Terrorists

It was midnight on April 12 when Modu Baluye woke to the sound of gunfire.

He was asleep with his family inside a classroom at Government Girls’ Secondary School (GGSS), in Monguno, Borno’s north, in northeastern Nigeria, which now serves as a temporary displacement camp, when the first shots rang out. Then came another burst, and another, cutting through the night in rapid succession.

“These people are attacking again,” he remembered saying.

He whispered a prayer and stayed awake. Around him, other displaced families were stirring as well. In the darkness, people listened without speaking, measuring the distance of the violence by the sound of the guns. The attack went on for hours.

By Modu’s account, the gunshots lasted about four hours. He later learned it was a gun battle between terrorists and military officers at the nearby Sector 3 base. As the troops pursued the terrorists along the exit route between Gana Ali, another displacement shelter, and the GGSS, they drove over buried explosives, which detonated and killed the commanding officer and six other soldiers.

By morning, fear had settled over the communities.

The military, residents said, became suspicious of the settlements around the base. The attackers had entered on foot under the cover of darkness, and the communities were not far from the military formation.

“They suspected we were hiding some of them,” Modu said. In the days that followed, soldiers raided Gana Ali and the GGSS camp. Residents told HumAngle that five suspected informants in the communities were arrested, and weapons were recovered. Then came an order for the communities to leave.

“They told us: leave or we will kill you all and burn down your houses,” Modu recounted. Within two days, families began dismantling their makeshift shelters. They packed what they could carry and left. Some were moved to a government settlement on the outskirts of Monguno, along the Monguno-Gajiram road, which is about a 30-minute walk from town.

“It is two weeks today,” Modu said when he spoke to HumAngle on May 10. “The place was torched after we left. I am not sure who torched the buildings.”

For Modu, displacement is not new. He fled Ala, his village in the Marte Local Government Area (LGA) of the state, in 2016 as insurgent violence spread across northern Borno. At the time, he was unmarried and found refuge with his parents at the ‘Water Board’ displacement camp in Monguno, where they lived for about six months. He later moved to the GGSS settlement after securing his own shelter and spent nearly a decade there. In 2024, he got married. By the time soldiers ordered residents to leave the community in April, he had begun building a mud house on a piece of land he purchased the previous year. It was there, in the unfinished house, that he and his family began rebuilding their lives after years of displacement.

A war returning to the bases

The Monguno attack came during a renewed wave of terror assaults on military formations and rural settlements across Borno.

In recent months, terrorists from Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS), commonly known as Boko Haram, and the Islamic State West Africa (ISWAP) have repeatedly targeted troops, bases, weapons, and supply routes. The attacks have killed soldiers, including senior military officers, and Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) members. 

In Nov. 2025, terrorists ambushed a military convoy along the Damboa-Biu road. Two soldiers and two CJTF members were killed. Brigadier-General M. Uba, commander of the 25 Task Force Brigade, was abducted and later killed.

On Jan. 26, terrorists attacked a military base in Damasak, killing seven soldiers and capturing 13 others, including the commanding officer. Eleven later escaped. Five days later, on Jan. 31, another terror attack on an army base in Sabon Gari killed nine soldiers and two CJTF members; about 16 injured security personnel were evacuated for treatment.

On March 10, a military base in Kukawa came under attack; the commanding officer, Lt. Col. Umar Farouq, and several of his soldiers were killed. 

On April 9, three days before the Monguno attack, terrorists launched a joint assault on the headquarters of the 29 Task Force Brigade in Benisheikh, killing its brigade commander, Brigadier-General Oseni Braimah.

The attacks have already weakened the military formations in rural areas. In some places, troops have withdrawn or consolidated around larger garrison towns, leaving smaller settlements more exposed. But when soldiers are killed, residents say the anger does not end on the battlefield. It returns with the troops.

The trails of suspicion

In rural Borno, civilians are often trapped between two armed powers. Terrorists demand information about troop movements, military positions, and security operations. Soldiers, in turn, demand information about insurgent hideouts, movements, and informants. Refusing either side can be deadly.

Those suspected of helping the military may be abducted or killed by the terrorists. Those suspected of helping terrorists may be arrested, detained, displaced, or punished by security forces. As a result, civilians often face impossible choices, with serious consequences regardless of whom they cooperate with.

Despite these risks, communities have at times provided intelligence to the military. In March, for example, residents of Doro, a rural community in Kukawa LGA on the shores of Lake Chad, reportedly alerted troops after observing suspicious insurgent movements, helping security forces prepare for an attack.

The consequences of such actions can be severe. In March 2022, ISWAP executed four civilians in communities within the same local government area after accusing them of spying for government troops. Residents said the killings were intended to deter others from sharing information with security forces. For many civilians, the message was clear: speaking to the military could carry a death sentence. 

The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Olufemi Oluyede, recently argued that residents in Borno and Yobe knew some of those behind the attacks during an operational visit to Maiduguri in March, reflecting a long-held security assumption that residents in affected communities often know more than they admit. The CDS said communities must take ownership of the crisis, citing Kukawa, where he claimed two of the attackers were from within the village.

But for many civilians, knowing does not mean consenting. They say  in places where terrorists move freely, buy food, collect supplies, and threaten residents, silence is often a currency for survival.

Professor Abubakar Mu’azu, former director of the Centre for Peace, Development, and Diplomatic Studies at the University of Maiduguri, said this suspicion has existed since the early years of the insurgency.

“Right from the start, there was suspicion by the security agencies that the people who are living in areas where these terrorist activities were happening are also supporting the terrorists,” he said. “They never considered the fact that there is a majority of people who disagree with these terrorists’ activities.”

Mu’azu said the reactionary nature of security operations has prevented the military from building a reliable system of trust with local communities.

“They assume that the locals are giving information to the terrorists willingly,” he said. “But they keep saying they want the people to give them information about the terrorists.”

For him, this contradiction is at the heart of the crisis.

The military needs civilian intelligence to fight terrorism, but if civilians fear that any contact with terrorists, even under duress, will be treated as collaboration, they may stop speaking altogether.

Life under duress

In Monguno, residents say terrorists still move in and out of town despite the presence of security forces.

Koso Abubakar, a displaced farmer, said the terrorists often enter on motorcycles, buy food items, and leave.

“They come and leave at will,” he said. “Sometimes, they come to kidnap people. They don’t attack the military, and the military does not confront them. But on other days, they attack the military. That is when the military retaliates.”

According to Koso, most residents live with the knowledge that they can be accused by either side at any time.

“People are living in fear because everyone is a potential target,” he said.

In many rural communities, even work has become dangerous. A farmer going to his field, a fisher heading towards the water, or a trader moving goods through bush paths may first have to pay those who control the routes. The payments are called taxes, levies, or sometimes simply “settlement”, but residents understand what they are: money paid under fear. To refuse is to risk punishment, in lighter cases, or killing and abduction, in extreme cases, from terrorists. To pay is to risk being seen by soldiers as someone sustaining the insurgency. In this way, even the small acts people perform to feed their families can become evidence against them.

Professor Mu’azu said this fear terrorists use violence to discipline communities.

“They are very good at setting a very deadly example by killing or eliminating people, with or without evidence,” he said. “If they are attacked by security agencies and they did not hear anything from people living in these settlements, they would assume the people gave information about their positions.”

This was what many residents believe happened in Ngoshe in March, when terrorists attacked the community, killed many residents, and abducted others, including women and children. The attack was suspected to be retaliation for a previous military operation in the Mandara Mountains that killed some terrorist commanders. The terrorists reportedly believed residents had given up their location.

For civilians, the lesson is brutal: giving information can kill you. Not giving information can also kill you.

When protection becomes punishment

The military has long accused some civilians of aiding terrorists.  In the early years of the war, many young men were arbitrarily detained. Some disappeared. Some were killed. In April 2014, soldiers arrested 42 adult men from Gallari, a village in the Konduga LGA of Borno, on suspicion of links to the insurgency. They were taken to the Giwa Barracks detention facility in Maiduguri. Twelve years later, only three have regained their freedom after years in detention and alleged torture. Through months of on-the-ground investigation and analysis of satellite imagery, HumAngle has also previously reported on disappearances and mass graves linked to military operations, while the wives of detained and disappeared men later formed the Knifar Women movement to demand justice.

For communities already carrying the memory of those years, new raids and forced evacuations reopen old wounds.

Mu’azu said security forces should approach communities with more care, especially when allegations of collaboration arise.

“One would assume that when security forces are dealing with situations like this, they would not come with the mindset that the people are sympathetic to the terrorists, or that all the people are giving information to the terrorists,” he said.

He added that soldiers have a difficult job and deserve sympathy for the burden they carry. But he argued that this does not justify indiscriminate punishment.

“They are the ones who are supposed to protect the civilians,” he said. “If there are people they suspect, they should arrest them and hand them over to the police for proper investigation, without compromising the little support they have in the community.”

When communities are burned or displaced after attacks, the consequences go beyond the immediate loss of shelter. Food stocks disappear. Children are pulled out of school. Families scatter. People who had already fled violence once are forced to flee again.

In resettled or displaced communities, where people have spent years coping, another displacement can mean the collapse of everything they had slowly rebuilt.

A dangerous silence

After the Monguno raid, Koso said some residents became so afraid of the military that they fled into the bush.

“Many people, about 30, also left for the bush,” he said. “Most of them fear the military. The military does not trust them.”

Mu’azu warned that this kind of fear can damage counterterrorism efforts.

“They will lose trust, respect, and block chances of receiving information,” he said. “This could also push them to be recruited by the terrorists.”

For Mu’azu, the solution is not to abandon intelligence work, but to make it safer and more systematic. He said the military should cultivate trusted informants within communities, create secure channels of communication, and protect residents when terrorists retaliate.

“This is the gap,” he said. “Oftentimes, communities are attacked after successful military operations. The patterns should be studied. They should do a statistical analysis. They should be mindful of the time and be prepared against such actions.”

He also called for stronger collaboration among the military, DSS, police, civil defence, and intelligence agencies in neighbouring countries such as Cameroon, Chad, and Niger, because terrorists move across borders.

But for Modu and others displaced from Gana Ali and the GGSS, these policy questions remain distant. What they know is simpler: they fled one danger and met another. They were told to leave the place they had made into a home. Then they watched, or heard, that what remained had been burned.

In Borno’s war, civilians are often asked to prove their loyalty to the state while surviving under the shadow of terrorists, and in that narrow space between fear and suspicion, many are losing everything.

Muhammadu Mahe wasn’t at home when terrorists came for him one rainy night. It was during the rainy season in 2023. He had travelled to sell livestock and spent the night in the Shinkafi area of Zamfara, North West Nigeria.

The following morning, his brother, Alhaji Usman, rang his phone.

“Dan Hajiya, Yan Bindiga came looking for you last night,” Usman said over the phone. The term, Yan Bindiga, is what most rural residents call terrorists in the area. Muhammadu, who is known as Dan Hajiya in his Ruwan Bado village in the Maradun Local Government Area (LGA), did not fully grasp the message, so he asked, and his brother explained succinctly.

Six armed men on three motorcycles had stormed the village and gone straight to Muhammadu’s house. When they were told he was not around, the terrorists asked one of his children to let them know when he returned. They neither fired a single shot nor abducted any of his three wives and 13 children.

“Normally, they would have abducted a family member to force me to look for them, but they didn’t. It was very surprising,” Muhammadu told HumAngle on the afternoon of June 4 in a town in Zamfara, where he now lives with his family.

Hearing about the terrorists’ visit, he wanted to rush home to check if any of his children had been hurt. He had thought the terrorists were targeting him for more extortion. However, his brother advised him to stay in Shinkafi for at least two more days until they could determine the reason the terrorists were looking for him.

Muhammadu had paid a ₦1.5 million “farming tax” to a terrorist group led by Jamilu, a loyalist of the notorious criminal mastermind, Halilu Sububu, who was killed by the military in 2024. Halilu, originally from Maradun, maintained several camps in the forest reserves in the Sububu/Tubali, Bakura, and Kaya axes. One of such camps is now controlled by Jamilu. Ruwan Bado, Muhammadu’s village, sits not far from Janbako and Faru, two bigger villages in the Talata Mafara town. Terrorist groups routinely attack communities and motorists on the road, a situation that forced several farmers to abandon their farms. 

The lingering crisis engulfing northwestern Nigeria began as a farmer-herder clash in Zamfara over a decade ago. Thousands of people have since been killed, with over a million displaced. Motorcycle-riding terrorists invade communities, schools, farmlands, and roads to abduct people for ransom. Terrorist attacks have persisted in the region despite kinetic and non-kinetic approaches. 

Amid the ongoing armed violence, farmers are severely affected as terrorist attacks disrupt their agricultural activities. Each year, with the onset of the rainy season, terrorists intensify their attacks on rural communities to intimidate farmers, ultimately seeking agreements that often lead to residents paying millions as taxes. Funds collected from farmers help finance their terrorist activities. Farmers who fail to pay are forced to flee their communities for fear of being attacked by the terrorists. However, even paying the tax does not guarantee safety, as seen in several cases, especially in Zamfara State. 

Of recurring attacks and farming taxes

Before the violence escalated in his community, Muhammadu said he had always wondered what he would do without his farms. He is a farmer like his father and grandfather. Everyone in his family is a farmer, including those who have taken government jobs or other businesses. Everyone had a farm before terrorists began to invade their communities. 

The day the terrorists came looking for him was not their first time in the village. Before the rainy season in 2023, Muhammadu said, terrorists attacked the village in broad daylight. “I’ll never forget that attack,” he says as he unravels how the ugly event unfolded. And even before then, there were about three attacks.

A little before 3 p.m. on a Friday, he was sitting down outside the mosque with friends and relatives when terrorists barged into the community, shooting sporadically. He didn’t remember much of what happened immediately after he heard the gunshots, but he ran outside the village. “I ran for several minutes and decided to lie down on my stomach,” he says. His wives and some of his children who were at home also ran out.

The attack didn’t last long. When he returned, people had converged on the village square close to the mosque, with three dead bodies lying on the ground. “It was one of the saddest days of my life. My nephew, Haladu, was one of those killed. His mother is my elder sister. Malam Abubakar Jijji and Malam Usman were also killed in that attack.”

The violent incident changed Muhammadu’s life and that of several others in the community. “Our vigilante members said they got information that the terrorists vowed to turn our community upside down if we didn’t cooperate with them. They said what they did was a warning attack,” he says. Cooperating with the terrorists literally means paying taxes to them before farming. 

The community leaders would later meet to discuss how to negotiate with the terrorists for peace to reign. “We decided to pay the money. We had no option,” Muhammadu says. The terrorists said anyone with more than one farm must pay ₦1.5 million. 

Payment for one farm ranged from ₦400,000 to ₦600,000, depending on the number of acres. His brother, Usman, paid for one farm. The terrorists said the community should not pay the money in a lump sum, but whoever was ready should go and pay their own. 

Muhammadu said he sold some of his livestock to raise the “farming tax”. He had volunteered to take the money to the terrorists in the forest. He took his money and that of another villager, Alhaji Sani, who contributed ₦2 million, resulting in a total of ₦3.5 million. The terrorists asked him to wait on the main road after the Faru community. A few minutes after he arrived, two terrorists on a motorcycle emerged from the shrubs, collected the money, and sped off. 

That same night, Jamilu, the leader of the terrorists, called to inform them that the money had been collected. He instructed them not to go to their farms and to wait for further instructions. While the residents awaited the next directive, the terrorists arrived looking for Muhammadu.

On the run

Muhammadu didn’t wait in Shinakafi for two days, as his brother suggested.

The following morning, he took the first car from Shinkafi to Boko, and from there, another car to Talata Mafara. He disembarked in Janbako, a community neighbouring his village. He said he was being careful because of informants lurking nearby. While waiting for someone to pick him up, his brother called again, asking him to head to Maradun instead because “they got information that the terrorists would kill me”.

He spent three days in Maradun and later sneaked back into his village, Ruwan Bado. At home, he gathered his family members, including his daughters, who were already married, and told them about the situation he had found himself in. 

“They all agreed that I should leave,” Muhammadu says. “One of my daughters thought it was suicidal to return to the community. So, I left for Talata Mafara in the morning.”

The choice of Talata Mafara was intentional as the town sits on the edge of the Bakalori dam with sprawling farmlands where residents engage in year-round farming. From Colony via Rini down to Gora on one side and River Bobo inside Mafara town down to Tumfafiya to the boundaries of Danbaza, stretches of water lie abundant for irrigation farming. 

“I was wrong. I didn’t know that farmers were also fleeing the Rini (in Bakura) and Gora (in Maradun) axis due to incessant attacks. Most of the farms are now abandoned,” he recalls. He moved farther down to the other side of Mafara town, this time to Tsakuwa, a suburb on the road to the communities of Sauna, Garbadu, Morai, and Kagara in southern Mafara. 

However, these communities also face terrorist attacks, making the roads and the farms on both sides of the road very vulnerable. This situation compounds Muhammadu’s problems.

“Since then, I’ve not gone back to Ruwan Bado. My family joined me here after three months.”

Even after three years, Muhammadu says he has not looked back because several people he knows have left the community. His elder brother, Usman, has also left for Maradun town with his family because Ruwan Bado and the communities around it have continued to witness terror attacks. 

“Even some months back, people were killed in our community as the attacks continued,” Muhammadu says. “I don’t know whether the Yan Bindiga (bandits) are still looking for me, but I think it’s unsafe to go home.” Only a few families remain in Ruwan Bado. 

Sani, the person whose farming tax Muhammadu took to the terrorists alongside his, has also left the community for Mafara town. “Even after collecting our money, the terrorists kept returning. There was a time they attacked the community and stole our livestock. I lost more than 10 cows to that attack,” the 63-year-old man told HumAngle. 

Muhammadu said he heard about the attack last year and advised Sani to leave the community. Sani was one of the three well-to-do people in the area. Life was good to him; he had three wives and 17 children, some of whom were already married. Aside from owning five farm fields, he was a trader and livestock merchant before the violence consumed his property. He sold some of his livestock out of fear of cattle-rustling terrorists and retained only the animals he used for ploughing on his farms.

“I encouraged our people to accept the terrorists’ demand for farming tax, believing that we would be allowed to go to the farm. But after we paid, the terrorists allowed us to start working, after which they continued attacking us. It was very unsafe for me to continue living in the community,” Sani, who now lives with his family in a rented apartment in Mafara, said. He has tried, to no avail, to gather the remnants of his wealth to start a business in the town but he said “it’s frustrating because the capital is too small and I don’t even know where to start from.”

As Muhammadu continues to flee, many farmers in the region are suffering from terrorist attacks, especially with the onset of the rainy season in the core northern states. The situation in communities like Ruwan Bado is worsened by a lack of adequate security agents to protect residents. Since there is an absence of conventional security forces in most of the communities, residents pay a farming or protection tax as requested by terrorists to avoid being attacked.

‘There was only a road checkpoint for soldiers on the Colony – Boko road, which is even farther away from us. Without adequate security agents, it’ll be difficult for us to go to farms or markets. When the terrorists attack, it’s only the vigilante group members who fight them back,” Muhammadu said. HumAngle learnt that the Zamfara State government recruited operatives for its Community Protection Guards (also known as Askarawa) and posted them to all communities facing security challenges in the state. But Muhammadu, who left Ruwan Bado in 2023, couldn’t confirm if there are Askarawa in his community now. 

James Barnett, a conflict researcher at Hudson Institute, believes terrorists are using the vacuum created by the absence of governance in some of the rural communities in North West Nigeria. The terrorists believe it’s easier and more profitable to enforce levies than to attack communities. “Communities that have no protection from the state often have no choice but to submit to bandit demands in order to be allowed to farm—and survive,” he said. 

“The regions where bandits are strongest are the sorts of areas where there has been almost no meaningful state presence in years—roads, schools, clinics and the like. Bandits have essentially filled a vacuum in those parts of rural Nigeria that the state has neglected,” Barnett, who has written extensively on the banditry conflict in the North West, added. 

The consequences of this reality are evident in communities, where residents say concerns about survival and security now overshadow everyday economic worries.

“Many villages in Tsafe are no longer thinking about where to get the cheapest fertiliser; instead, they are worried about how to access their farms safely. In some communities, despite paying ransoms and levies to the terrorists, locals are still not confident that their lives will be spared,” Abubakar Bala, a resident of Tsafe in Zamfara, told HumAngle.

The Allied Democratic Forces, a militant armed group operating in the volatile borderlands of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), have sacked 12 villages in the Bambodi sector of Tshopo province, displacing hundreds of people. 

Tryphen Mabikinyambey, a member of the provincial parliament representing Bafwasende, said the ADF militants are presently only two hours away on foot from these villages in Tshopo. For months, the ADF terrorists have been based in villages dominated by the Badumbisa people in Mambasa, close to the now-abandoned villages in Tshopo. Tryphen added that many civilians in Bambodi have sought refuge in Nia-Nia, Bafwasende Centre, and Kisangani.

“The ADF rebels feel at home there. They are at ease. We have already reported their presence, yet there has still been no appropriate response from the authorities. The population is being emptied from the tribal group. There is no response from the national, provincial or local authorities,” the parliamentarian said.

He noted that all schools have been closed and that no hospitals are operational in the deserted area. “Even individuals in mining camps have left. Life is becoming increasingly challenging for everyone who is living under constant threats,” he remarked.

The representative is urging the Congolese government to launch a comprehensive operation to protect the local populations. He stated that the ADF rebels are relocating from the Bapere tribal group in North Kivu, where they are being chased by a coalition of Congolese and Ugandan armed forces as part of the joint Operation Shujaa. Unfortunately, as the ADF is chased from one area, it seeks refuge in quieter zones, such as those in Mambasa and Bafwasende, which now pose significant risks to residents.

“When they are tracked down, they search for calm areas. And these places are in the Mambasa territory and Bafwasende,” he said, noting that the ADF terrorists have been sending tracts. “They send those they have ‘rescued’ with letters of threats against Bafwasende territory and Tshopo province.”

The terrorists have also recently killed scores in North Kivu, triggering a fresh trove of armed violence in the eastern DRC. On June 4, for instance, local civil society sources said four bodies were found in the Kingeste area and a fifth one near Ngite. 

“As it stands, 21 people are dead. We’ve found four bodies around Kingeste and one near Ngite. We want to see the military pursue the assailants to their hideout, as we will face extermination if no action is taken,” said Louis Kisaki, the president of the Batangi-Mbau civil society organisation in DRC.

The recent violent waves have instilled fear and panic in Mbau and its surroundings, as the population is anxious about a potential return of the attackers to cause chaos again. Since the ADF’s assault on Mbau, many families have avoided spending nights at home, with numerous households relocating to areas deemed safer, including Oicha, the chief town of Beni territory. Economic activities have also come to a standstill across Mbau and neighbouring areas.

In just three days, the ADF terrorists have killed 40 individuals in attacks on the town and territory of Beni. The attackers have also kidnapped several civilians, who remain in captivity with hopes of their release dwindling each day.

Muhammed Kaumi had just stepped out of the mosque when his phone rang on the evening of Friday, May 29. He had recently returned from Dikwa, a town in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, and assumed the call was from a relative checking on his journey home. Instead, the voice on the other end delivered news that left him numb.

“Bulama has been killed,” the caller said. “They have killed Bulama.” Muhammed felt his chest tighten. “I instantly felt a sharp pain in my heart,” he recalled.

Bulama Ali was his cousin, a farmer, a father of five, and one of thousands, like him, who have been displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency that has scarred the region for more than a decade.

Within minutes, Muhammed was on his way to the Custom House Internally Displaced Persons’ Camp in Muna, on the outskirts of Maiduguri, where Bulama had lived with his family for nearly a decade.

As he rushed there, questions flooded his mind: “What had happened? Who had killed him? Why?”

When he arrived, residents told him that Bulama had allegedly been beaten by men they identified as “repentant Boko Haram fighters”, locally known as “Hybrids”.

For many residents of Maiduguri, the allegation struck a painful nerve.

For years, former insurgents who surrendered to authorities have passed through government rehabilitation and reintegration programmes such as Operation Safe Corridor and the Borno Model, before returning to civilian communities. However, some have bypassed both interventions completely. 

The Nigerian authorities have involved some of these deserters in security operations, where they help troops with intelligence gathering, their knowledge of terrorist-held terrain, and even operational activities. The arrangement has remained controversial among many survivors of the conflict and among security analysts. 

Now, residents in these communities say their fears have been justified. 

They brought him back dead

Bulama’s final hours began shortly before the Friday Muslim congregational prayers.

Muhammed was told by relatives and eyewitnesses that “[Bulama] was on his way to the mosque on his bicycle when he received a phone call. He stopped by the roadside [close to Muna, on the Maiduguri-Gamboru highway] to answer it.” Behind him was a vehicle carrying armed men dressed in black uniforms. “They honked at him to move,” Muhammed said. “But he was speaking on the phone and did not hear them.”

Abbas Shettima, who witnessed the incident, said the confrontation, which occurred between 1:15 p.m. and 1:30 p.m., quickly escalated. 

“We were all heading to the mosque when we saw them beating him,” Abbas recounted. According to him, the group consisted of about ten men carrying guns and sticks. “They said he was blocking their way,” he said.

Bulama tried to explain. He apologised repeatedly, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. 

“He kept begging them to spare him,” Abbas said. “He crouched down and covered his head with his hands while they beat him.” When bystanders attempted to intervene, the armed men threatened them. Residents watched helplessly. Eventually, the men forced Bulama into their vehicle and drove away.

No one knew where he had been taken.

At the time, witnesses said they believed the group were members of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) because of their uniforms.

Hours later, shortly after 3 p.m., the vehicle returned. “They brought him back severely wounded,” Abbas recounted. “He could barely move.”

Residents rushed toward him to help, but within ten minutes, he died.

The incident was immediately reported to the soldiers stationed at the camp’s entrance. According to Muhammed, the soldiers said they had seen the vehicle dropping Bulama but did not know what had transpired. “They were the ones who told us the men were Hybrids and that they had come from the Maiwa axis,” he said.

Residents later learned that Bulama had allegedly been taken to Maiwa Kura, a remote village in Mafa Local Government Area, Borno State, where the group was reportedly stationed. 

Although “Hybrids” are often perceived as operating independently, they are typically attached to military formations and work alongside security forces, according to a member of a local volunteer security outfit involved in counterterrorism operations who spoke to HumAngle.

“The commanding officer of the military base gives instructions to the ‘Hybrid’ commander attached to that formation, who then relays orders to his men,” the source explained. “During broader operations involving multiple locations, they also have a state commander from whom they receive directives.”

However, this does not necessarily imply military involvement in the attack that claimed Bulama’s life, as Hybrid patrols sometimes operate independently.

Bulama’s family subsequently reported the matter to the police. 

Muhammed said that soldiers, police officers, and members of the CJTF later travelled to Maiwa, where they arrested three suspects, including a commander. “They told us the others had travelled to Mafa for an operation,” he said.

The suspects were taken into custody and transferred to the Borno State Criminal Investigation Department for further investigation.

According to family members, the suspects claimed Bulama died after jumping from the back of a moving Hilux vehicle. But the relatives remain unconvinced. “The doctors told us he had been severely beaten,” Muhammed said. “His hands were tied, and he had internal bleeding.”

The family retrieved the body on Saturday morning and buried him later that afternoon. When the body was prepared for burial, he said, blood continued to seep from his eyes, ears, and nose. “It stained the white shroud.”

When HumAngle contacted the Borno State Police Public Relations Officer, Nahum Kenneth Daso, he said he was not aware of the case and would make inquiries. As of publication, no official update had been provided.

The men known as ‘Hybrids’

In many communities across Borno State, the word “Hybrid” carries different meanings depending on who defines it. 

To security officials, they are a practical asset in a war that has stretched for more than 15 years. For many residents, they are former terrorists trying to rebuild their lives. To others, especially those who lost relatives, homes, farms, and livelihoods during the conflict, they are a constant reminder of wounds that have never fully healed.

The term is commonly used to describe some former Boko Haram members who surrendered and passed through official rehabilitation and deradicalisation programmes, and later became attached to security operations in various capacities.

Since they possess intimate knowledge of terrorist operations and hierarchy, security agencies have increasingly relied on some of them to help in identifying former colleagues, navigating difficult terrain, and providing information that security forces may otherwise struggle to obtain.

For authorities, the arrangement is often viewed as a necessary component of the counterterrorism campaign. However, many civilians find it deeply unsettling.

That is why, for some residents, the sight of former terrorists carrying weapons or working alongside security forces can be difficult to accept.

Bulama’s death has reopened those anxieties. Yet, the resentment many residents express today did not begin with his killing. It has been building for years.

In August 2021, as thousands of terrorist deserters began surrendering from the Sambisa Forest and the Lake Chad region, the Borno State Government convened a high-level stakeholders’ meeting at the Government House in Maiduguri. Government officials, security agencies, traditional rulers, religious leaders, civil society organisations, journalists, and community representatives gathered to discuss the reintegration of former insurgents into society.

At the end of the meeting, participants agreed in principle to forgive and accept these deserters back into their communities. Their acceptance, however, was not unconditional. The stakeholders insisted that surrendered terrorists must be thoroughly screened before reintegration. They also warned against the release of hardened extremists into the communities. They further called for meaningful reconciliation between victims and former terrorists.

The gathering was widely presented as a collective endorsement of reconciliation.

But beyond the conference hall, acceptance has proved far more complicated.

Many residents who had survived the violence felt they had not been part of that conversation. Some had lost parents, spouses, siblings, and/or children. Others had spent years moving between displacement camps, uncertain whether they would ever return home. For them, forgiveness was not a policy decision that could be reached through consensus among stakeholders. It was an intensely personal choice shaped by trauma, memory, and loss.

“The people making these decisions are not always the people who suffered directly,” Abba Gana told HumAngle.

Over the years, some residents have complained of harassment and intimidation by former terrorists and their families. Others say they simply feel the reintegration process has moved faster than community healing.

The debate became even more sensitive as some former terrorists began assisting security operations. To many survivors, the transformation can be difficult to reconcile: people who once arrived as attackers returning as neighbours and protectors, and in some cases, as men carrying authority.

Some government officials have repeatedly defended the reintegration policy. Recently, General Olufemi Oluyede, the Chief of Defence Staff and chairperson of the Operation Safe Corridor National Steering Committee, likened terrorist deserters to the biblical Prodigal Son, arguing that they deserve rehabilitation because they remain Nigerian citizens. 

Those concerns were further amplified by reports that not all former terrorists were passing through official rehabilitation channels. In 2025, a HumAngle investigation documented allegations that some defectors were quietly leaving the forest and reintegrating into communities without participating in formal deradicalisation programmes, raising questions about screening, accountability, and oversight.

Over the years, several incidents involving terrorist deserters have also contributed to public unease. In April, a former Boko Haram member allegedly shot and killed a CJTF member during an argument in the Mafa LGA. According to reports, the victim was rushed to the hospital but was confirmed dead on arrival, while the suspect was later arrested and handed over to the police.

Two years earlier, some deserters reportedly stormed a police station in Maiduguri in an attempt to secure the release of their colleagues arrested over alleged drug-related offences. In another case that generated public outrage in 2023, a deserter was accused of killing his wife at the outskirts of Maiduguri.

Concerns about the reintegration programme are not new. As far back as 2020, Ali Ndume, the senator representing Borno South Senatorial District, publicly criticised aspects of the government’s amnesty efforts, recounting the case of a deserter whom he alleged killed his father and later absconded with his property. The senator argued that the victims and survivors’ concerns were not receiving the same level of attention as the rehabilitation of the deserters.

Taken individually, the circumstances surrounding these incidents differ significantly from Bulama’s case. Collectively, however, they have helped shape public perceptions of the reintegration programmes and deepened anxieties among some residents about the monitoring, supervision, and accountability of deserters, particularly those involved in security-related activities.

For many survivors of the conflict, such incidents reinforce a lingering fear that rehabilitation alone may not be enough. Bulama’s death has now brought those long-simmering concerns into sharper focus. 

“The community is deciding on an action,” Abbas said.

Residents gathered after Bulama’s burial to discuss possible legal steps. Some suggested pooling money to hire a lawyer. Others proposed approaching human rights organisations.

“We are thinking of contributing money and hiring a lawyer,” Abbas said.

Justice and unfinished wounds

For Muhammed, grief and anger now coexist. His cousin survived displacement and years of uncertainty. He, however, did not survive a short journey to the mosque.

When asked what justice would look like for his family and the displaced community, Muhammed replied, “The law does not play by sentiments; it follows laid-down rules. I hope they will do what is right. If it is by my sentiments, I would not want them to be free. I would want them imprisoned for life.”

He paused.

“I don’t care about compensation. I don’t care about apologies. Justice for me is their imprisonment.”

A family left devastated 

Bulama was only 30 years old. He left behind two wives and five children.

He earned a living as a farmer. And before displacement forced the family from Boboshe in 2016, his father was killed. His elderly mother remains alive and still lives with them at the displacement camp.

The survival of his family, which was Bulama’s responsibility as the breadwinner, hangs uncertainly over relatives, who are also struggling to survive. “We are not rich people,” Muhammed said. “Caring for five children in addition to our own children will be difficult.”

Around the camp where he lived for over a decade, residents gather beneath makeshift shelters to rest, but the conversations about Bulama’s death remain on their lips. 

What remains immediate is his nuclear family, and the space left by a man who left home for Friday prayers and never returned.

At least 17 civilians were killed in an attack by rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in the Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). On Tuesday, May 19, the ADF terrorists operated for hours in the Alima locality before moving on to maim locals in the neighbouring villages of Peleki, Manyama and its environs, where houses were set ablaze.

Peresi Mamboro, the coordinator of the Congolese New Civil Society of Babila-Bambomi, commented on the situation, saying, “The casualty figure of the ADF incursion yesterday at 20 hours now stands at 17 dead. The enemy passed in Peleki before burning several houses in Manyama and its environs. This figure is still provisional because the enemy continues to roam as a free electron in the zone.” 

Horror is being visited on several areas of Mambasa territory, and, faced with this situation, civil society is calling on the population to reinforce its vigilance. “We call on the population to be vigilant while denouncing all suspicious movement,” Peresi Mamboro said.

The ADF combatants have been intensifying their attacks in the region and have already crossed the national road number 44 on the Biakato-Mambasa highway, near the hills of Alima village, before dispersing in several directions after the attack.

“After the attack, the assailants broke into two groups. One group returned to the east, passing through the office of the Congolese national police in Alima, while one other group took the direction to the west of Babila-Babombi by passing through Alima stadium avenue,” Zephani Kataliko, a human rights defender in the Babila-Babombi chiefdom, noted.

This recent attack has reignited panic and fear in Mambasa territory, which has also faced a resurgence of violence attributed to the ADF over the past weeks. In several villages, families continue to flee to areas deemed safer, while travel is severely disrupted on certain roads due to fears of rebel ambushes.

Local actors fear that, in the absence of sustained military operations and reinforced control over the movements of armed groups, the ADF may consolidate its presence in the forest zones of Babila-Babombi.