Nigeria, a bleak year-end
Three unrelated heinous events – the wanton attack on Maru town, the kidnapping in Wase and the atrocious suicide bombing in Maiduguri, all occurring within a week, have characterised 2025 as a particularly bleak year for our beleaguered country. On Saturday, the penultimate week, a group were travelling from Zak Community in the Bashar district […]
Three unrelated heinous events – the wanton attack on Maru town, the kidnapping in Wase and the atrocious suicide bombing in Maiduguri, all occurring within a week, have characterised 2025 as a particularly bleak year for our beleaguered country. On Saturday, the penultimate week, a group were travelling from Zak Community in the Bashar district of Wase Local Government of Plateau State to Sabon Layi Community to attend a Maulud event when they were waylaid by armed men. The group of 28, including two princes, religious leaders and small children, was abducted, and their families later received a ransom of N1.5m per head.
The attack on Maru town occurred a day later and followed a particular pattern. As it is, in those areas of Zamfara and Sokoto States where bandits hold sway to harass the communities persistently, they came in the dead of the night, pillaged the town and left unchallenged. Maru town has unceasingly been attacked throughout the year, and even earlier. In this latest attack, besides the looting of properties, the bandits killed four people and abducted at least ten others, including children, for ransom. And to add to the end-of-the-year woes in Zamfara State, it has been reported this weekend that several deaths have occurred as improvised explosive devices exploded on the Dansadau-Magami road.
The suicide bomb in Maiduguri took everyone by surprise. This is because Maiduguri has had an era of unbroken peace for the past four or five years. It had been the epicentre of bombings and killings since the debut of the atrocious campaign by the Boko Haram insurgents in 2009. A spate of suicide bombings has persisted over the years, even after the insurgents were chased out of town. Gamboru market, where the suicide bomb detonated, has had its share of such misfortunes in the past. Many years ago, it was but a small collection of traders, but it grew exponentially after the Maiduguri Monday Market was destroyed in an inferno in 1979. It is strategically placed near the customs bridge leading out of town to the border with the Republic of Cameroon. It was also a short distance from the insurgents’ nerve centre, which was near the Nigerian Railway headquarters. At the height of the insurgency, Gamboru market was always a soft target for killings and bombings by the insurgents. Like other parts of Maiduguri, Gamboru market only knew a measure of peace when the insurgents were run out of town.
By some cruel irony, suicide bombing returned to Gamboru market at a time of heightened activity. That evening, traders had closed business and had gone to the mosques for the maghrib prayer before leaving for their homes when the bomber struck in one of the mosques close to the market. It was a packed mosque, and the casualties were many. This cruelty by the insurgents is not a one-off thing. It has been cumulative since September. It was in that month that, in a renewed onslaught, they raided the towns of Daral Jamal and Banki, close to the border with the Republic of Cameroun.
In October, they raided Kirawa in the same vicinity as well as Ngamdu, a junction town on the Maiduguri-Damaturu Road. And they went a notch up in November by raiding Dikwa, Gajibo and Mafa in Borno State and Gujba in Yobe State. In all these raids, the Boko Haram insurgents left behind a trail of destruction and killings of both civilians and soldiers. As some of the raids were targeted towards military barracks, they also carted away lots of military equipment as part of their booty. We raised serious concerns about these renewed activities of the insurgents in two pieces: “Are We Witnessing a Resurgent Boko Haram?” and “Was the Security Situation at Breaking Point?’ carried on October 26 and November 30 respectively.
Within the same period, while the Boko Haram insurgents were busy in the north-east, the bandits who have been rampaging in the north-west and north-central also upped their menace by targeting schools and abducting children for ransom. Snatching children from schools always quickly becomes a viral sensation in the international media, thus putting the government in a bad light. All the abductions couldn’t have come at a more distressing time for the government, with the US President Donald Trump breathing down its neck, parroting the false narrative that all this violence is targeted at the Christian population of the country and that he would take proactive action against the perpetrators.
Somehow, the government acted fast to liberate some of the seized children from their abductors. In any case, this did not stop the pre-emptive action by Donald Trump, and we woke up to the unusual on Friday morning that the US had launched an attack on parts of Sokoto. Our government later explained that the action was taken at its discretion. The attack on Sokoto served as a grim end to a bleak year for the country. Maybe we could turn this singular act into something positive for the new year. The government should seek the assistance of the US to extend the air strikes to Boko Haram enclaves in Sambisa Forest and Lake Chad. After all, that is where ISWAP, the purported target of the US gunboats, are strongest.