IN this compelling and incisive account, EMMA GOGWIM KAYI reflects on the horrors of terrorism and violence ravaging Nigeria, recounting chilling incidents of cruelty, displacement and loss across different regions. Drawing from recent reports, eyewitness testimonies and humanitarian alerts, the writer underscores how unchecked atrocities continue to dehumanise innocent communities while exposing the failure of the Nigerian state to uphold its pledge of security and dignity forall
When I finished reading the story, I said to myself: “This can’t be true”. The story attracted disbelief on account of the cruelty involved, and I was left numbed as though I was a witness to the atrocity.
The story centred on a mother whose newly born twins were reportedly fed to dogs by her captors in one of the ‘forests’ that have become the ‘self-governing zones’ of terrorists in some states in the North-West Region of Nigeria. Her abductors said the newly born were disturbing their peace as well as undermining their security with their cries.
Unspeakable atrocities against infants
According to the villains, the babies’ cries could attract the attention of those that might be tracking their hideout, to bring them to justice. The babies’ cries were a ‘risk factor’ the brigands chose to do away with through the cavalier and dastardly act of feeding their dogs with humans.
While carrying a mature pregnancy, the poor woman had been abducted along with scores of other villagers, and taken to the terrorists’ nest in their ‘kingdom’ where piety and morality have no value. During that raid, her husband was one of the residents felled by the marauders – terrorists that our society unearthed and beatified with names such as “gunmen” /’bandits” /’armed herdsmen” – who constitute a scourge that is eating the entrails of our motherland.
According to the report, the woman delivered the twins under very dire circumstances. She was aided largely by other women who, themselves, were abductees. Tragically, her pains and hopes came to naught as her tormentors served her a portion that only the devil’s incarnates could have imagined and effected – tossing her babies to dogs to feast on.
Truly, I was benumbed. Yet, my initial disbelief gradually came to terms with the sad reality, that nothing is beyond limits in the spaces manned by criminals, maniacs and fundamentalists of different hues. It would seem they are in competition as to who can conjure or execute an atrocity that is “novel” in scale or scope of savagery.
Historical echoes of brutality
I recalled the fate some babies suffered in Dogo Nahawa, a community on the Jos-Plateau of Nigeria, when terrorists raided the tiny community in March 2010, leaving it with battered and butchered humans. Some reports, then, indicated that among the hundreds killed that night of horror, and found the morning after, were some breast-sucking babies in shapes and circumstances that suggested strongly they were held by their hind limbs as their heads were smashed against walls to end their lives.
I had to accept that in Nigeria, no form of brutality is off the table of terrorists. Indeed, the just rested August saw other terrorist acts visited on other law abiding communities in the North-West region. Notable among them was the attack on Ma nta u community in Malumfashi Local Government Area of Katsina State. In that incident, the outlaws had stormed the community and killed scores of its residents, among them those who had assembled at a mosque for the morning prayer.
Speaking on the development, the state Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Dr. Nasir Mu’azu, indicated that the attack was a retaliatory act, as the Mantau community had defended itself successfully when the outlaws launched an attack two days earlier. Today, Mantau is still counting its losses.
The Borno experience under Boko Haram
Another report that I found noteworthy during the same period was the reminiscences of a man from Borno State, on a period he described as the lowest point of his life. It was the take-over of his homestead by Boko Marram terrorists at the height of the group’s devilry. The man narrated that resources of his community -infrastructure and economy -were l^eft in ruins, while its people’s dignity and self-worth crashed when the fanatics attacked the town, sacked its rulership and imposed their draconian rule.
To add salt to their wounds, the Boko Harramists even took the step of renaming the town in their myopic quest to rewrite its history, and place their stake. For about five years, the man recalled, the fundamentalists ran the town in accordance with their warped and twisted logic,
impulses and ‘policies’. Those who escaped before their arrival felt (from relative safety) the pain and shame of their compatriots, even as they lamented their heritage that was being raped and ruined, including the town’s name-change.
During their tormentors’ rule, those who could escape fled to saner climes, while those that remained suffered what captives usually go through. This tragic condition, he said, continued until the town was liberated by our country’s armed forces. The man said he would not wish such a fate for any community anywhere.
Kwara, Plateau under siege
Unfortunately, other communities are still falling into newer zones of pain, shame and death. Among them are those in Kwara South District of North Central Nigeria. In August, a socio-cultural organization, Igbinmo Majekobaje Ile-Yoruba, cried out over the troubling security situation in the area, lamenting that several communities “are living in fear as attacks by suspected herdsmen intensify.”
The group’s Convener, Olusola Badero, said armed herders had made a pastime of raid of vulnerable communities in the area. “Communities in Kwara South have become soft targets for these terrorists disguised as bandits,” he said, and emphasized that “hundreds of residents have abandoned their ancestral homes, many have been kidnapped and those left behind are forced to live in constant fear.”
Yet, there is another variant of the violence which some other citizens suffer. It is the ceaseless, purposeful and organized raids targeting vulnerable communities in other parts of North Central Nigeria, which has remained unmitigated, principally because the victims have marginal or no hold on the levers of power, and are thus unable to assert their rights in the Nigerian context.
That August, dreadful circumstances forced some communities in Mushere Chiefdom, Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau State, to send Save Our Souls (SOS) alert to the Nigerian
authorities and the world. Using the platform of Concerned Mushere Youth Vanguard (CMYV), the chiefdom lamented that several of its communities had been attacked and ravaged by terrorists, leading to the death of scores of its people and the displacement of hundreds who were forced to flee to safer locations.
CMYV Chairman, John Bitrus, who spoke on behalf of the group at a conference in Jos on Saturday, August 16, reportedly said, “It is sad that as we speak, our people have been forced to flee their ancestral homes to take shelter at Internally Displaced Persons’ (IDPs) Camps following the incessant and relentless terrorist attacks and siege, while the Fulani people have taken over our homes, farmlands, and have renamed the villages after sacking them.”
Their adversaries, the Mushere youth spokesperson said, “move around brazenly with their guns and other dangerous weapons and kill anyone they see”, adding that “they have built their tents and are grazing their cattle on our farmlands, while our people, the real owners of the lands, are roaming about with no hope of when they will return.”
With “We Want To Go Back Home” as the rallying cry, Bitrus listed the villages currently being occupied by their adversaries as Hokk, Kaban, Kadim, Nawula, Dulu Mbor, and Margif. He charged governments at all all levels not to forget the affected Mushere communities in their moment of distress, but to assist in relocating them to their ancestral homes and farmlands.
This SOS is incontrovertible evidence that the lust for evil in Nigeria is not on the decline, despite the best of intentions, efforts and wishes of governments, victims and well-wishers.
As a matter of fact, the cry from the Mushere youth reflects only a part of the grimmer picture painted by the Amnesty International in its statement, published on August 22, which highlighted the series of killings that had rocked the state in recent years.
A particularly concerning portion of the report has to do with casualty figures. The statement read in part: “In Plateau State, from December 2023 to February 2024, at least 1,336 people were killed. Of those killed, 533 were women, 263 were children, and 540 were men.” The Organization also added that “Over 29,554 people were displaced, out of which 13,093 were children, while 16,461 were women.”
Alluding to a pattern, Amnesty International said gunmen killed at least 51 people in some villages in Bassa Local Government Area of the state in April 2025. Referring to another incident, it said: “Apart from slaughtering everyone they came across, the gunmen also razed homes and other properties. ” The Organization went on to raise an alarm over a “Jingering humanitarian crisis” in the state.
These samples of what the media space had on offer in August 2025 are reminders of the terrible fate some communities in our country suffer. One has come to accept the sad reality that, truly, Nigeria has failed in its quest for a nation; a Union where life is sacred, and where no one is oppressed or dehumanized on account of race, ethnicity, status or faith, as our National Anthem proclaims. The reports highlighted here do not only prove man’s capacity for cruelty, they constitute irrefutable evidence, that in our land, evil has been feasting on the weak and marginalized among us.
Communities left behind in the race for survival
The weak, isolated communities, minorities and the poor, who are usually left behind in the impetuous race of “life” and quest for power, are easy preys and soft targets for the armed, the strong, the majority, the rich and the unscrupulous, who are positioned to call all the shots and for all the shots to count.
A common thread in the Katsina, Borno, Kwara and Plateau stories highlighted is the regime of pain and bloodshed imposed on law-abiding citizens by groups who have chosen to operate outside the law, and civilized and universal standards of conduct. Since 2008, the North East states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa were yoked to an ‘enclave’ created by Boko Harram.
At a point, large portions of Borno were under the firm grip of members of the Islamic fundamentalist group who, with time, extended their terror reign to even distant places. Explosive devices too were employed to wreak havoc, with Jos as one of the choice cities where churches, markets and motor parks became prime hunting grounds in the morbid desire to maximize casualties.
Boko Harram later joined forces with some international fundamentalist groups, and extended its reach to the neighbouring countries of Niger, Chad and Cameroon. On the whole, thousands of lives were lost and communities ruined. That Boko Harram’s potency has been reduced significantly in recent years is tribute to the gallantry and sacrifices of the security forces, the commitment of the Federal Government and the global partnership against fundamentalism and terrorism.
As if some other gods still had axes to grind with us, just when the insurgency in the North East was losing steam, the North West states of Kaduna, Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto and Kebbi became epicentres of attacks on villages and the abduction of hapless residents, who had to be ransomed.
At its height, abduction of hundreds of students became fashionable, victims who remained in captivity for long until certain demands were met. The brigands got so emboldened that they waylaid an Abuja-Kaduna train, ‘harvested’ kidnap-victims, and placed families and Government under pressure for ransom. For over ten years now, the terrorists have made life difficult for the people of the North West.