Hundreds of jihadists have settled over the past year in Kaure and other remote communities in Niger state in Nigeria, according to displaced residents and local government officials. They began to arrive in November 2020, hoisting flags and declaring the communities under their control.

“They said this is what will happen to anyone that tries to stop them,” Pada said from a classroom in the Central primary school in Gwada, where he, his family and about 400 others displaced by violence now live. “Everyone was made to watch it but no one was allowed to react at all or they would face the same fate as the vigilantes,” the 45-year-old said. “Then they sprayed them with bullets.”

Fighters from competing Islamist terror groups linked to Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province have gained a foothold across Niger state by easily displacing an often feeble government or security presence. The development has caused increasing concern in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, just over three hours by road from towns and villages where jihadist flags fly and other armed groups have settled.

Residents and local officials have for years and with growing desperation raised the alarm about the domination of armed groups – called bandits – in much of Niger state. The arrival of jihadists in this often ungoverned space has made the situation more complicated, and even more dangerous.

Many of the jihadists arrived from Nigeria’s north-east, where they were engaged in fighting with the Nigerian army. They have found a haven in and around the same mineral-rich forests of the north-west that provided a fertile breeding ground for bandit gangs.

The militants in Niger state have terrorised communities by carrying out public executions, abducting young girls to be “wives”, forcibly recruiting young boys to be child soldiers, and decreeing that state schools close. Alarmed officials in the state have pleaded for military reinforcements. They say their warnings are being acknowledged at the federal level but go largely unheeded.

“The problem is that insecurity is everywhere in the country,” said Suleiman Chukuba, the chairman of the Shiroro local government area. From his office in the state capital, Minna, he explained how Shiroro, one of the worst-affected areas in Niger state, had been left without adequate help. “We really need more manpower in the army, and better weapons,” Chukuba said, echoing sentiments expressed across the country that areas suffering violence have been abandoned by the central government.

Swathes of Niger state were already being subjected to what was in effect an insurgency waged by heavily armed bandit gangs before the jihadists turned up. The bandit gangs are made up of various ethnic groups, but dominated by mostly young ethnic Fulanis. Many of the Fulani armed groups have emerged from historic and complex conflicts over land between largely Fulani herders and farmers from other ethnic groups. In recent years these conflicts have worsened dramatically, killing thousands and becoming the most pronounced of the many security threats facing Nigeria.

The bandit groups have overpowered local police and army units, killing civilians and prolifically carrying out kidnaps for ransom – especially targeting school students – from the dense forests that span north-west Nigeria and stretch into the Sahel. The ransom money has bolstered the bandits’ capabilities, said Chukuba. “They have general purpose machine guns, they have AK47s, they have ammunition,” he said. “They are at times better armed than the army.”

The bandit crisis created a vacuum of governance and security into which the jihadists have stepped. Twelve of Shiroro’s 15 wards have been overrun by armed groups, and jihadists are thought to be at large in at least five. Other local government areas in Niger state such as Rafi have been similarly affected.

“Two weeks ago they [jihadists] went to Korebe,” Chukuba said of a ward in Shiroro. “They saw a girl less than 14 and they kidnapped her and took her to their camp in the forest. Then they came back to the parents, to the father, with their arms, and they said, ‘we want to marry her and we’re here to pay the dowry.’”

In another incident, a seven-year-old boy was taken. “Again they went back to the parents and said, ‘don’t worry the boy is with us. We’re going to teach him the Islamic way of living’,” Chukuba said. “It’s a very desperate situation. They ‘[the jihadists] come to you and tell you ‘we have your child and they’re carrying weapons’. People are living in a state of fear.” Chukuba said 70% of Shiroro’s school are no longer operational either because of kidnappings by bandit groups or decrees from jihadists forbidding education.

In some areas the jihadists are positioning themselves to locals as being able to offer a more reliable protection from banditry than the government. “What we’re seeing is them coming in and preaching to people that they are on their side,” Chukuba said.

But in others, the jihadist and bandit causes have aligned. Gambo Isiaku, the headteacher of the Central primary school in Gwada, said school kidnappings were increasingly an area where alliances were being formed. “The bandits get what they want which is ransom money and so they kidnap the children, while Boko Haram get what they want which is an end to western education.” As the insecurity worsens, accounts of acts of terror have multiplied.

According to Isiaku, people across Shiroro have reported armed groups and jihadists committing mass rapes of women and girls in front of their families. “It’s so bad, it’s hard to even imagine,” he said.

In a briefing to journalists last week, a secretary to the Niger state governor said jihadists were setting up a caliphate in the state, and lamented that there were just 8,000 police officers trying to protect the state’s population of roughly 4 million people.

In recent days the army has told people in several communities in Shiroro and other areas in Niger state to leave their homes before a possible impending military offensive. Yet in a largely impoverished state, where many people rely on their farmland for food and income, leaving means abandoning livelihoods.

Pada now does odd manual labour jobs in the area close to the school to make ends meet. He was born and grew up in Kaure, but cannot return, he said. “We want to go back home but we don’t have a choice.” Chukuba described Shiroro as a peaceful place before the violence that has reshaped it.

A day after explaining what had befallen residents in his jurisdiction, he learned his brother and other members of his family has been abducted by a bandit group. “They recently told all those living in the town to leave, but he was staying there because he didn’t want to abandon our farm,” he said over the telephone. “Inshallah [God willing], we will be able to rescue them.”

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It went on to add that “the rise in power of these terrorist groups… is largely due to their co-operation with other terrorist entities operating outside the country”. Contacted by the BBC, Cameroonian defence forces spokesperson Col Cyrille Atonfack Nguemo did not specify which foreign groups were allegedly working with the Anglophone separatists, who say they face discrimination in the country dominated by French-speakers.

It is therefore unclear whether the military believes it is one or several armed groups, and also where they are located. But the separatist Ambazonia Defense Forces (ADF) has confirmed an alliance with the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob), an ethnic Igbo group waging a sometimes violent campaign for autonomy in south-eastern Nigeria, some of which lies just 150km (90 miles) from the border with Cameroon’s English-speaking regions.

A video posted on the ADF Facebook page earlier this year shows Cho Ayaba, the leader of the Ambazonia Governing Council – one of the two main English-speaking separatist groups, and Ipob leader Nnamdi Kanu announcing a “strategic and military” alliance.

Both separatist leaders explained that the two groups would “work to secure their common border and ensure an open exchange of arms, intelligence and personnel”. Analysts are divided. “For the moment, the contribution of this alliance on the ground in the Anglophone zone is not yet clear,” says Elvis Arrey, senior analyst for Cameroon at the research group International Crisis Group (ICG).

However, Raoul Sumo Tayo, a historian and security analyst in the region, says it should not be downplayed, as it offers both groups rear bases where they can retreat, beyond the reach of their respective countries’ armed forces.
This is especially significant in Cameroon, where he said the “army was practically absent [from the areas hit by conflict] before the insurgency and therefore has extremely limited knowledge of the area”.

The two countries have previously discussed giving each other’s security forces the right to cross the border, especially when chasing members of the Boko Haram Islamist militant group further north, but a deal was never reached.

The Cameroon authorities have not gone into much detail about what kind of weapons they say are being used, beyond briefly referring to anti-tank missiles and rocket launchers. Some actually come from attacks on the defence and security forces, says the ICG’s Mr Arrey. “Other weapons come from Nigeria,” he adds. According to Mr Tayo, even “before the crisis in the Anglophone regions, the Niger Delta area was an important hub for arms trafficking in the sub-region”.

Culled from BBC

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Victory Yinka-Banjo, a 17-year-old high school graduate, was offered more than $5 million dollars’ worth of scholarship money for an undergraduate program of study, according to admission documents and estimates of financial aid awards.

“It still feels pretty unbelievable. I applied to so many schools because I didn’t even think any school would accept me,” Victory told CNN, relishing her academic prowess.

Born to Nigerian parents, Chika Yinka-Banjo, a senior lecturer at the University of Lagos, and Adeyinka Banjo, a private sector procurement and supply chain executive, Victory was given potential full scholarships from the Ivy League schools, Yale College, Princeton University, Harvard College, and Brown University.

Other US scholarship offers included those from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Virginia.
In Canada, Victory was offered the Lester B. Pearson scholarship from the University of Toronto and the Karen McKellin International Leader of Tomorrow (KMILOT) scholarship from the University of British Columbia.

“Their admissions processes are extremely selective,” Victory added. “They only accept the best of the best. So, you can imagine how, on a daily basis, I have to remind myself that I actually got into these schools. It is surreal!”

A senior prefect during her time in high school, Victory rose to national prominence in late 2020 after she scored straight As in her West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
Months earlier, the Nigerian teen had been rated as the “Top in the World” in English as a second language (speaking endorsement) by the University of Cambridge International Examination (CIE). Victory aced the Cambridge IGCSE exam — acquiring A* in all six subjects she sat for.

Victory told CNN her remarkable achievements are borne out of hard work. “They have made me truly feel proud about the hard work I have put into several areas of my life over the years. I am slowly beginning to realize that I deserve them,” she said.

The teenager remarked that her multiple scholarship offers “have made me stand taller, smile wider, and pat myself on the back more often.” Victory said she hopes to study Computational Biology. However, she is still weighing up her options on which school to choose, having been wooed by many prestigious institutions.

“I am still doing research on some schools that are at the top of my list, like Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Duke, Johns Hopkins, and just trying to compare and contrast all of them thoroughly,” she told CNN.

Victory’s mother, Chika, says her daughter’s story could inspire other young Nigerians. A 26-year-old is first woman to win Royal Academy of Engineering's Africa Prize for innovation.A 26-year-old is first woman to win Royal Academy of Engineering’s Africa Prize for innovation.

“It is noteworthy that she is not one of the Nigerian-Americans who often get into these schools because of their advantage of being born and bred in the US. She completed her secondary school here [in Nigeria]. It would be great if her story can be used to inspire the youths of our country,” she told CNN.
Victory credits her academic success story to faith, parental guidance and discipline. She currently spends some of her free time tutoring other university admission seekers — through the radio — on key subjects such as math, English language, biology, chemistry and physics.

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The TCN wheels power from generation infrastructure to distribution companies.Few days after announcing last week that the Nigerian power sector recorded an all-time transmission peak of 5.459MW, the TCN yesterday said a new national peak generation of 5,520.40MW was recorded on Friday, October 30, 2020, at about 9.15 pm. Usually, transmitted electricity is volatile and could either go up or down depending on the stability of infrastructure.

For a company, which had promised to boost transmission capacity to 20,000WM by 2020, stakeholders in the industry have decried the dismal performance of the sector, insisting the sector is far from projected goals. The World Bank is currently financing the Nigeria Electricity Transmission Access Project (NETAP) at the cost of $486 million. The project started with advanced procurement in 2017 and was approved by the board of the World Bank in February 2018.

The Abuja Transmission Ring Scheme is also being financed by the French Development Agency at the cost of $170 million. Lagos/Ogun Transmission Project is being financed by the Japanese International Corporation Agency (JICA) at $200 million. Northern Corridor Transmission Project is also being financed by the French Development Agency and European Union (EU) at $245 million. Nigeria Transmission Expansion project will be financed by the AfDB at $410 million.

Under the 2014 budget, about 62.4 billion was allocated to the power sector. Most of the fund was staked on the transmission to guarantee the success of privatisation. In 2015, about N8.8 billion was voted for the power sector, In 2017, N169.42 billion was voted for the power sector while about 129 billion was voted in 2020. The bulk of the fund was spent on power infrastructure.

TCN manages the electricity transmission network in the country, being one of the 18 companies that were unbundled from the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) in April 2004, the company was incorporated in November 2005 and issued a transmission license on July 1, 2006, as the only government entity positioned as a critical arm of the electricity market.

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), once, said that the total transmission wheeling capacity of TCN was 7,500MW, with over 20,000km of transmission lines. But the commission lamented that at an average of about 7.4 per cent, the transmission losses across the network were high, compared to emerging countries’ benchmarks of between two and six per cent. The Guardian found that most of the donor-funded projects have been disbursed in part.

“The new national peak is a result of continued collaboration among players and the gradual increase in capacity in the power sector. On her part, with the current capacity of 8,100MW, TCN seamlessly transmitted, the new peak at a frequency of 50.11Hz through the nation’s grid,” General Manager, TCN Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, had said in a release last week.

She did not immediately respond to The Guardian’s questions on the dismal outlook of the transmission capacity. The telephone call was dropped in the cause of questioning and could not be activated afterward, as her telephone line became unreachable. There was also no response to text messages sent to her on the subject before filing the report last night.

A source, who is conversant with recent events in the sector, noted that most of the resources allocated to power were hardly released by the Federal Government. The source also noted that it had been difficult for the government to release its counterpart funding to back funds from donors and development organisations, stressing that unless a deliberate attempt was made, the sector would remain a shadow of itself.

Although Minister of Power, Sale Mamman, had said power generation in the country stood at about 13,000MW, with the peak national transmission, the implication is that much of the generated electricity will remain stranded, as only 5,520 gets to consumers.

PricewaterhouseCoopers’s Associate Director, Energy, Utilities, and Resources, Habeeb Jaiyeola, noted that transmission and distribution networks remained the weakest link in the power sector, adding that there was no reason to celebrate a dismal performance. Jaiyeola, who noted that improvement in transmission infrastructure should be a welcome development, insisted that there was a need to overhaul the transmission infrastructure.

“No celebration yet. More overhauling is needed for the transmission infrastructure. There is a loss in the transmission lines. Much of the power being generated is currently stranded; there is, therefore, a lot of work to do.’’

Mineral/Energy Resource economist and former president of the Nigerian Association for Energy Economists (NAEE), Wunmi Iledare, noted that the sector had performed below expectations in the last seven years, adding that it was illogical for the country to generate 13,000mw and wheel only about 5,500mw.

According to him, the difference between where the sector was before privatization (in terms of energy access) is marginal in positive terms. “So, one can infer that the 2005 Act has not delivered as intended, and requires rethinking. I am not suggesting bringing an end to privatization, but governance and decentralisation of the power sector,” he stated.

Iledare noted that, while per capita economic growth is symmetrical to per capita energy consumption, the case when rising generating capacity is running at a far slower pace than available capacity remained illogical.Convener of PowerUp Nigeria, Adegbemle Adetayo, noted it was shameful to celebrate the current output in grid performance.

He added that the sector had had more miss than hits in the last seven years. According to him, there is a need for a more robust institutional regulatory oversight and focus on an independent regulatory commission as well as regulatory compliance while enforcement of regulation needs to be improved.

Executive Secretary, Association of the Power Generation Companies, Joy Ogaji, noted that, irrespective of the turbulence of the Sector, the GenCos had, in addition to acquisition funds of $1 billion, invested over N1 trillion in capacity recovery, thereby increasing available generation capacity.

According to her, over a period of seven years, GenCos’ available generation capacity went from 3,427.50MW pre-privatisation to 8,120MW as of September 2020. “This signifies a 136.91 per cent increment in generation capacity; unfortunately, this has not translated to an increase in power supply due to the bottlenecks along the transmission and distribution value chain.

“A scenario where average generation only increased by 24 per cent (766.49MW) over a period of seven years, despite a 136.91 per cent increase in available capacity, has failed to translate to the expected sustainable economic development.’’ Ogaji said GenCos were plagued by the inability to raise necessary funds for operations. She added that payment of Value Added Tax (VAT) on gas was not factored into the tariff order.

Ogaji added that inability to service outstanding loans, most of which were obtained from commercial banks and which now appear on bank balance sheets as non-performing loans (NPLs), inability to pay for contracted gas, which has resulted in shutting down gas supplies to certain power plants, poor investor confidence as well as the inability to expand capacities were some of the critical challenges limiting generation companies.

Culled from Guardian

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Dear Sir,

PROTEST OVER YOUR ILLEGAL ORDER TO SOUTH-WEST GOVERNORS

I find it disturbing your statement on Tuesday January 14, 2020 declaring the security initiative of South West governors ‘Amotekun’ is illegal. You also threatened that the full course of the law will be applied to anybody promoting the Amotekun security initiative.

May be you have forgotten. I need to remind you that you are the Attorney-General of the country, not a section of the country. So, your outburst against the governors who were elected, not selected or appointed, is against the spirit of the 1999 Constituted (as amended).

The right to life is universal and no government can legislate against that. I don’t need to bother you about killings, kidnappings, banditry and other criminal vices in the South-West recently.

Even Mrs. Funke Olakunrin, the daughter of Yoruba leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti, was killed and nobody has been arrested in respect of all these killings. One thing is clear: Nigerians have the right to protect themselves. Not only that: South-West people have a right to protect and defend themselves against attacks.

Amotekun is an initiative by the South-West governors to defend our people. Where you are getting it wrong is this: The Amotekun initiative has nothing to do with the territorial integrity of Nigeria. If there is a breach of the territorial integrity of the country, the military will come in immediately.

So, nobody is rising against Nigeria, as your letter to the governors, directly or indirectly, implied.
What is happening is that our people no longer feel safe because the land has been invaded by some elements from within and outside the country.

It is unfortunate that rather than praise the governors, you are condemning their action, thereby strengthening the hands of those who believe the Federal Government is against some sections of the country. As a lawyer and a Senior Advocate, you should know that you are not the law. You are only the Attorney-General, not a court.

It is only a court of competent jurisdiction that will decide if what an individual, group of individuals, an entity or a state does is legal or otherwise. So, it is only a court that can invalidate the South-West joint security initiative, not you.

I want to establish this fact that the Yoruba have a right to protect themselves from attack or violence of any sort.” Issues of security is highly sensitive, and we can now understand where the threat is coming from. It is unfortunate that the FG is doing everything to frustrate the southwest governors’ efforts.

For instance, last Wednesday, that was less than 24-hours before the launching of Amotekun in Ibadan, the Presidency summoned the southwest governors to Aso rock. We knew about the intrigues that played out at the meeting. We knew about the frustrations at Aso rock, but the governors, having realised the implications of playing politics with the lives of their people, stood their ground and went ahead to launch the security outfit as planned”

So, it is your position on this volatile situation that is illegal, unlawful, immoral and of no effect because your declaration has proved some critics right that some states in the country are deliberately left vulnerable to attacks by criminals. I want to state that the right to life cannot be in the exclusive list of any serious government.

I call on Governors Babajide Sanwo-Olu (Lagos), Dapo Abiodun (Ogun), Seyi Makinde (Oyo), Gboyega Oyetola (Osun), Rotimi Akeredolu (Ondo) and Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti) to ignore your position on this matter.

Why do people employ guards in their houses? For security. Why do Community Development Associations (CDAs) employ guards to secure streets and areas? To ensure protection of lives and property. Is that initiative in the exclusive list of the constitution? No. I repeat that the right to preserve and protect your life can never be in the exclusive list of any government.

I am aware of similar security outfits in other sections of the country. Why you are against the protection of the lives and properties of Yoruba people defies logic. This week is the 50th anniversary of the end of the civil war. We should do everything to avoid plunging the country into another war.
Mr. Malami, please don’t set a bad precedence.

Iba Gani Abiodun Ige Adams
15th Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland.

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He later went to the University of Lagos where he enrolled as a postgraduate student for a Law degree and specialized in the Law of Secured Credit, Comparative Company Law and International Economic Law.
Mr. Adeyemi Razack (Yemi) Adeola has served as Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Executive Director of STERLING BANK PLC since December 2007. a role he has held since December 2007. He has over 25 years of experience spanning banking and finance, law, corporate consulting and academia.

Mr Adeola commenced his banking career with Citibank in 1988 serving as Chief Legal Counsel & Company Secretary; later as Executive Director, Public Sector & Infrastructure Banking; and subsequently the Commercial Banking Segment.

He left Citibank in 2003 to pursue the turnaround project of Trust Bank of Africa Limited (TBA), serving as the Deputy Managing Director between 2003 and 2005. Upon the consolidation of TBA into Sterling Bank in December 2005, Mr Adeola assumed the role of Executive Director, Corporate and Commercial Banking and remained in that capacity until December 2007 when he was appointed as Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Bank till 2018.

Mr Adeola is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria and has undertaken senior management/ executive education programs covering various business areas, He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School, Stanford Business School, Said Business School of the University of Oxford, and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

He is a John F. Kennedy Scholar. He is Member of the Board Credit Committee, Member of the Board Finance and General Purpose Committee, Member of the Board Governance and Nominations Committee, and Member of the Board Risk Management Committee of the Company.

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It was the second such school in less than a month to be raided by police, after hundreds were freed from similarly degrading conditions in neighbouring Kaduna state. The 67 inmates who were freed by Katsina police were shackled in chains, and many were taken to hospital for treatment, police superintendent Isah Gambo told Reuters.

“I tell you they were in very bad condition when we met them,” Gambo said. A freed captive told Reuters on Monday that the instructors beat, raped and even killed the men and boys held at the facility, who ranged from 7 to 40 years of age. While the institution told parents it was an Islamic teaching centre that would help straighten out unruly and wayward family members, the instructors instead brutally abused them and took away any food or money sent by relatives.

Police said they had arrested the owner of the facility and two teachers, and were tracking other suspects.
The more than 200 captives who escaped were still missing, Gambo said. Police were working to reunite the others with family members. “The inmates are actually from different parts of the country – Kano, Taraba, Adamawa and Plateau States,” he said. “Some of them are not even Nigerians. They come from Niger, Chad and even Burkina Faso and other countries.”

Islamic schools, called Almajiris, are common in the mostly Muslim north of Nigeria. Muslim Rights Concern, a local organisation, estimates about 10 million children attend them.While Buhari said the government planned to ban the schools eventually, he has not yet commented on the Katsina school. After the Kaduna raid, the president called on traditional authorities to work with government to expose “unwanted cultural practices that amount to the abuse of children”.

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“They used car engine belts and electrical cables to flog us,” 15-year-old Suleiman told Reuters, staring at the floor. “Teachers used to sexually harass us … They tried to loosen my pants once but I fought them off and was beaten.” Horror stories are emerging about life in a two-storey house in Nigeria’s northern city of Kaduna as the authorities try to find families of the victims who often spent years at the site.

Police arrested seven adults in the raid on the building, which had a sign in Arabic at the entrance declaring itself “House of Imam Ahmad Bin Hanbal for the Application of Islamic Teachings”. Some parents paid fees, believing it was an Islamic school. Some described it as a good institution and dismissed talk of abuse. Others saw it as a correctional facility. Police and regional officials said it was not registered as either.

Despite mixed accounts about its role, the abuse reported by victims has thrown a spotlight on Nigeria’s struggle to provide enough school places for its rapidly expanding population, leaving a gap for unregulated institutions that poor parents sometimes turn to.

The West African nation’s population will swell from 190 million to 400 million by 2050, according to U.N. figures. Primary education is officially free but about 10.5 million Nigerian children aged five to 14 are not in school.
“Nigeria is facing a demographic tidal wave,” said Matthew Page, an associate fellow with the Africa Programme at Britain’s Royal Institute of International Affairs.

“The long-term viability of the Nigerian economy – and the state itself – hinges on the government, religious, and traditional institutions developing a plan to address this challenge before it becomes impossible to remedy,” he said. Prior to Thursday’s police raid, those who made it out of the Kaduna institution were sometimes returned by families. Some parents said they needed to discipline wayward children and others said they were too poor to look after all their kids.

Kaduna state government said there were at least 77 boys under 18 years old held there. The youngest was five.
Reuters spoke with seven victims and five parents of those who had been inside, withholding their full names to protect their privacy.

SHACKLED
All the victims said beatings were regular and said children and men were frequently shackled. Days were dark, long and hungry: food was only served at 10 a.m. and 11 p.m. Suleiman’s elder brother sent him to the institution five months ago for skipping school. He was signed up to board while he studied Arabic and Islam’s holy book, the Quran.

“They beat us everywhere in the house, even in the mosque. If you asked to speak with your family, they would shackle you,” said the 15-year-old, who showed sores, scabs and scars on back. When Suleiman and three friends were caught trying to steal some garri – a staple food made from cassava shavings – they were stripped and whipped, he said.

“When the police raided the school the whole place was in pandemonium, we were so happy,” he said. “What I want now is to return home. I’ll be a good boy.”Jibril, now 17 and who was hung up for trying to escape when he was 10, said boys faced a stark choice: submit to regular sexual assault or be beaten. Jibril chose beatings.

“The teachers and prefects raped boys. Those who were sexually molested were enticed with canned fish. Those of us who refused were caned,” he said, blaming a scar beside his left eye on a caning. “They used planks of wood to beat us.” He now struggles to raise his arms since his punishment for trying to escape. He was sent home for six months after that incident. His family returned him when he had healed.

Jibril and Suleiman are now in a safehouse on the edge of Kaduna while the authorities try to find their relatives. Their temporary home is filled with laughter as boys and teenagers, up to 17 years old, play together. Those adults who were freed are staying in a neighbouring building.

At the Kaduna institution, relatives were not allowed to see boys for three months after admission and had limited visiting rights after that, parents and children said. Punishment was swift for those who talked of any abuse, boys said. “If anyone tried to tell their family, they would be hung up from a wall or put in chains,” said 14-year-old Umar, whose grandfather sent him to the facility two years ago for skipping school.

SEXUAL ABUSE
About 40 police officers finally raided the building, acting on a complaint by an uncle who was denied access to his nephews. Police said they found several boys and men in chains. Reuters filmed victims in chains on Thursday after the raid. Some boys said they were shackled to broken power generators, which they dragged around, including to bed or the bathroom.

Police said they expected to charge seven people, who they said ran the institution, over physical and sexual abuse allegations. Those arrested could not be reached for comment. The building lies in Rigasa, a rundown Muslim district of Kaduna, a city that, like Nigeria, is evenly split between Muslims and Christians. Reuters journalists who visited the labyrinthine building saw wheels and generators attached to metal chains. Floors were strewn with litter and stained sponge mattresses. Flies swarmed.

Children begged in the traffic on the streets outside. Islamic schools, known as Almajiris, are common across the mostly Muslim north of Nigeria. Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), a local organisation, estimates about 10 million children attend Islamic schools in the north.

President Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim, has sought to encourage school attendance, with programmes that include one offering free school meals that the government says reaches 9.8 million children in 32 of Nigeria’s 36 states.
But Nigeria, an oil producing state whose finances by the government’s admission have been drained by corruption, only spends 0.5% of gross domestic product on health and 1.7% on education, among the lowest worldwide, the International Monetary Fund said.

With few options, some parents defended the Kaduna institution, which charged fees of 35,000 naira ($114) a term.
“There is no problem in this school,” said a woman who only gave her name as Zainab, wearing a Muslim veil and speaking outside the locked gates. She said she had seven children at the institution where she cooked meals and had not seen any abuse.

Ahmed Balrabe, a tailor who lives next to the site, said two of his children attended the school and he had never encountered any abuse. “It was good for them, they became calm,” he said. “They showed them how to read the Quran. I liked it.”

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She dreamed of being a fashion designer but now sews synthetic tracksuits in a shabby workshop in Benin City, southern Nigeria, for 15,000 naira a month ($41.50, 38 euros). “After transport, the money is almost finished”, she says. Still, she adds quickly, she “thanks God for having a job”.

Her employment is part of a training programme, set up by southern Edo State, the departure point for most Nigerian migrants. Gloria is one of nearly 14,000 young Nigerians to have returned from Libya since 2017 under a United Nations voluntary repatriation programme.

She and the other returnees quoted in this story asked not to be identified by their real names. She is “not asking for too much”, just a roof over her head and to be able to eat, Gloria tells AFP. But she blames herself for daring to dream that life could be better elsewhere and believing the smugglers’ promises that they would reach Europe within two weeks.

BROKE AND BROKEN

In Libya, prospects of crossing the Mediterranean vanished, after a tightening of European Union immigration policies. Many spend months, even years stranded in Libya, sold as slaves by their smugglers. But once back home in Nigeria, life is even more difficult than before: saddled with debt, struggling to find work, broken by their treatment at the hands of the traffickers and by their failed dreams.

Human Rights Watch highlighted the “continuing anguish” that returnees face. Many suffer long-term mental and physical health problems as well as social stigma on returning to Nigeria, the report released last month said.
Government-run centres tasked with looking after them are poorly funded and “unable to meet survivors’ multiple needs for long-term comprehensive assistance”, it added.

Edo State has set up a support programme which is rare in Nigeria. The state hosts some 4,800 of the nearly 14,000 returnees — most aged 17 to 35 and with no diploma or formal qualifications. Under the scheme, they can travel for free to Benin City, Edo’s capital, stay two nights in a hotel, receive an hour of psychological support and an about 1,000-euro allowance. It barely moves the needle for those starting again but is enough to stoke envy in a country where state aid is scarce and 83 million people live in extreme poverty.

STIGMA

Showing potential students around, Ukinebo Dare, of the Edo Innovates vocational training programme, says many youngsters grumble that returnees get “preferential treatment”. In modern classrooms in Benin City, a few hundred students learn to “code”, do photography, start a small business and learn marketing in courses open to all.
“Classes are both for the youth and returnees, (be)cause we don’t want the stigma to affect them,” Dare said.

“It’s a priority for us to give youth, who are potential migrants, opportunities in jobs they can be interested in.” According to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics, 55 percent of the under-35s were unemployed at the end of last year. Tike had a low paying job before leaving Nigeria in February 2017 but since returning from Libya says his life is “more, more, more harder than before”.

Although he returned “physically” in December 2017 he says his “mindset was fully corrupted”. “I got paranoid. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t sleep, always looking out if there is any danger,” he said, at the tiny flat he shares with his girlfriend, also back from Libya, and their four-month-old daughter.

CRIME

A few months after returning, and with no psychological support, Tike decided to train to be a butcher. But, more than a year since he registered for help with reintegration programmes, including one run by the International Organization for Migration, he has not found a job and has no money to start his own business. “We, the youth, we have no job. What we have is cultism (occult gangs),” Tike says.

“People see it as a way of getting money, an excuse for getting into crime.”Since last year, when Nigeria was still in its longest economic recession in decades, crime has increased in the state of Edo, according to official data.
“Returnees are seen as people who are coming to cause problems in the community,” laments Lilian Garuba, of the Special Force against Illegal Migration. “They see them as failure, and not for what they are: victims.”

DEBT SPIRAL

Peter, 24, was arrested a few days after his return. His mother had borrowed money from a neighbourhood lender to raise the 1,000 euros needed to pay his smuggler. “As soon as he heard I was back, he came to see her. She couldn’t pay (the debt), so I was arrested by the police,” he told AFP, still shaking. Financially crippled, his mother had to borrow more money from another lender to pay off her debts.

Peter’s last trip was already his second attempt. “When I first came back from Libya, I thought I was going to try another country. I tried, but in Morocco it was even worse and thank God I was able to return to Nigeria,” he said, three weeks after getting back. “Now I have nothing, nothing,” he said, his voice breaking. “All I think about is ‘kill yourself’, but what would I gain from it? I can’t do that to my mother.”

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“Several of my comrades were buried in unmarked graves at night,” said a soldier from the Maimalari barracks, where more than 1,000 soldiers are based. “They are dying and being deleted from history.’’. The secret graveyard at Maimalari isn’t the only one in Nigeria’s troubled northeast, the senior government official said. The burials convey a picture at odds with a war Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, a former general, has repeatedly claimed his army has won. The reality is that Africa’s largest land force—a U.S. counterterrorism ally—is struggling against an insurgency that first flared a decade ago and is now rejuvenated by Islamic State and the return of fighters from Libya, Syria and Iraq.

The insurgents now control hundreds of square miles of territory across four countries around the Lake Chad basin, a crossroads of Africa where the U.S., U.K. and French militaries have bases or provide special-forces training. On Sunday, gunmen attacked a funeral on the outskirts of Maiduguri, killing at least 65 people, according to government officials. “This group is one of the most effective, if not the most effective Islamic State contingent at the moment,” said Site Intelligence, a terrorism-monitoring group. Nigeria’s government last summer stopped reporting the deaths of soldiers in its fight with Boko Haram insurgents and a splinter group that calls itself Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP. Mr. Buhari was re-elected in February after a security-focused campaign in which he repeated that the Islamist insurgencies in Nigeria had been “technically defeated.”

But the sprawling secret graveyard in Maiduguri and an official cemetery at the base, the operational command for the northeastern front in Borno State, now hold the bodies of at least 1,000 soldiers killed since the terror groups began an offensive last summer, according to soldiers and military officials—some of whom estimated a far higher death toll. The Nigerian military and the presidency didn’t respond to requests for comment on the war, casualties and the secret cemeteries. In November, Mercy Tamuno was told her husband, Adah, had been killed in an insurgent attack on an outpost in Cross Kauwa, a town about 100 miles north of Maiduguri.

When she demanded to see where he was buried, she was taken to the official cemetery at Maimalari, where graves are marked with plywood headstones. There she was led to a spot marked with a plastic bottle with her husband’s name written on it. “It was the only one marked in this way. I’m not sure it was his grave but that’s what the army told me,” Mrs. Tamuno said. Two soldiers from Lance Cpl. Tamuno’s unit said he had been buried days earlier in the secret graveyard. The plastic bottle was prepared to appease his wife, they said. “We know he was buried in the unmarked grave. There was no funeral,” one said.

As the secret cemetery at the Maimalari barracks grows, the military has expanded the site into neighboring fields. “The farmland has been fenced off so they can bury the forces,” said Sarah James, a 50-year-old farmer whose husband is a retired soldier. Official secrecy and a weak economy have left Nigerian soldiers poorly equipped to fight. Soldiers who would ordinarily rotate out every few months have been on active operations for years. Morale is collapsing and discipline beginning to fray, soldiers and the senior government official said.

Videos reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show Nigerian troops doling out gruesome punishments to suspected jihadists. The videos, which show dismemberment and killing of suspects, suggested the troops were suffering from trauma and needed human-rights training, said David Otto, director of security firm Global Risk International.
Units that have suffered casualties and declining morale aren’t in a position to attack, and are instead defending poorly constructed bases in exposed areas against an increasingly well-equipped enemy. “There is a systemic misrepresentation of the war that is having severe tactical and operational consequences,” said Chidi Nwaonu, a former soldier who now runs a security consulting firm, Vox Peccavi.

He said the bravery of troops was being undermined by poor decisions of senior commanders. “It’s part cock-up, part conspiracy,” he said. The rapid rise of the Nigerian Islamic State spinoff, known as ISWAP, begins a new chapter for the jihadist movement after its defeat in Syria and Iraq, Nigerian and Western officials said. The group has an estimated 5,000 fighters who have established themselves in the borderlands around Lake Chad, where they are enmeshing themselves into communities, controlling trade routes, taxing the fishing industry and imposing an extremist brand of Islamic justice.

Islamic State commanders advised them to focus attacks on security forces, in contrast to Boko Haram, which has deployed hundreds of suicide bombers and shot to prominence in 2014 by kidnapping 276 schoolgirls. ISWAP usually attacks at night, when Nigerian air power is less effective. President Trump has offered additional U.S. support for Nigeria’s military. U.S. experts are training Nigerian bomb squads and the U.S. in November awarded a $329 million contract to Sierra Nevada Corp. for 12 A-29 light attack aircraft for the Nigerian Air Force, with a completion target of 2024.

Western military officials say the Nigerian army is stretched so thin that its top brass are no longer talking seriously about defeating the insurgency, merely containing it. In a video released by Islamic State in June, insurgents pose in front of seized tanks, armored personnel carriers and naval vessels, and warn government forces to repent “before we catch you.” The video shows militants killing four Nigerian soldiers by firing squad and another by rocket-propelled grenade.

Soldiers are barred from speaking to the media and some unit commanders don’t report deaths to preserve their scant budget allocations, soldiers and diplomats said. But news is starting to leak out through social media. After an attack in November on the army base in Metele, perched on the border with Niger and Chad, a five-minute video circulated among soldiers showing the aftermath. Over images of smoldering tanks and armored vehicles, a narrator laments the quality of military equipment the base was given.

“See the weapons they bring here. These are not working,” he says. “No less than 100-plus soldiers died here. Many are missing in action, they are nowhere to be found.” Nigeria’s military initially refused to comment on the attack. After questions from the senate, the military said 23 soldiers had been killed. It said false casualty figures and the sharing of inaccurate videos were boosting the “propaganda intent of the terrorists.”

When Timothy Olanrewaju, a journalist based in Maiduguri, couldn’t reach his brother, Sgt. Samuel Olanrewaju, for four months, commanders repeatedly assured him that his brother was well, stationed in a sensitive combat zone. Mr. Olanrewaju learned of his brother’s fate when Islamic State published a video that showed his execution. Several hours later, he was still in shock, slumped on a mattress in his living room, struggling for words. “I couldn’t believe my eyes,” he said. “Why didn’t they tell me the truth?”.

The military’s secrecy about casualties is so widespread it is unclear whether Nigeria’s political leaders are aware of the state of the conflict. When President Buhari visited the Maiduguri base in November, commanders rushed to bury bodies that had collected at the morgue from the recent attack on the base in Metele and several others, according to several soldiers at the base. They moved the bodies from the morgue into the unmarked graves under cover of darkness.

“We could see the headlamps and the torches of the engineering division digging the graves,” said a soldier. As commanders prepared the base for the president’s arrival, they also drafted in additional medical staff to treat the dozens of wounded soldiers in the base’s hospital wards. The president arrived with a large group of reporters covering his re-election campaign. The former general had put security front and center. As Mr. Buhari delivered a rousing address to the soldiers, some tried to disrupt him to register complaints about their conditions. Mr. Buhari pledged to his audience to “do everything within my powers to continue empowering you“ and vowed to improve the welfare of soldiers. “Please maintain your loyalty to the country,” he said.

Culled from Wall Street Journal

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