Boko Haram (21 page)

We were led back to the village, where a gathering awaited us in the heart of Kirenowa. A local chief, wearing sunglasses and a light-green traditional robe, praised the soldiers for their work as hundreds of residents looked on and applauded. The chief told us that residents had been forced to flee when Boko Haram members arrived and took up residence nearby. Where they had gone or when they returned was not clear. Some residents told local journalists that girls in the village had been forced to marry Boko Haram members and that the insurgents had stolen from them.
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Such details were to be treated with caution, as with almost all aspects of the day's tour, since residents could have been coached on what to say before our arrival, but they were certainly worth noting and seemed plausible. As the brief gathering ended, we were again hurried aboard the trucks, taken to the nearby military base, then driven back to Maiduguri aboard buses, many of us left pondering what to make of it all. We would not be given much help from the
military. The next morning, after repeatedly asking military officials to allow us the chance to ask questions for clarification, they finally relented, so we gathered in a circle around Brigadier-General Chris Olukolade,
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the defence spokesman, as he stood in a car park, powered on our recorders and video cameras, and sought answers. They were not exactly forthcoming. Asked why the offensive was different from what occurred in 2009, when the military insisted Boko Haram had been wiped out before the group re-emerged, Olukolade said it ‘involved not just the military but the security agencies of the country. The network this time is perfect, I mean near-perfect, in the sense that the operation was planned to ensure their bases were dislocated – not just dislocated but completely wiped out.' Pressed on how many Boko Haram members had been arrested, he said, ‘I can just tell you that hundreds of them.' How many Boko Haram members had been charged or sentenced? ‘Well, several of them.'

Sporadic bursts of information and disinformation from the military would continue in a similar manner in the weeks following the tour. It began to feel like a repeat of previous military operations: a flurry of activity, scattering the insurgents and temporarily reducing the number of attacks, only for the Islamists to return to fight another day. An unexpected development would, however, soon cast the crisis in a different light, one that offered a degree of hope, but which also presented severe dangers.

In mid-June 2013, word began to filter out that vigilante groups had formed in Maiduguri to fight the insurgents. One of the early signs came in the form of road checkpoints. Maiduguri residents had long become accustomed to security roadblocks as their city descended into violence, but the new checkpoints that began to materialise were different. They were now being manned by the vigilantes, a motley collection of mainly young men carrying homemade bows and arrows, swords, sticks, pipes and charms they said were powerful enough to stop bullets. They would peer into cars as drivers moved slowly past, stopping those
they deemed suspicious, or wait for orders from the military that they were needed for a raid aimed at arresting Boko Haram members. Some of the vigilantes admitted that they sometimes killed people during these raids – though specifying only when they had to – and handed over those they arrested to the region's Joint Task Force, a security deployment run by the military. The task force was known across Nigeria by its initials JTF, and the vigilantes adopted this name, calling themselves the ‘Civilian JTF'. The military encouraged the groups' formation, assisted them and spurred them along, apparently fed up with seeing their own men killed in a conflict that seemed to have no end. Military officials also reasoned that because the vigilantes were members of the community, they would know who were Boko Haram members and who were not. Rumours spread that some of the vigilantes were in fact also former insurgents. They at first denied being paid anything, insisting they were only a volunteer force interested in peace after years of upheaval, but it was widely believed that either the security forces or state government, or perhaps both, were somehow financing them. Later, the state government would seek to normalise the unwieldy force, providing training, light-blue uniforms and regular payments for a number of them.
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Several weeks into the formation of the vigilantes, there were signs of improvement. Attacks in Maiduguri itself were becoming increasingly rare, a stark turnaround considering the city had been wracked by incessant violence for much of the previous four years, causing thousands to flee, shutting down businesses and killing hundreds. Residents also seemed to be welcoming the vigilantes, relieved that they could venture outside again, reopen their market stalls and even send their children to schools with less worry. The phones were still cut, but there did not appear to be a major uproar over it in Maiduguri itself as many residents saw it as a legitimate sacrifice for peace.

The insurgents' response to the military offensive and formation of vigilante groups appeared to be to largely abandon the city
of Maiduguri. They were said to have fled to border areas near Cameroon, Chad or Niger, particularly in the region's Gwoza hills. The border with Cameroon was considered especially porous, and local residents spoke of Boko Haram members crossing back and forth, sometimes carrying out robberies and attacks on the Nigerian side, occasionally slitting the throats of their victims in a show of force. Unconfirmed rumours spread over whether Shekau had been killed, while the military later claimed he ‘may have died' after being shot in a clash with troops and taken over the border into Cameroon for treatment, but provided no proof. Shekau had been rumoured or declared to be dead several times before, only to later appear in video and audio messages. A man who seemed to be Shekau would repeatedly appear in more videos after the military statement on his supposed death. Yet another resurrection had occurred, it seemed.

Earlier hints of a new pattern of attacks would later prove to be true, with a terrifying series of civilian massacres beginning to unfold. It was widely believed such attacks were partly in revenge for the formation of the vigilante groups and for residents' cooperation with them in reporting insurgents' movements. Two attacks on schools in June saw gunmen shoot dead 16 students and 2 teachers.
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They were similar to an attack the previous March in Maiduguri at the Sanda Kyarimi Senior Secondary School. Months later, a security guard walked the school grounds at Sanda Kyarimi with me and explained how it occurred.

According to the security guard, 35-year-old Ahmed Jidda, he and the school disciplinarian were at the school's front gate on a Monday morning trying to usher in stragglers who were arriving late when two people with AK-47s forced their way in and began shooting sporadically. He said the attackers looked like teenagers, guessing they were between 15 and 18 years old. They were not wearing masks. They made their way across the large open yard ringed by single-storey buildings housing classrooms on the school grounds, at one point throwing a homemade bomb that did not
explode. Students and teachers panicked, taking cover or running to find a way out, as the attackers continued to fire their weapons. At one classroom, they shot inside at a teacher, killing him. Jidda showed me the classroom, and on the day I visited there were lessons on the English alphabet written neatly on the blackboard, with classes having since resumed at the school after a temporary closure. Jidda said he had managed to climb over a part of the wall surrounding the school, then run to a nearby military outpost to alert the soldiers. By then it was too late. The gunmen left after their brief flurry of violence. Besides the teacher they killed, four girls who were students were wounded, one of whom later died.

By July 2013, Nigerians had seen several such school attacks, but one that would occur in the town of Mamudo in Yobe state would lead to widespread disgust. The attackers stormed a secondary boarding school in the town, opening fire and throwing explosives inside a dormitory, burning students to death. A total of 42 people were killed, mostly students. President Jonathan's spokesman would break from the usual condemnations and promises of action, saying those responsible ‘will certainly go to hell'.
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It began to seem that nothing was off limits to the attackers any more. As if to prove the point, the following month in the town of Konduga, gunmen stormed a mosque and killed 44 people.
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That, too, was thought to be revenge for the actions of the vigilante groups.

Up to that point, the deadliest of the so-called revenge attacks would occur in an area known as Benisheik, a town on the road between Maiduguri and the city of Damaturu. On 17 September 2013, a group of insurgents dressed as soldiers, well-armed with AK-47s, homemade bombs and other weapons, stopped cars and buses, singled out residents of Borno state and shot them dead. They burned vehicles and set buildings on fire in the area. The military was slow to arrive – possibly because of the lack of a phone network, possibly for more ominous reasons, such as a reluctance to confront the killers. When soldiers did show up, according to
some reports, they were overpowered and ran out of ammunition trying to fight the attackers.

When it was finally all over, bodies were strewn across the road. Travellers along the same route in the days that followed reported seeing surreal scenes as they passed through, their horrifying descriptions almost too gory to be believed, the capacity to inflict so much violence and death in such a cold, calculated manner hard to comprehend. State workers said they had counted at least 142 bodies.
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Some of those apparently ended up at the Borno State Specialist Hospital in Maiduguri, among the bodies dumped on the ground at the back of the sprawling complex outside the morgue. This is where I stood about three weeks after the attack, covering my nose with my shirt to block the intense odour of rotting human flesh.

The hospital had been known for its overcrowded morgue. Neighbours had reportedly complained about the smell. Even before the start of the military offensive in May 2013, there were reports of sometimes dozens of corpses arriving daily, feeding fears that the military was simply resorting to extrajudicial executions for those suspected of being Boko Haram members, though such accusations have always been strongly denied by the security forces.
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As I followed the covered concrete walkway back to where the morgue was located, a security guard with choppy English who saw me looking at the bodies on the ground said, ‘Boko Harams', seeming to indicate they were dead insurgents. When I asked whether they were Boko Haram members, she seemed to say yes, but it was not clear if she understood my question. A medical worker then appeared from a nearby ward and began to speak to me calmly in English as we stood on the sidewalk near the bodies. We eventually moved slightly further away, since the smell was so strong. She told me that the bodies were in fact those of civilians killed in Benisheik and brought here, either by soldiers or by residents. After we spoke a few minutes more, I thanked her, then made my way back to the front of the hospital grounds, where a colleague I was working with waited.

Later that day as I reflected on what I had seen, I began to think that I needed to return. I had admittedly not moved off the sidewalk into the dirt to get a closer look at the bodies. From where I stood, I could not tell what types of wounds had been inflicted on them. I had been reluctant for a combination of reasons, including the smell, the fear of being kicked off the property or even arrested, not to mention the disturbing thought of walking between scattered corpses and studying them up close. I had not been able to speak with morgue attendants, either, since no one was there. As awful as it may be, I had to at least attempt to find out how these people died.

The next morning, a Saturday, our first stop was back at the hospital. My Nigerian colleague who was helping out as my guide and translator during my stay in Maiduguri parked his car out front and said he would wait there, unwilling to participate in the gruesome task ahead. I understood, of course, and began walking straight back toward the morgue, not wanting to waste any time and hoping not to be stopped. As the morgue came within view, I could make out some of the bodies, still lying on the ground, and I pushed on reluctantly towards them. I would not, however, get much further. A yell – ‘hey!' – punctured the air and I knew it was for me. At first I tried to ignore it and keep walking, but I heard it again a couple seconds later and decided I should turn and see who it was. As I spun around, I saw a guard holding his rifle – a soldier not in full uniform, I believe – angrily yelling at me to stop as he moved toward me. I now had no choice.

I had learned through experience in such situations that it is best to seek to defuse the tension rather than appear confrontational, and I tried to do just that. When the guard, a young man who actually appeared more nervous than angry when we met face to face, asked me where I was going, I told him in a conciliatory voice that I was a journalist and wanted to speak with the morgue workers. When he asked why, I said that I was hoping to get information about what happened in Benisheik. The explanation
was reasonably truthful, as I had been told that the bodies were from there and I did want to speak with morgue workers, though I was of course also wondering if some of the dead had been killed by the military. He relaxed almost instantly, possibly because it was the insurgents who were accused of horrific acts in Benisheik and not the military, then told me calmly that the morgue attendants were not there today. As we spoke, however, a middle-aged man in civilian clothes approached with a stern look, unhappy about my presence. He too asked me what I was doing, then told me I had to leave. He said I was not allowed to simply show up at the hospital and wander around. ‘Can you do that in your own country?', he asked. He said that if I wanted any information, I had to speak with the state commissioner of health. I asked whether there was anyone at the hospital I could speak with, and he said no. Out of options, I turned and walked back to the car.
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