Forced Labour, Child Marriage: Inside Boko Haram camps in Niger State

From a small group of fighters that first showed their faces observing Eid prayers in a propaganda video around 2020 in Niger State, north-central Nigeria, Jama’tu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS), otherwise known as Boko Haram, has now expanded significantly in the state under the leadership of Mallam Sadiku, with four camps operating closely in the fringes of Alawa forest reserve. These camps are notorious for heinous crimes, including forced labour, child marriages and other atrocities, insiders, including minors conscripted into the group, told PREMIUM TIMES.

Mr Sadiku, a Fulani JAS commander, was sent to the North-west by late Abubakar Shekau to raise money for JAS through kidnappings and cattle rustling, according to Jihadi researchers like Vincent Foucher, Malik Samuel, James Barnett and Murtala Ahmed-Rufa’i.

These experts stated in their different research works that Mr Sadiku achieved the Boko Haram fund-raising scheme by collaborating with non-ideological bandit groups led by kingpins such as Dogo Gide and his late ally, Ali Kawaje. Even though this partnership often ended in supremacy fights, PREMIUM TIMES understands that it is made possible by Boko Haram’s justification of violent raids on local communities to raise funds.

Such a justification and disagreement over who should be considered a ‘kufar ‘ (an apostate) led to a schism that created the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in 2016. Five years after the breakaway, ISWAP, under the leadership of Abu Musab al-Barnawi, encircled Mr Shekau in his Sambisa stronghold, causing him to reportedly kill himself to avoid being captured alive.

From North-west to North-central

Sadiku-led Boko Haram enclaves inside Alawa forest / Credit: Yakubu Mohammed.

The earliest intelligence reports showed Mr Sadiku was based in the Rijana forest in Chikun LGA of Kaduna State. He finally moved to neighbouring Shiroro LGA in Niger State, where he built a world for his gang in the thick Alawa forest.

Born Adamu Yunusa, according to a 2021 memo by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC), Mr Sadiku, who had a link with the Darul Salam terror group in north-central Nigeria, at a point started preaching to recruit more Gbagyi natives in Shiroro and parts of Kaduna near Kaure where the group hoisted its flag.

The Sadiku group also forcefully married some girls from villages like Kurebe and its environs, although some villagers argued that the girls were enticed with “money and gifts.”

“They first arrived in Kurebe on a market day in 2020, preaching to our children to abandon our ways of worship and embrace theirs,” Alhaji Haruna, a traditional leader in Kurebe, told PREMIUM TIMES “They continued doing this, and they started winning hearts.”

At least two minor boys from Kurebe were conscripted into the Sadiku-led Boko Haram ranks. Even though the community reported the matter to the government, the group flourished, taking advantage of the weak security situation in the area.

Kurebe later turned into a battleground where locals were trapped between terrorists and security forces. For instance, in 2022, the Nigerian Air Force, while targeting terrorists, killed at least 14 villagers, including minors and a woman. The operations in April and August 2022 were targeted at the terrorists but killed civilians. Subsequently, many residents fled the village to various cities. But some returned home after facing hardship as displaced persons.

Inside Sadiku’s camps

The terrorists, with the girls they called their wives and other non-combatants, live inside makeshift tents covered with zinc. They are spread across four camps in a trekable distance around Kugu, Maganda and Dogon Fili in the innermost part of the Alawa forest reserve, linking other terror-ravaged forest reserves in Kaduna and Zamfara. Inside these camps, there are Islamiya (traditional Islamic schools), where radical teachings are taught.

Life inside Sadiku-controlled camps is terrible. If they are not dodging bombs from military aircraft, they are fleeing attacks from rival groups.

A screenshot of Boko Haram fighters under the leadership of Mr Sadiku observing their Eid prayers in Niger State in 2020 / Credit: Bulama Bukarti

“The last military air raid killed five people,” a former recruit of Mr Sadiku, who recently repented and is now undergoing rehabilitation in a military facility in Kaduna, told PREMIUM TIMES.

The ex-recruit said the last raid caught the group off guard.

“There is one man that is usually stationed on a tree far away from the camps,” he revealed. “That man would always use his over-over [walkie-talkie] phone to inform his camp colleagues whenever a military aircraft approached, and we would take cover deep inside the forest. But I don’t know what happened that day the military struck.”

Child marriage, child labour, prison

At least five girls from Kurebe village alone were coerced into early marriage by Mr Sadiku’s men.

These girls — Azeema, Zainab, Mary, Azeema and Khadija — were married to Mr Sadiku’s commanders.

Zainab was the first to be married to one of the terrorists in 2021. She was 17 at the time. Subsequently, the other girls aged between 15 and 18 followed in her footsteps.

While she married Muhammad Kabeer, one of Mr Sadiku’s top five commanders, Mary married Ismail while Azeema married Malam Shafi’i. The other Azeema got married to one Suleiman and Khadijah to Umar.

Mr Sadiku’s other top four commanders are Umar Taraba, Alhaji Idris, Baba Saidu, and Ali Mai Doki.

While the girls, now women, were treated as sex slaves, their male counterparts ran errands for the terrorists. Whenever the boys got on the nerves of their commanders, they spent some days in ‘prison’ until their service was needed again. In an exclusive report coming after this, PREMIUM TIMES will tell the story of two brothers who served as slaves after they were forcefully recruited by the group.

Atrocities in North-central

Since it relocated to Niger State, the Sadiku-led Boko Haram faction has, in collaboration with bandit groups and Ansaru, an al-Qaeda franchise in Nigeria, staged attacks that made headlines, including the 28 March 2022 Abuja-bound train attack that resulted in the killing of eight passengers and abduction of 62 others.

Three months later, the group, according to experts with direct knowledge of its operation, took part in the Kuje prison attack that freed scores of high-profile terrorists, including those affiliated with ISWAP.

Last December, the group ambushed an NSCDC convoy between Niger and Kaduna states, killing two officers and injuring a Chinese man. Although the group did not claim responsibility for the attack, members who recently left the camp told PREMIUM TIMES, “Sadiku was responsible.”

In the last year, Mr Sadiku’s group also killed about 12 people, including two military operatives, in seven IED attacks on rural roads around Bassa, a village near their Alawa forest hideout. These incidents also injured about 13 people, including nine soldiers.

Between February and December 2024, there were at least six IED attacks. One of the incidents killed two soldiers newly deployed to Alawa town. The incident led to the withdrawal of military personnel from the garrison town.

The withdrawal, in turn, scared locals to flee their homes — they are now taking refuge in Erena, another garrison town facing an excruciating humanitarian crisis.

Apart from the military offensive against the group and other terrorists ravaging Niger State, the state government seems to be at a loss about what to do to end the campaign of terror in those ungoverned spaces.

“Government and security agencies are aware and on top of the situation,” the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Niger State Homeland Security, Aminu Aliyu, said when PREMIUM TIMES shared its findings with him.

Asked about what the government is doing apart from the military offensive, Mr Aliyu refused to comment further.