North-East

In one of the world’s most deprived and volatile regions, HumAngle’s reporting and experience reveal that journalists in Nigeria are not just observing suffering but are pulled into it as they try to report it. Consequently, they say, they find themselves paying out of pocket to feed the people whose stories they are trying to tell.

In theory, the profession is expected to observe some emotional distance from its sources and the stories they tell. However, that model is inoperable in conflict-affected regions of northern Nigeria and the Sahel.

Journalism here is embedded in environments shaped by violence, poverty, and dense social networks. Since these variables affect people at random, the reporter is not an outsider; sometimes, the conflict directly affects them as well. Ethical decisions are then made under pressure, repeatedly, and often without the comfort of certainty.

HumAngle operates in this space. Its work across Lake Chad, Central Africa, Nigeria’s Middle Belt, the North West, the South East, and other conflict zones forces a confrontation with a difficult question: What does ethical journalism look like when the people you report on are not just sources, but individuals whose survival may intersect directly with your presence?

The limits of imported ethics

Global journalism standards discourage payment for information, and while exceptions exist, they do so under strict editorial oversight, a clear public-interest justification, and transparency. Journalism teachers say that, though these frameworks are expected to provide clarity, they don’t in conflict-affected Nigeria, where the assumed context doesn’t apply. The ideal context has clear distinctions between sources and service providers and functioning identity systems. This is hardly obtainable in conflict-affected environments.

Dr Kabiru Danladi, a Mass Communication scholar with the Ahmadu Bello University in northwestern Nigeria, says, “Our curriculum borrows heavily from Euro-American ethical frameworks – objectivity, detachment, neutrality – principles rooted in relatively stable societies. The failure becomes evident when our graduates are deployed to cover issues that weren’t directly taught in class, or they are sent to cover conflicts in places like Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Borno, Yobe or Benue, where journalism is not just a profession but a survival exercise.”

Dr Obiora Chukwumba, a researcher and media expert in Abuja, identifies the same problem in the moral obligation created by field contact. “There is no ethical barrier to a journalist intervening on grounds of goodwill to assist a source who is in a vulnerable position,” he said.

The reality of field reporting

A fixer in Zamfara, where terror groups continue to kill, abduct, and loot, is not simply an access broker but may also translate, assess risk, and act as a negotiator in certain environments. A driver in Borno, North East Nigeria, may carry more situational intelligence than any formal briefing. An intermediary in the southeast may navigate relationships across vigilante groups and separatist networks.

These individuals are essential. Without them, our reporters’ access vanishes. But they are also embedded in the same systems the journalist is trying to understand, which creates layered risks, including legal risks that emerge when payments made for legitimate services are later interpreted as material support. 

Barrister Joseph Danboyi, a senior lawyer in Jos, North Central Nigeria, says, “Payment to a fixer creates liability if the journalist knew his connection with criminals. Ordinary payment for information is insufficient. The journalist will be aiding and abetting when payment is purposefully linked to criminal conduct.”

He goes further to add, “The practical bottom line is that a journalist who unknowingly pays a criminal for information is generally not liable… liability requires knowledge… and intent to help or further it.”

This distinction between knowledge and intent anchors the legal reality that sits beneath field decisions. 

Dr Obiora also treats fixers and access arrangements as part of newsroom operations, not automatically as ethical breaches. “Parts of the routine (investigative) costs tied to the operations of a newsroom include such services as engaging fixers, obtaining access to a reasonably considered newsmaker, and appreciation handouts,” he said. “They are all legitimate operational costs.”

There is no procedural checklist that eliminates these risks. What exists instead is a need for structured awareness and disciplined judgment in newsrooms.

The Knifar women: A case that reshapes the debate

HumAngle’s engagement with the Knifar movement brings these tensions into focus. The Knifar women are part of a grassroots movement shaped by prolonged suffering. Their husbands, sons, and brothers were detained during military operations, often for years, without trial. In many cases, these men were the primary providers, and so their absence triggered cascading consequences for these women, including food insecurity, poverty, and social fragmentation. The women organised into a pressure group to demand accountability for the detention of their male relatives.

HumAngle’s reporting amplified their efforts, influencing outcomes that ultimately led to the release of over a thousand men that the women were advocating for. 

Our work required prolonged engagement with the women, whose daily reality was defined by deprivation. In some instances, our journalists provided stipends. In other cases, some of these women became part of the reporting process as fixers and contributors with fixed incomes in our newsroom. We have even given some of them ‘additional reporting’ credit for their work. Since they are both sources and resource persons for our newsroom, we are often clear about what we are paying them for – their work, not their information. We have spoken publicly about the dynamics of our relationship with these women, including in a Pulitzer Centre-supported documentary.

Kunle Adebajo, a renowned award-winning investigative journalist, reflects on his own experience in being moved to provide money to vulnerable sources: “I’ve often had to pay vulnerable sources. This is because the majority of them live from hand to mouth and rely on wages from daily labour to get their sustenance, and so such interviews could be very disruptive and uncomfortable for them. Oftentimes, they also have to transport themselves to meet at the interview location. The sums given were trifling, and there was never an understanding that the interview itself was transactional. 

Dr Obiora agrees that the understanding must always be clear. “If the source or interviewee presents the personal need to overshadow the reason for the meeting with the journalist, then that could be a red flag,” he said, “pointing to potential compromised narrative or ‘adjusted facts’ from the source or interviewee.”

When observation is not enough

Journalists are trained not to pay sources because it could risk distortion and affect credibility, but what happens when the people you are interviewing live in destitute conditions?

“I met residents, elderly men and women who could not feed themselves, who could not afford basic healthcare. I met a father who lost his wife to a particular ailment, and whose two kids are still suffering from the same ailment. Yet, he could not help.”

The award-winning journalist said he felt compelled to help. “I offered to buy meals for some of them through my fixer. Yes, I offered them some cash to buy what they needed. When I got back to my hotel room that evening, I actually cried. I felt the depth of these people’s suffering.”

He is not unaware of the ethical grey spots in giving money to sources. “Ethically, I did not really care at that point whether offering them some cash would be seen as an inducement. I told myself that I had to act as a human being at the moment and drop the toga of ‘a journalist’ at that point.” 

Dr Danladi understands this and says that “Students must be taught that they are a journalist, yes – but they are also human beings. Refusing to help in the name of ‘objectivity’ can itself be an ethical failure.” He says that liability only becomes possible “where the journalist knows or is willfully blind to criminal activity… or where the payment itself is tied to illegal conduct.”

Another journalist from southwestern Nigeria, who declined to be named, described facing similar situations in which his sources were suffering. 

“They had had to eat rotten food sourced from the nearby markets, and sometimes they went days without eating anything because their husbands, who provided for them, had been killed. I saw that most of their children were malnourished and looked so skinny. It was such a touching situation, and I couldn’t help but give them some money that I had with me so that they could buy food and cook.”

The practice of support

Payment for content implies a transaction because it links money to information, but support that exists independently of reporting is different. It protects the integrity of the story while still acknowledging the reality of the environment.

Hauwa Shaffii Nuhu, an award-winning journalist and newsroom manager, said that though in her early days as a journalist, she could not resist the urge to help vulnerable sources, she has now learned to favour long-term external support. “Now, I connect them [the vulnerable subjects of her story] with NGOs… or make it possible for society to donate directly to them or through an independent third party like a fixer.”

In cases where reporters have to provide any form of support, journalism scholars like Obiora say documentation matters. Record decisions and rationale for such actions while in the field. According to Obiora, “one of the most important structures for documenting and reviewing ethical footprints in the newsroom is within the internal editorial space.” He proposed an Editorial Board of Line Editors, chaired by the title editor, and another layer through an Editorial Advisory Board, where “it would be necessary to bring the platform’s legal advisor as a member.”

“These steps will not protect you from state action if authorities choose to act,” a senior security official said. What they only do is to protect the integrity of your journalism, he implied. They help you draw a line between necessary support and inducement, between humanitarian assistance and conduct that could be interpreted as enabling someone directly or indirectly tied to the crime you are investigating.

The unresolved tension

Speaking more to the legal position of a source, unknown to the journalist, being tied to criminal activity, Danboyi reiterates that a journalist who unknowingly pays a criminal is generally not liable, as exposure begins when there is knowledge, or when you consciously ignore signals that should raise concern.

Consider the fixer a journalist has worked with closely. Not a transactional contact, but someone embedded in the reporting process, with days, sometimes weeks, spent together. The journalist has covered his meals, made stops at his home during fieldwork, supported him beyond the assignment, helped with school fees, and contributed when his child was ill. Then, months or years later, the fixer is named in a crime. The record of the journalist’s relation with him exists: Transfers, messages, shared locations. A traceable history of proximity that can be turned into proof of complicity.

A different kind of responsibility

The Knifar women’s story forces a reconsideration of responsibility and demands a different approach to how journalism ethics is taught and judged. “We graduate students who know the code, but cannot survive in the field,” says Dr Danladi.

Dr Obiora returns the question to dignity. “A journalist whose interaction with a source contributes to lifting the source’s dignity has discharged his or her obligation professionally.”

In environments where silence sustains suffering, the act of telling a story, and the way that story is told, carries consequences beyond journalism.

In Nigeria’s North East, the Boko Haram insurgent group once carved out territory and declared a caliphate. In the North West, terrorist groups operate as fluid, profit-driven networks, embedding themselves in local economies. In the Middle Belt, communal violence reflects deeper contests over land, identity, and survival. In the South East, separatist agitation by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has fused with armed enforcement and criminal opportunism. Along the southern waterways, oil theft and piracy threaten economic lifelines.

Across all these theatres, one institution has remained consistently engaged: the Nigerian military, often as the default responder in the absence of effective civilian governance. Public perception often frames this engagement as a failure as attacks continue and civilians remain vulnerable. A closer, evidence-based reading tells a more complex story, however, though available data remains incomplete and, at times, contested. 

The Nigerian military appears to have adapted under pressure and recalibrated aspects of its doctrine, and, in key moments, helped reverse trajectories that once pointed toward state collapse. It has delivered tangible gains, some strategic, others tactical, many costly. Still, those gains sit on unstable ground because governance gaps, political interference, corruption, and weak institutional follow-through have repeatedly blunted them. Communities liberated from one threat find themselves exposed to another. 

The North East war: reversing a collapse

By early 2015, Nigeria was on the brink of losing control in the North East. Boko Haram had evolved from an insurgent group into a territorial force controlling large swathes of Borno State and parts of Yobe and Adamawa. It administered territory, collected taxes, and imposed its authority over local populations. Gwoza was declared the headquarters of a so-called caliphate. Entire communities were displaced, and military formations overrun.

The turning point came with a shift in military posture, in which command structures were reconfigured, and the operational headquarters was relocated to Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, bringing leadership closer to the frontline. Coordination with regional forces under the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) also intensified as air and ground operations were synchronised.

The results were immediate and significant, though the durability of these gains has varied across locations. Key towns like Monguno, Bama, Dikwa, and even Gwoza, the symbolic heart of Boko Haram’s territorial claim, fell back under government control in rapid succession. Data from ACLED shows that between 2015 and 2025, the military recovered at least 259 territories. 

With this territorial success, supply routes were disrupted, and fighters were killed in large numbers. Civilians began to return to these areas, in some cases under fragile security conditions. 

It marked the collapse of Boko Haram’s experiment with territorial governance, and the battle for Sambisa Forest reinforced this shift.

For years, Sambisa had functioned as a strategic sanctuary where fighters trained, hostages were held, and leadership structures operated with relative security. It also carried psychological weight. As long as Sambisa remained intact, Boko Haram retained a sense of permanence.

The military’s assault on the forest required sustained effort involving navigating difficult terrain, dealing with improvised explosive devices, and confronting entrenched fighters. Airstrikes softened targets while ground troops advanced in phases, enabling special forces units to penetrate deeper into the forest.

The symbolic impact was significant, though not decisive in ending insurgent capacity. Boko Haram could no longer claim a fixed territorial base for as long as was once the case. Its command structure was disrupted, and its image of invincibility weakened.

And so Boko Haram fragmented into factions. The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) emerged as a more structured and strategic actor while the Shekau-led faction became more erratic, marked by extreme violence and unpredictability.

The military adjusted again.

Operations shifted from territory holding to mobility and disruption. Intelligence-led raids targeted leadership and logistics. Airpower became central to deep strikes in difficult terrain. Operation Lafiya Dole, the codename for the counter-insurgency operation, transitioned into Operation Hadin Kai, reflecting a recalibrated effort.

Today, the insurgency remains active, particularly in remote areas and along the Lake Chad basin. But the scale and nature of the threat have changed.

The North West: fighting a war without frontlines

The North West posed a different challenge. Armed groups here are diffuse. It lacks a central command and is driven by economic incentives rather than ideology, so groups form, splinter, and realign quickly. Local grievances and criminal enterprise also intersect here.

Estimates suggest tens of thousands of terrorists operate across this region, covering multiple states including Zamfara, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, and Kaduna. This fragmentation complicates the military response, as frontlines, headquarters, and leadership structures (the usual strategic targets) are not clear. The military has responded by leaning heavily on airpower and targeted ground operations. This has not gone without major problems, such as the repeated “accidental bombing” of civilian populations, which have drawn criticism from rights groups and affected communities. 

Still, airstrikes have been used to hit camps deep within forested areas that are difficult for ground troops to access. Intelligence plays a critical role in identifying targets. Data shows that the sustained air campaign has yielded at least 909 strikes and 10,237 fatalities in 10 years. ACLED data shows that about 560 of these fatalities were civilians.

Ground forces usually conduct follow-up operations to recover weapons and temporarily secure areas.

Large numbers of kidnapped victims have been rescued during coordinated operations. Livestock, often a key economic asset for communities, has been retrieved. Such attacks have also killed some high-profile terrorist leaders, but they have also led to the loss of officers. 

In some areas, these operations appear to have had a temporary stabilising effect, though violence frequently resurges. Communities report periods of reduced attacks, farming activities have resumed in limited corridors, and confidence in security presence has improved, though often temporarily. 

Still, armed violence regenerates as the effects of weak governance in the North East are the same in the North West: new leaders emerge, and fighters disperse and regroup. Economic incentives remain strong. 

The Middle Belt: stabilising a political conflict

Violence in the Middle Belt is often described as a farmer-herder conflict, but the region’s violence reflects a complex mix of land disputes, ethnic tensions, and environmental stress. Armed militias operate alongside opportunistic criminal actors, while cycles of reprisal deepen mistrust between communities. 

There are too many dynamics in play here to reduce the crisis to a “military versus any specific group” conflict. Most of the time, softer kinetic actions, such as arrest and deterrence, are used. 

In certain corridors, the presence of military forces has reduced the frequency of mass casualty events. But the limits are clear. Several parts of the region still depend on self-help vigilante groups, who are often outgunned during terror attacks. 

There is also a growing distrust between communities and security operatives, who are sometimes accused of slow response and complicity. In April, residents of Gashish, a rural community in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State, staged a protest over continued attacks in the community despite military presence. A checkpoint manned by troops of Operation Enduring Peace was destroyed during the demonstration. 

The military has denied such accusations, but independent verification remains limited. 

However, in other areas, the visibility of armed forces has also had a deterrent effect on opportunistic attacks. 

At its core, the conflict in the region is driven by political and environmental factors. It revolves around identity and access to land and water. While military deployments can suppress violence temporarily, they cannot resolve competing claims or rebuild trust between communities. Without political solutions, stability remains provisional.

The South East: managing a hybrid threat

The South East presents a hybrid security challenge. Separatist agitation, particularly linked to IPOB, has evolved into a mix of political mobilisation and armed enforcement. The group has enforced sit-at-home orders through violence and intimidation while the Eastern Security Network (ESN) operates in forested areas.

The military’s response has been presented as targeted and intelligence-driven. Operations focus on dismantling camps, intercepting arms, and arresting key figures. Urban centres are secured to prevent escalation into wider insurgency.

Yet the approach carries risks.

Heavy-handed operations have generated grievances. Allegations of abuses have eroded trust in some communities. This complicates intelligence gathering, which is critical in a conflict where fighters blend into civilian populations. 

The Niger Delta and maritime domain: securing economic lifelines

In the South South and along Nigeria’s maritime corridors, the military, particularly the navy, has delivered some of its most visible successes. A decade ago, the Gulf of Guinea was a global hotspot for piracy. Sustained operations, including improved surveillance, increased naval patrols, and collaboration with international partners, have changed that landscape. These have led to the destruction of illegal refining sites and to arrests that disrupt networks involved in oil theft.

These gains have helped to protect revenue streams, stabilise energy production, and reinforce Nigeria’s position in regional maritime security, although illegal activities have not been fully eradicated. 

“The Nigerian military is overstretched”

According to World Bank data collected from development indicators in 2020, Nigeria has roughly 223,000 active personnel across the army, navy, and air force. The army, which carries out most internal operations, has about 140,000 to 150,000 troops.

In the battlespace, there are simultaneous operations in at least six theatres. That constitutes multi-domain internal security warfare. Nigeria has about 0.1 per cent of its population under arms. When compared to countries facing sustained internal conflict, which often exceed 0.3 to 0.5 per cent, the country is operating below the threshold needed to dominate territory.

On the geography front, Nigeria is over 923,000 square kilometres, with vast forests, porous borders, and ungoverned rural space. It is impossible to hold ground everywhere with the limited available personnel. So troops are cycled, which then leads to fatigue because units stay deployed for long periods with limited rest.

Retired Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, the country’s former Chief of Army Staff, recently said, “The military is overstretched, defence budgets are diverted to routine policing duties, and the Armed Forces’ preparedness for conventional threats is reduced.”

However, there are also welfare issues and equipment gaps, especially at the tactical level in remote theatres. The result is predictable: Tactical wins, like killing terror commanders or rescuing hostages are visible, but strategic stagnation remains because you cannot sustain presence everywhere.

The structural constraint: why gains do not hold

Despite these efforts, Nigeria’s security situation remains volatile. 

In many areas, once the military has cleared armed actors, there is limited follow-through by civil authorities, as local administration is weak. So, communities do not experience the full return of the state, allowing armed groups to exploit this gap to re-enter or reorganise.

Economic conditions sustain conflict. Studies have shown that high levels of poverty and unemployment, particularly among young people, create a pool of potential recruits when armed groups offer income, however precarious.

Trust deficits also weaken intelligence because communities that distrust state actors are less likely to share information. This limits the effectiveness of intelligence-led operations and increases reliance on force.

Finally, strategy remains fragmented. Nigeria faces different types of violence that require tailored responses. Yet policy often treats them through a similar lens. Counterterrorism approaches are applied to terrorist attacks, while military solutions are prioritised in conflicts that require political negotiation.

The Nigerian military has played a significant role in preventing state collapse in multiple regions.

At the height of Boko Haram’s expansion, the possibility of sustained territorial loss was real. That threat has been largely reversed. In the North West, despite persistent violence, terrorist groups have not been allowed to consolidate into a territorial authority. In the South East, tensions have been contained below the threshold of full insurgency. In the maritime domain, economic lifelines have been secured.

However, good governance remains the only real pathway out of a cycle of violence. 

Yet the reality remains harsh. Lives are still lost daily. Families continue to sell everything they own to pay ransoms. The military has contributed to pushing back elements of the threat with measurable, though uneven, success, but it has not eliminated them.

Additional data provided by Mansir Muhammed. 

September 2024 came with water. It moved through Maiduguri, in Nigeria’s North East, in fast, stubborn currents, destroying homes and property, and displacing thousands.

In many affected areas, like London Ciki, where Khadija Usman lives, it washed away firewood and charcoal, a critical source of cooking fuel for many homes. She was home alone one afternoon when that absence settled into something practical. Khadija wanted to cook, but there was nothing to burn. 

“The water destroyed almost everything,” she said. “It became difficult to find firewood and charcoal.” Moving out to search for fuel was not easy, as she uses a wheelchair. And like for most people here, the expectation did not shift with the flood. Meals still had to be prepared. 

So, Khadija turned her attention to what was left behind: charcoal residue, bits of waste, and a technique she had once seen. “I decided to come up with a solution,” she stated. She gathered what she could, shaping it into compact pieces that might hold a flame. When it finally caught, it was small, steady, and enough. 

Not yet a long-term solution, but a way through that day.

In the weeks that followed, that small flame evolved into something more substantial. The turning point came when she visited a friend, Zara Tijjani, who also has a disability and was cooking over firewood. The smoke stung Zara’s eyes as she struggled to keep the fire alive. Inspired, Khadija went home, made briquettes, and then returned to show her friend how to make them as well.

From there, the knowledge began to spread among women, particularly those for whom gathering firewood posed significant risks or challenges. What Khadija started in the aftermath of the flood has since contributed to a broader shift in Borno, where biochar is gradually being adopted. However, her focus remains shaped by those around her: women navigating limited mobility, daily cooking demands, the risks of gathering firewood in terror-controlled territories, and a changing climate.

When cooking depends on the forest

Across Maiduguri and much of northeastern Nigeria, cooking still depends heavily on firewood and charcoal. For many households, especially in low-income and displaced communities, these remain the most accessible and affordable sources of energy.

National data reflects this dependence. The 2024 Nigeria Residential Energy Demand-Side Survey by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows that about 67 per cent of households rely on firewood, 22 per cent on charcoal, and only 19.4 per cent on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). In the North East, the pattern is even more pronounced. 

The report shows that wood use rises to 93.4 per cent in the region, the highest in the country, while LPG remains limited, particularly outside urban centres. Electricity and kerosene play only marginal roles in cooking.

In Borno State, reliance is near-total. A 2019 joint assessment by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the World Food Programme (WFP) found that 98.7 per cent of households rely on firewood and charcoal, with only a small fraction using cleaner fuels. Even access to these traditional sources is constrained. Many households purchase firewood rather than gather it, reflecting both scarcity and restrictions on movement in conflict-affected areas. This aligns with humanitarian reporting that “firewood is the primary source of cooking energy” in Borno.

This dependence carries layered costs. Trees are cut steadily to meet demand, placing pressure on already fragile ecosystems. For women in these communities, who are primarily responsible for cooking, the burden extends beyond the home. Finding fuel often means travelling to the outskirts of town or into nearby bush areas, where risks of harassment and violence persist.

The September 2024 flooding deepened these pressures. Supply chains were disrupted, stored firewood was washed away, and charcoal became scarce and more expensive. In homes already navigating scarcity, cooking became uncertain.

Beyond immediate access, the environmental toll is significant. The NBS 2024 General Household Survey shows that Nigeria consumes an estimated 30 billion kilogrammes of fuelwood annually, driving deforestation. In regions like Borno, where vegetation is already sparse, this accelerates land degradation and desertification, reinforcing a cycle of environmental stress and energy poverty.

Health and safety risks are also closely tied to this dependence. Smoke from firewood and charcoal contributes to indoor air pollution, which is linked to respiratory illnesses, particularly among women and children. In the North East, these risks extend further. Women who gather firewood often face threats of harassment, violence, and abduction, making the simple act of cooking fuel collection a dangerous task.

Within this system, energy, environment, and security are tightly bound. It is this reality that shapes both the problem Khadija is responding to and the limits of the solutions emerging around it.

Improvising in the aftermath of the flood

Khadija’s first attempts were small, almost tentative, as though she was testing not just the materials in her hands but the possibility that something useful could still be made from what the flood had left behind.

Without equipment or formal training, she worked with what was available: charcoal residue, scraps of household waste, fragments others might have discarded without a second thought. She burned them, pressed them, broke them apart again when they failed — testing what held, what crumbled, and what caught fire and stayed lit. The process was slow.

There was no machine then. No structured method. Only a need that could not be postponed.

The knowledge has since gone from one woman to another: Women with limited mobility. Women navigating spaces where stepping out to collect fuel is not always safe.

Within the disability community, the effort did not go unnoticed. 

“We rallied behind her,” said Hassana Mohammed Bunu, women’s leader of the Association of Persons with Physical Disabilities in Borno State. 

“I have stopped using charcoal and firewood ever since I began using her briquettes,” Zara said. Although Zara has been taught how to make them, she prefers to buy them from Khadija. “She uses a machine to make them. And they are more compressed than handmade,” she added. “It is smokeless, and they burn longer.”

Climate shocks uniquely affect persons with disabilities in Nigeria and other parts of the world. These disasters deepen already existing barriers. Mobility becomes more difficult. Access to resources narrows. In conflict-affected settings like Borno and much of the North East, those constraints are often sharper, less visible, and rarely addressed directly.

In energy access, the gaps are even more pronounced. Clean cooking programmes, where they exist, are not always designed with accessibility in mind. Physical barriers, cost, and social exclusion often limit participation. Nigeria’s legal framework, including the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, exists, but its translation into everyday interventions, particularly in climate and energy responses, remains uneven.

Scaling a local idea

To sustain what she had started, Khadija began to think bigger.

She raised her first capital in small, deliberate ways, selling caps and setting aside the earnings. With that, she bought sawdust, Arabic gum, and starch, enough to stabilise her production and move from improvisation to something more consistent. What began at home remained modest but steady, supported by family, friends, and members of the disability community who saw the value in what she was building.

In 2025, her work drew the attention of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). After three months of training at the Abdul Samad Rabiu Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Maiduguri, she received a grant that marked a turning point. With it, she purchased a briquette-making machine.

With the machine, she could produce up to 100 bags of briquettes per day, each sold at ₦6,500.

To deepen her technical knowledge, she partnered with Faaby Global Services, a Maiduguri-based environmental organisation, where she now works closely with a production team. There, she contributes not only as a learner but as a practitioner. 

“She shares her ideas in production and on tackling some challenges,” said Heriju Samuel John, an assistant manager at the organisation. “She is also a native of this town, so she helps us in sourcing raw materials.”

Her machine is now one of three in the facility, a small but significant marker of how far the work has moved from its starting point.

Yet, the broader briquette ecosystem in the region remains uneven. Programmes led by organisations such as FAO have introduced briquettes and fuel-efficient stoves to thousands of households across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe, often linking energy access to protection concerns.

But outside these interventions, the market is still thin. Production is limited. Adoption is inconsistent. Many initiatives remain tied to donor funding rather than sustained commercial demand.

In that landscape, Khadija’s work sits somewhere in between, not fully independent of institutional support, but not entirely defined by it either.

Can briquettes change the equation?

The briquettes Khadija produces are made largely from what others leave behind. Charcoal residue. Sawdust. Rice husks. Groundnut stalks. Agricultural waste is sourced from farmers and traders who would otherwise discard it. Coconut shells, when available, add density, though they are harder to find in places like Maiduguri and are more expensive.

The materials are burned in a low-oxygen environment, then converted into biochar, and finally ground into fine particles and bound together using eco-friendly binders such as gum arabic or starch. What emerges is a compact fuel that holds its shape and, according to Khadija, burns longer and with less smoke.

“We are recycling,” she said, describing a system that pulls from multiple points in the local economy.

Farmers sell their waste. They also source leftover charcoal and firewood particles from traders. Additionally, waste management actors like the Borno State Environmental Protection Agency (BOSEPA) deliver degradable materials. 

To manage fluctuations, especially during the rainy season when materials become scarce, Khadija stores raw inputs in bulk in a rented facility in the Abbaganaram area of Maiduguri. 

Her briquettes now move through different layers of the market; restaurants, bakeries, and roadside food vendors buy in bulk. Households purchase for daily use. Some consignments travel beyond Maiduguri, to nearby towns like Bama, and even across borders into Cameroon, with up to two trucks dispatched weekly.

For women, particularly those with disabilities, the impact is measured less in scale than in use. Khadija sells at discounted rates within the community and has trained more than 20 women to produce their own briquettes. “She taught some of our members,” Hassana said.

In some households, Khadija told HumAngle, the shift is already complete. Firewood has been replaced. “This gives me joy,” she said, adding that the transition could extend further. “If people fully understand the benefits, they would stop using charcoal and firewood.”

But the shift is not without constraints.

Raw materials fluctuate. Storage remains limited. Transport is still a challenge. And beyond logistics, there are social barriers that do not disappear with production. “People say I am doing what able-bodied people should be doing,” she said. “Being a woman makes it even worse.”

Still, she continues to plan, looking toward a larger production facility that could employ more women and stabilise supply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ideology and a premeditated war

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

Those events merely accelerated the rupture.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blood ties and the machinery of war

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The patriarch’s execution

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

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

Then came the extrajudicial killing.

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

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

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

Abu Musab was central to the next phase.

The rise and fall of Abu Musab

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

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

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

That split would define the next phase of the war.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That plan never reached its destination.

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

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

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

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

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

So he died in near silence.

A complex conflict

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is also why the story cuts beyond Nigeria. 

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

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

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

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

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

Both myths kill.

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

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

There is one final image that remains.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The violence that broke ties 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Geographically threatened’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resettlement 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ghost towns

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What’s left of the ghost towns?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The year was 1975. 

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

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

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

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

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

The pact that fed generations 

For years, the system worked with remarkable ease.

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

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

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

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

Others relied on the same system.

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

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

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

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

The cycle sustained him for over 60 years. 

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

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

From trust to tension 

The trust began to fracture in 2017. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

With each recurrence, trust erodes further. 

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

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

Strained lives

The consequences have been profound.

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

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

Theophilus succumbed and took over his cattle from the herder.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Searching for solutions

Efforts to restore peace continue, but progress remains slow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The reporting approach

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

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

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

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

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

Strategy for impact

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

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

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

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

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

A flicker of hope

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

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

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

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

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

Help is coming

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was when the panic deepened. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

From the market to the ward

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other survivors also carry similar stories.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A city remembering fear

For some residents, the events revived familiar anxieties. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Muhammad, he said, loves to read.

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

When asked what he hopes for, Umar paused.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How the attacks unfolded

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A pattern of attacks on rural security

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

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

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

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

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

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

Earlier attacks followed a similar pattern.

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

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

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

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

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

Why are the attacks happening?

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

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

The attacks also serve a logistical purpose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so they kept pushing him. 

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

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

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

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

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

What is happening in Gwarzo?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kidnapping the poor for ransom

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

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

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

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

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

The publicity became something else entirely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The price of coming home

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why paper recordkeeping fails

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Nigeria is doing

The Nigerian government has taken tentative steps toward digitisation. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile, other partners focus on connectivity. 

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

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

Lessons from elsewhere

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

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

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

What needs to change

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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