It took three to six years of agonising detention and total separation from their families for Mu’azu and Muhammad to be “cleared” as having nothing to do with the notorious terror group, Boko Haram. The people of Andara, a town in Northeast Nigeria, were worried sick when Boko Haram invaded in 2014 and started dictating how …
Read more “Guilty Until Proven Innocent: How Nigeria Further Preyed On Terror Victims”
The Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria’s Northeast is taking a toll on victims’ mental health, and this is not receiving as much attention. Saraya’s life took a turn for the worse when her partner was killed in 2014. She had been happily married to Awaza for three years, and they both lived quietly in Taradan, …
Read more “Her Husband’s Death ‘At The Hands Of Nigerian Soldiers’ Drove Her Crazy — Literally”
The police command in Plateau State, North-central Nigeria, has also debunked the misleading claim. About four pictures went viral on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 29, with the claim that they depicted an attack in Jos, North-central Nigeria, involving between 230 and 250 Igbo passengers. But the images are not recent and were shot in unrelated circumstances. …
Read more “Igbo Passengers Attacked In Jos? No, Pictures From Zimbabwe, Southern Nigeria”
For a region already grappling with high numbers of out-of-school children, the emergence of terror gangs is making schools less conducive for learning and parents less able to afford the costs of educating their children. At first, the staff and students at Sultan Muhammad Tambari Arabic Secondary School in Illela, Sokoto State, were disappointed when …
Read more “Education Suffers Silently But Heavily As Terror Sweeps Through Northwest Nigeria”
At a quarter to 3 p.m. on Thursday, June 3, this reporter set out on a journey to Maradi in Niger Republic. The take-off point was the border town of Sabon Birni, Sokoto, Northwest Nigeria. The destination was a refugee camp that housed tens of thousands of people from Nigeria who had become displaced due …
Read more “From Niger Republic To Sokoto … A Night Journey Through ‘Bandit’ Areas”
The series is based on a 16-day field trip that cuts across various communities in Katsina, Sokoto, and Zamfara affected by banditry in the Northwest. It focuses on the experiences of the various pockets and gatherings of Internally Displaced People and refugees — the attacks on their communities and their struggling realities as IDPs. The …
To be infected with HIV as a displaced person in Northeast Nigeria is to find yourself in hot water. No thanks to the Boko Haram insurgency, essential health services are unavailable in the rural communities. Funding is not enough to accommodate the special needs of people living with the virus. And, many would rather die …
Read more “The Discreet Lives Of Women Living With HIV In Nigerian IDP Camps”
Between Sept. 26 and Oct. 13, 2020, this conflict reporter was in the Borno state capital to cover how the decade-old Boko Haram insurgency was affecting displaced people. Here he shares parts of his on-the-ground journal entries. I The first thing you notice is the difference in vegetation. From the sky, you see a lot …
Read more “18 Days In Maiduguri: Excerpts From A Reporter’s Diary”
The first time she was released from the detention centre, Ya’ana was told she would be locked up again if she ever narrated her ugly experience to anyone. But then, that is exactly what she does. “Hajja Ya’ana has come!” Unlike the other people she entered with, Ya’ana Kaumi*, 42, was not a strange face …
Read more “Relatively Few Women Have Been Detained At Giwa Barracks. Ya’ana Was There Twice.”
Photos often used by local media organisations to represent criminal herdsmen in Nigeria have been found to have roots in Kenya, South Sudan and Tanzania. Clashes between herdsmen and farmers in Nigeria have recently drawn more attention, especially with increased tension and hostilities in the southern region. On the downside, misleading information around the subject …
Read more “These Photos Of Armed Herders Were Not Taken In Nigeria”