Life in Borno State - Nigeria’s Fight Against Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province

Photos and text by Collin Mayfield. All images were taken in Borno State, Nigeria, in March 2023. 

Nigerian soldiers ride in an army technical - a light truck with a mounted machine gun. This technical is armed with a Soviet DShK.

Borno State, Nigeria, is the epicenter of the decades-long Islamist insurgency perpetrated by Boko Haram and its schismatic rival the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). The terror groups routinely attack civilians and the military. The fighting has killed at least 50,000 people and displaced millions. Periodic village massacres, executions, suicide bombings, and kidnappings occur. Both Jihadists and security forces have destroyed hundreds of villages.


I visited Maiduguri, Borno State in March of 2023. The week before my visit, Boko Haram slaughtered 30 villagers in nearby Mukdolo. Over the past year, dozens of civilians have been beheaded or otherwise killed just on Maiduguri’s outskirts - let alone all of Borno State. The violence steadily continues into 2024.


Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorize and extort local citizens before escaping to hideouts in their respective territories. Both groups kidnap civilians for use as either forced wives or slave labor. Sometimes captives are ransomed. Both groups impose heavy taxes and cruel punishments, such as chopping off hands, on villagers under their rule.


Boko Haram was founded by Mohammad Yusef in 2002, but after Yusef was captured and killed in 2009 Abubakar Shekau assumed control. Shekau escalated violence, often using girls as suicide bombers and attacking targets across Nigeria.


Shekau garnered international attention in 2014 when Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State. The army immediately launched rescue operations, but Boko Haram ambushed search parties.


Shekau’s caliphate controlled some 20,000 square miles in the Chad Basin at its 2015 height, but the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) of Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria launched the West African Offensive against Boko Haram.


Coalition air and ground forces forced Boko Haram to forfeit a dozen villages, prompting retaliatory massacres. Hundreds of Shekau’s fighters were killed fighting the MNJTF.


As the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) expanded, and Boko Haram was losing ground, Shekau pledged allegiance to ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Boko Haram became the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and received ISIS support and training, but ultimately was crippled by the West African Offensive.


ISWAP retreated into its stronghold of Sambisa Forest, and improvised explosives and booby traps deterred the Nigerian Army. Boko Haram survived in the bush and continued its suicide bombings, IEDs, village raids and ambushes.


In 2016, the Islamic State central command determined that Shekau was unfit to lead its West African Province, so Abu Musab al-Barnawi became ISWAP’s commander. About 1,500 militants followed Shekau under the original name Boko Haram, and about 3,500 militants remained with ISWAP.


Skirmishes began between the rivals, but government anti-terror efforts focused on the bloodier, more infamous Boko Haram. Shekau’s faction conducted suicide bombings in civilian areas and village raids whereas ISWAP primarily attacked military targets.

In 2021, likely with Islamic State authorization, al-Barnawi ordered his fighters to eliminate Shekau in the subsequent Battle of Sambisa Forest. ISWAP fighters snuck through the forest, avoiding landmines and IEDs, and launched a surprise morning attack. Boko Haram’s main base was captured despite heavy fighting.


Over the following days, ISWAP technicals and motorcycles hunted down remaining Boko Haram fighters, including Shekau. Ultimately, as his enemy was closing in, Shekau blew himself up with a suicide vest, killing a few ISWAP fighters.


ISWAP tried to absorb Boko Haram’s remnants, but Shekau’s successor Doron Bakura refused. Today the infighting continues. Both groups are subject to attacks from the other. Now Boko Haram only holds limited territory while ISWAP controls much more.


The Nigerian military and its auxiliary militias continue battling both Boko Haram and ISWAP, making little distinction between the two other than recognizing that the infighting weakens both factions. Army search-and-destroy missions occur regularly, rescuing the Jihadists’ hostage wives and people forced into slavery. Yet many experienced Boko Haram and ISWAP fighters remain in the bush. For now, the insurgency shows no signs of a speedy end.

1. Dry, Sahelian land in Borno State, Nigeria. The northeastern state shares porous borders with Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Boko Haram occupies parts of Sambisa and Alargarno Forests, while ISWAP primarily controls territory in the marshes and islands of Lake Chad. 

2. Muna Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp, viewed from a camp water tower, lies on Maiduguri’s outskirts. About 51,000 people lived in this cramped shantytown of thatch and tarp huts. About 2.5 million civilians have been displaced by the fighting in Borno State. 

Muna Camp is not government-recognized, despite being Maiduguri’s largest IDP camp. It receives no federal or state funding, but some aid comes from national and international NGOs.

3. Groups like USAID, the Danish Refugee Council (DCR) and the Red Crescent (Red Cross) provide aid in Muna Camp. In 2022, the Red Crescent started classes on epidemic prevention through proper sanitation- the camp’s leading killers are diseases like meningitis, measles and cholera. 

Muna’s biggest threat is fire. Residents cook over fires near thatch homes. In February 2023 a fire destroyed about 200 huts. Two IDPs were killed and over 1000 huts were destroyed in a fire last November.

5. A family sits outside their thatch domicile in Muna IDP Camp.

7. The ruins of the Markas Mosque in Maiduguri, Borno State. In 2002, fundamentalist preacher Mohammad Yusef founded the Salafi group Jama’atu Ahl al-Sunnah lil-Dawa wal-Jihad (JAS, People Committed to the Prophet's Teachings for Propagation and Jihad) at the Markas Mosque. JAS is better known as Boko Haram (Western education is haram). The Nigerian government destroyed Markas in 2009.

Rugurugu preached Boko Haram’s interpretation of Islam before becoming a military strategist who helped to organize logistics and plan attacks. Some of these attacks were strategic victories, while others were intended to instill civilians with fear.


Now, Rugurugu regularly makes radio or video broadcasts condemning the killings and imploring insurgents to surrender and lay down their guns. Over 1000 amnestied fighters attributed their surrenders to Rugurugu’s preaching.

10. ‘Reformed’ Boko Haram commandants Babagana Ali Ajabal (left), Bakura Musa (center) and Mohammad Babagana (right) sit within a home in Maiduguri. The three were integral to Boko Haram and worked closely with its leader Abubakar Shekau. Ajabal, Musa and Babagana survived ISWAP’s 2021 attack on Sambisa Forest - escaping the forest before surrendering to government forces.

“Now, we only go into the bush to fight our former comrades and capture their ammunition, we kill them, recover their vehicles and give them to the government,” explained Ajabal.

In 2011, Musa helped orchestrate the 2011 United Nations bombing in the Nigerian capital Abuja. A car broke through security barriers before the driver detonated in a UN reception area, killing 21 and injuring 73 before the targeted wing collapsed. In 2014, Musa killed 56 civilians with a car bomb in a Maiduguri market, then killed 120 in a series of bombings at the Central Mosque in Kano, Kano State.


“I am the one who made the bombs and set them off,” Musa explained. He was never arrested for any bombing.

“They promised us that if we surrendered and put down our arms, they would take care of our needs,” said Ajabal. “The government said it would compensate us for all that we had in the forest. We were promised houses and startup capital to start businesses. The government has not kept its promise, and we are struggling to survive, struggling to eat. We were promised so much that we have not gotten.”


After accepting government amnesty, Ajabal secretly remained a member of Boko Haram. He was arrested last September when he returned to Nigeria from Cameroon, where he met a gun runner intending to smuggle weapons to Boko Haram. The Nigerian Army and paroled fighters Babagana and Musa arrested Ajabal. Nigerian authorities determined that Ajabal was working with several other Boko Haram members, providing intelligence and weapons to Boko Haram.

20. Our army technical passes a cargo truck driving west from Maiduguri on the A3 highway with “I LIKE PEACE” painted on its mudflaps.

(Reporting by Collin Mayfield. Collin's Nigeria reportage was funded by Qilo Tactical. Read Collin’s full report here.)