others who spoke to HumAngle advocated for are: the establishment of a Mobile Police barracks or dedicated security formation near the university; the construction of additional student hostels to reduce the number of students living off-campus; the strengthening and securing of perimeter fencing at the Permanent Site to control access and deter encroachment; and the provision of secure shuttle bus services for students living off-campus. “While no transport system is completely immune to attack, organised transportation would significantly reduce students’ exposure to risk,” she added. 

The post-conflict rehabilitation and recovery expert also calls for dualising major roads around the university and constructing an interchange at the Bauchi Road junction — a congested gateway into the state that regularly creates both mobility and security problems. Beyond infrastructure, she argues for sustained investment in peacebuilding programmes that directly involve students, university staff, and surrounding communities, including support for those living with the psychological aftermath of violence. “There are many students who continue to live with trauma from experiences they have had as victims or witnesses of violence,” she said. “These experiences can affect academic performance, mental health, and overall well-being.”

Plangna’an insists the approach must shift from reactive to preventive. “Every time violence occurs, similar recommendations are made, yet implementation remains weak,” she said. “Early warning without early response has limited value.” 

Until that changes, students and experts who spoke to HumAngle say that the university community will remain, as it has been for more than two decades, caught in the crossfire. 

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an international humanitarian organisation, has released its 2025 activity report for Nigeria, and the findings are sobering. The medical emergency organisation, also known as Doctors Without Borders, unveiled the report during an event in Abuja, North Central Nigeria, on Wednesday, May 13, documenting the disturbing rise in malnutrition cases in the country’s northern region.

With more than 3,500 workers delivering essential healthcare services across ten states, MSF reported treating over 440,000 children for malnutrition, more than 300,000 individuals for malaria, and assisting with over 33,500 deliveries in 2025.

This surge, according to the humanitarian organisation, underscores the fragility of Nigeria’s health system and the growing vulnerability of women and children in conflict-affected regions.

The 2025 report shows that MSF recorded more than 600,000 outpatient consultations, 48,000 inpatient admissions, and treated 341,239 patients for malaria, 38,753 children for measles, 6,123 patients for diphtheria, and 985 others for meningitis across its facilities in the region.

These findings are specific to the ten Nigerian states where MSF has been operating since 1996, including Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, and Cross River. The organisation says it has provided a wide range of essential medical services, including paediatric and maternal health care, treating children with malnutrition, responding to disease outbreaks, caring for survivors of sexual violence, offering mental health support, and performing life‑saving surgical interventions. 

The MSF country representative, Ahmed Aldikhari, revealed that in 2025, the organisation observed a pattern consistent with that of previous years, starting in 2022. Aldikhari stated that malnutrition is one of the year’s greatest challenges, linking it to the region’s fragile conditions, which are severely affected by insecurity that has worsened food security.

“We are seeing a vicious cycle where malnutrition is both a cause and a consequence of diseases such as measles, malaria, and diphtheria, among others, which continue to affect vulnerable communities, especially when healthcare is delayed or inaccessible,” he said, suggesting that Nigeria might soon experience the peak of the malnutrition crisis. 

“That is why we are consistently working side-by-side with the ministries of health, humanitarian affairs, budget and planning at the state and federal levels, and also, with our Nigerian colleagues to ensure that efficient services are provided, but they are not enough.”

HumAngle has previously reported on the broader impact of the crisis, stressing how displacements, insecurity, and climate change, among other natural and human-induced disasters, have compounded the problem. In July 2025, MSF, in collaboration with the Katsina State government, mobilised state and non-state actors to address the escalating malnutrition crisis in the northwestern region. 

During the 2024 MSF conference in Abuja, organised in collaboration with the North West Governors’ Forum and the Katsina State Government, stakeholders emphasised that malnutrition in the northwestern region is no longer a seasonal emergency but rather a structural crisis that requires urgent mobilisation. The governors acknowledged that insecurity and climate pressures were eroding food systems, but MSF urged greater investment in therapeutic feeding centres and preventive programmes.

Northern Nigeria continues to face a critical malnutrition crisis, with Katsina particularly affected, according to MSF’s 2025 activity report. Findings reveal that since 2021, MSF has been present in the state, with the organisation’s leadership revealing that they have witnessed a sharp rise in the number of malnourished children since responding to the growing crisis in recent years.

In 2025, MSF reported treating the highest number of malnourished children in Katsina. With the support of the state Ministry of Health, the organisation focused on preventing illness and malnutrition to reduce mortality and morbidity among children suffering from acute malnutrition.

“Katsina State has faced a chronic malnutrition crisis for over a decade, driven by insecurity, climate shocks, limited primary healthcare services, and high birth rates,” the report revealed. “Throughout 2025, MSF admitted 26,445 patients for inpatient care, provided treatment to 146,301 children through its outpatient centres, and conducted 15,387 outpatient consultations for malaria.”

In response to this, MSF established a new Ambulatory Therapeutic Feeding Centre (ATFC) in Mashi and a second inpatient therapeutic feeding centre at the Turai Yar’aduwa Hospital to handle the increased patient load during peak seasons.

Beyond nutrition in Kebbi, the report states that MSF responded to multiple infectious disease surges and outbreaks by tackling the increase in meningitis cases from February to May, while supporting the Ministry of Health facilities in Jega, Gwandu, and Aliero with logistics, medical supplies, staff training, and facility rehabilitation.

Following the escalating insecurity in neighbouring Zamfara and Niger that led to mass displacement to the Danko-Wasugu areas of Kebbi State as of June, the humanitarian organisation provided basic healthcare and distributed non-food relief kits to vulnerable households.

In Zamfara alone, MSF admitted 47,164 children to inpatient therapeutic feeding centres and provided 14,167 outpatient consultations in 2024, with numbers continuing to rise in 2025. According to Aldikhari, this increase in admissions is due to multiple overlapping crises, including conflict and insecurity in the northwestern and northeastern regions, which have displaced thousands of families, cutting them off from farmlands. 

While the 2025 activity report warns that malnutrition is no longer a seasonal emergency but a permanent feature of Nigeria’s humanitarian landscape, it also highlights the fact that the sheer scale of admissions suggests the crisis is outpacing the humanitarian response. 

Khadeejat Mohammed was only two years old when Mokwa’s gully erosion claimed her life in the Eti-Sheshi community of Niger State, North Central Nigeria. Bright, playful, and already piecing sentences together, she had just been registered for creche. “She was very smart,” Isa Sheshi, her grandfather, told HumAngle. “Even at two, she played around and was able to put sentences together. I loved her so much.”

On the day she passed away, Khadeejat had asked her grandfather for money to buy tofu, locally called awara. The tofu seller was just across the same bridge that the family had carved from felled trees. The erosion had long cut through their community, forcing residents to improvise crossings. 

“When the erosion began, we used wood to build a makeshift bridge,” Sheshi said. “But with time it got bigger, so we went to the bush to cut down 15 longer trees to create another bridge.” 

That makeshift bridge became Khadeejat’s final path. On her way back, holding the tofu in a transparent plastic bag with her elder brother, who was three years older, she slipped into the gully. 

“Her head went directly into a hollow hole filled with water in the gully,” Sheshi recounted, holding onto her picture. “She gulped that water before we could rush to the scene. When we brought her out and rushed her to the hospital, we were told she had a fractured skull.” 

She was rushed to the Mokwa General Hospital and later referred to the Federal Medical Centre, Bida. Unfortunately, Khadeejat died before the family could leave the motor park to travel to Bida.

“It’s been four years since the incident, but whenever I pass through that hole caused by gully erosion, my granddaughter’s thoughts always come to mind,” the man said.

Khadeejat’s death in 2022 was not just a family tragedy; it was a warning of what unchecked erosion has continued to do in Mokwa. 

Yet, years later, the gully remains, widening with each rainy season. Although figures of lives lost in these gullies are not publicly available, residents confirmed to HumAngle that a significant number of people have lost their loved ones in them, with some sustaining life-threatening injuries.

Despite the clear threats posed by the widening and deepening gullies, HumAngle’s investigation reveals that state and local authorities have failed to take effective action. The problem worsens with each rainy season, raising concerns among local communities. In 2024, the Niger State government secured World Bank ecological funds, specifically earmarked for erosion control projects. However, these resources have not translated into tangible solutions. 

The Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation, led by Mohammed Idris from the Mokwa Senatorial District, announced in December 2024 that the Niger State government had secured a $10 million intervention from the World Bank. This funding is aimed at addressing gully erosion in Mokwa, an area increasingly susceptible to environmental disasters.

During his visit to the affected communities in Mokwa, Umar Bago, the state governor, confirmed that the gully erosion had posed serious threats to the communities and that “competent contractors with track records have been identified to handle the project, which will commence soon.”

The state secured World Bank funding after years of neglect to address the root causes of erosion, particularly in communities such as Eti-Sheshi, Kpege, and Anguwan Hausa.

In May 2025, just five months after receiving funding from the World Bank, Mokwa was hit by a devastating flood that resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives. This tragedy raised serious questions about why the government had not started the project, especially since they had already identified “competent contractors” for the job.

Once competent contractors have been identified, the process of publishing the contract bid is governed by law. At the state level, this is regulated by procurement laws specific to each state, which are based on the federal Public Procurement Act of 2007. Section 18 (1b and d) of the Niger State Public Procurement Law of 2020 states that, subject to exemptions allowed by this law, all public procurement shall be conducted by open competitive bidding in a manner that is transparent, timely, and equitable, to ensure accountability and conformity with the law. Based on the above, a national invitation to bid shall be advertised on “the notice board of the procuring entity, any official website of the procuring entity, at least two national newspapers, and in the procurement journal,” according to section 27(2b) of the same law. 

HumAngle did not find any instance of the state government publishing any contract bid for the $10 million World Bank ecological funds project in Mokwa regarding the gully erosion project. However, a contract bid was published in May 2025 by the state’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change under the Agro Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) project, with the contract title: Construction of Storm Water Drainage Structures for Mokwa and Babban Rami Gully Erosion sites in Niger State.

They invited bidders for two contracts: construction of water-stormwater drainage structures for both Mokwa and Babban Rami, with bid security of ₦150 million and ₦200 million, respectively, for a 28-month construction period.

Further investigations by HumAngle revealed that the ACReSAL project (Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes) is a separate initiative from the World Bank Ecological Funds, which are commonly referred to as the Ecological and Natural Disasters Management Fund in Nigeria. Although both are World Bank projects, they serve different purposes.

While ACReSAL is a targeted World Bank loan facility for northern ecological resilience, the other is a national funding mechanism aimed at addressing nationwide disasters.

HumAngle confirmed, through field visits in February, that both the World Bank and the ACReSAL projects have not been executed. The bridge and culvert along the Mokwa-Jebba axis, damaged by last year’s deadly flood, are currently undergoing reconstruction.

When HumAngle visited the Eti‑Sheshi and Anguwan Hausawa areas in February, two of the three most devastating gully-erosion sites in Mokwa had deepened and widened, some plunging about 15 feet. Houses and even a mosque sat precariously on the edge, half‑collapsed into the earth.

Abbas Idris, the president of the Risk Managers Society of Nigeria (RIMSON), revealed that communities affected by gullies face the loss of arable land, damage to infrastructure, degradation of water quality, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, and displacement. More dangerously, erosion increases the risk of flooding, threatening lives and livelihoods.

“At the end of the day, this could give rise to conflict as a result of scarcity of land and resources, as people will be fighting over the land not affected by gully erosion,” he warned.

In March, after reviewing World Bank records for details on the Mokwa project, HumAngle submitted a request through the Bank’s information platform seeking clarification on the project and its operations.  

The World Bank responded by asking us to provide “a direct link to, or full citation of, the specific document or public reporting you referenced in your request.”  We explained that the inability to locate the specific document on its website—even after conducting a Boolean search—necessitated our request. We nonetheless provided links to public reports that referenced the funding.  

On May 4, a month after its initial response, the World Bank sent what seemed to be a generic status update, stating that the request was still being processed.

“In most cases, we can respond within twenty (20) working days from receipt of a request for information. However, we may need additional time in special circumstances, for example, if the request is complex or voluminous or if it requires review…,” they wrote.

Erosion tears school walls apart

Gully erosion in Mokwa is severely impacting the community by destroying homes and livelihoods and depriving children of the opportunity to attend school. Aisha Muhammad-Kolo, the founder of Gbastif Global Academy, the only affordable private school in the area, witnessed firsthand how erosion stripped the school bare.

“There is nobody in this house, and school is closed due to the impact of the gully erosion that has been affecting our community,” she told HumAngle. Each rainy season brought chaos. When the gullies filled with water, they burst into her compound, flooding classrooms and frightening parents. 

“People were afraid that their children were at risk, so they started removing their children from the school, which affected us greatly but also deprived the students of schooling,” she said. “This is the only private school in our community, and most parents prefer to enrol their children here because it is not only affordable but we ensure quality education as compared to our government schools.”

The collapse of Gbastif Global Academy is emblematic of how erosion has altered schooling in many Mokwa communities. Teachers struggled to keep children safe during storms, sometimes moving them into private rooms until the rains subsided. 

“Whenever it rained, and we were in session, I would have to take all the children inside my room to ensure they were safe. By the time the rain receded, it had washed off a significant part of our structures,” Aisha recounted.  

Although the school was later relocated to a safer site, the arrangement is temporary, and parents are concerned about the distance. Aisha told HumAngle that the landowner could reclaim the property at any time, leaving the school stranded. 

“I believe the impact of the gully erosion is enormous, especially on education. Also, we have been robbed of our source of livelihood and have not been able to recover,” she said. 

Her fears extend beyond the school to her own family. “I also have children, and the rainy season will soon be here. You can’t be everywhere at every time to monitor your kids. They are very young and do not understand the dangers in areas affected by gully erosion. I am afraid to lose any of my children and my house because of gully erosion,” she added.

While there are no publicly available data specific to Mokwa or Niger State, a 2024 UNICEF report reveals the scale of climate‑induced disruptions to education across Nigeria. The report found that 2.2 million Nigerian students experienced interruptions to their schooling due to disasters such as flooding and erosion, underscoring how environmental crises directly undermine learning. 

These disruptions compound existing vulnerabilities, leaving communities like Mokwa even more exposed when erosion destroys classrooms and forces children out of school.  This data situates Mokwa’s erosion crisis within a broader pattern of climate‑driven educational instability, showing that the loss of Gbastif Global Academy is not an isolated tragedy but part of a systemic emergency threatening children’s futures.  

A hospital in ruin

Mokwa General Hospital, intended to serve as an important resource for the community, is collapsing due to gully erosion and inadequate maintenance. The hospital’s buildings show clear signs of decay, including peeling paint, broken windows, and walls damaged by erosion. Some parts of the structures have already collapsed, creating unsafe areas within the compound.

Drainage channels around the hospital have fallen into deep gullies and are now clogged with waste and debris. Instead of carrying water safely away, they have become dumping grounds, worsening waterlogging and exposing patients and staff to health risks.  

The erosion has transformed the hospital environment into a hazardous zone. HumAngle observed that foundations are exposed, certain sections of the compound are unsafe to cross, and the surrounding land has eroded away. What should be a place of healing now mirrors the environmental collapse outside its walls, threatening public health and undermining confidence in essential services.

The situation at Mokwa General Hospital shows how unchecked erosion and poor ecological management are crippling critical infrastructure. 

When infrastructure such as roads, schools, and hospitals is destroyed, the consequences become catastrophic, said Abbas Idris, a risk and disaster expert, who also noted that the collapse of a hospital due to erosion could leave communities without access to healthcare, leading to preventable deaths. He stressed the importance of proactive disaster management through risk assessment and hazard categorisation.

“If there are no risk assessments, the coping capacity of the community will be very low when disaster hits them,” he warned. “Without urgent intervention, the hospital risks becoming unusable, leaving thousands of residents without access to healthcare.”  

Mokwa’s deadly deluge

In May 2025, Mokwa experienced a catastrophic flood that devastated the area, displacing over 3,000 people and resulting in more than 160 fatalities. This tragic event became the deadliest flood incident in the country that year. Entire families were wiped out as homes, schools, and farmlands vanished under torrents of muddy water. Hajara Malam Abba is one of those affected by this disastrous flooding.

For Hajara’s family, the devastation was deeply personal. “The things we lost from the flood incident in 2025 can never be recovered because we lost both lives and property,” she said. 

In their family, her elder sister bore the heaviest burden, losing 17 members of her household – 16 grandchildren and her child – in a single night of flooding. Alongside the lives lost, the family’s livelihood was swept away: six refrigerators, five grinding machines, rams, clothes, and appliances all destroyed.  

The aftermath forced them into precarious living conditions. Hajara’s sister rented another place to manage, while other family members who could not afford rent built makeshift tents on the same land where their homes once stood. 

“It’s been almost a year now, but they still sleep there in vulnerable conditions, hoping that the government will eventually intervene,” Hajara said.  “We can’t sleep in peace again because of the fear of the unknown, since the rainy season is almost here again.”

Alhaji Umar Sani, one of the flood victims, vividly remembers the morning the floodwaters came. 

“It was around 6 a.m., after we had just finished praying the Subhi [dawn] prayer, then we heard people shouting,” he recounted. “My son told us he saw people drowning in the massive flood waters sweeping through homes.”

“Before we could act, the water had reached my house. My wife, my children, and I couldn’t take anything. I was only wearing a jalabiya and trousers, while my wife wore a hijab and trousers – everything else was washed away. The water covered my house. I am grateful it didn’t claim any of our lives,” he said.

In the wake of the disaster, President Bola Tinubu approved the release of ₦16.7 billion for the immediate reconstruction of the Mokwa Bridge, which was destroyed by flooding. The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, stated this after a meeting with the Minister of Works, Senator Dave Umahi. He said the project would involve constructing a bridge with 10 spans.

As families cling to faith and resilience, scepticism lingers over government efforts as the drainage system under construction is seen as inadequate. “When the floodwater came, it was enormous. How then can this drainage contain the next flood? It ought to be bigger than this,” Hajara said.

Alhaji Umar, another victim of the gully erosion, echoed the same concern, noting that the project underway is “a culvert, not a bridge” and does not match the scale of the destruction. With over 250 people killed in Mokwa alone, residents fear the rainy season could bring another catastrophe. Idris, the risk and disaster expert, criticised the government’s reconstruction of the bridge in Mokwa, which was downgraded to a box culvert without a proper scientific assessment.

“Even in the reconstruction of the said bridge, the government failed to use experts to analyse the risk factors. The facility engineers were supposed to consider the disaster and suggest a suitable bridge model that can manage the floodwater. Instead, it was just constructed haphazardly,” he lamented.

Communities under siege

Each rainy season, the community around Mokwa General Hospital experiences severe erosion, causing families to lose their homes, crops, and peace of mind. Residents report that last year’s floods were particularly destructive, as water surged into the gullies and dangerously approached their homes. Several houses have suffered partial damage due to the erosion.

“We are not happy that this gully erosion has not been fixed,” Isa complained. “When there is heavy rainfall, the water finds its way to fill up these gullies, leaving us and our homes at risk. If the rainy season comes now, we don’t even know what will happen.”  

Ruqayyah Ismail, another resident, described how the rainy season signals fear for her and other families. “When the rain falls, the front of our house turns into a river. Everywhere is filled with water as we have to stay indoors for days with our children without crossing over to the other side of our house,” she said. 

The erosion has already destroyed her gate, and each year the water pushes further inside. Recounting a near-miss ordeal, she added: “An Okada rider had once fallen into the hole. On his way home, he slipped and fell into a ditch. He almost lost his life, but his motorcycle was found at the other end of the gully.”

Muhammed Jibril, whose family moved into their new house in 2006, told HumAngle that the erosion gradually worsened as the population grew. “From about five years ago, it became massive. Last year’s rainy season was the worst of all. We lost everything due to erosion. For more than six months, our neighbours were the ones feeding us,” he said. 

Stored food supplies, including 13 bags of maize, were destroyed alongside clothing, electronic appliances, and money. 

“Till today, we have not recovered from the disaster. I had to sell my motorcycle to build a buffer zone behind my fence to minimise the destruction,” he added.  

Over the years, the persistent erosion has reshaped the community’s daily life. For most communities, the rainy season serves as a source of growth and prosperity, but for this community in Mokwa, it signals fear and disaster.

He described climbing to the overhead tank to monitor water levels, warning his family to evacuate if the flooding became too severe. The erosion even brought down his main gate, forcing him to relocate it onto a neighbour’s property. 

“Fortunately, my neighbours understand that’s why they’ve been patient with us. Until they [government] construct a proper channel for the water to pass through, we have no choice but to remain like this,” he said.  

Jibril told HumAngle that beyond psychological trauma, the financial toll has been staggering. 

“Last year alone, if I recall the losses, it could make me cry. All of my harvests were destroyed, including sesame seeds, which were expensive in the market. In total, we lost about ₦4 million. But we were lucky not to lose any lives,” Jibril noted. 

After every flood incident, residents say people who identify as World Bank officials visited the community to take measurements and collect their details, only to remain silent afterwards. “We need assistance before the rains start. They should fix it so that we can have peace of mind. That is all we ask for now,” Jibril pleaded.  

According to the disaster expert Idris, the absence of adequate land management practices and unchecked deforestation are driving the crisis.

“Addressing gully erosion requires adequate land management practices, and if you look at Mokwa, that is absent,” Idris explained. “Deforestation has been thriving in the environment due to abject poverty, as people cut down trees for charcoal. Also, there has been little to no effort from the government to educate the community on erosion control measures.”

He called for accountability and a shift in leadership priorities.

“Unless we address corruption, unless our leaders change from their personal interests to that of the people, and unless they value the lives of those communities they are governing, we are not going to get it right.”

On April 7, HumAngle submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Niger State government through the Commissioner for Environment and Climate Change, Hon. Alhaji Abubakar Musa. The request sought clarification regarding the $10 million World Bank-assisted fund earmarked for the Mokwa gully erosion control and also some ACReSAL projects in the LGA.  

The government has not responded to that request. This lack of response comes despite the stipulated timeframe (7 days, with an extension of another 7 days) for a reply, as outlined in Nigeria’s FOI Act of 2011.