Northern Nigeria: The Boko Haram Insurgency

I was in primary 5 at the time and attending a local Gombe State school. The year was 2008. When the local media outlets began to publish threats of Boko Haram assaults in Gombe State, I had just finished my fourth year of elementary school.

In Nigeria, particularly in the North, the insurgencies of the early 2000s were not news. Gombe State, which is in Eastern Nigeria, is 409.9 kilometers from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, the scene of several documented large-scale bombings. Recall that Maiduguri, where the suspected headquarters of the Nigerian terrorist group is located, has been the site of all significant bomb attacks in Nigeria.

The 2011 bombing of the Abuja United Nations, the 2014 kidnapping of schoolgirls in Chibok, and the mass killings in Maiduguri were no longer news in Nigeria.

Naturally, since we are all human, we felt sympathy for the bereaved, and nobody ever wished an assault would be launched on their city. The assaults were demoralizing. The rumors in Gombe State persisted over time and attacks were undertaken against towns and local authorities during the reported era, but they never reached the capital.

Yet, a catastrophe struck in the middle of 2012. One of the largest markets within states has just been the scene of a terrorist detonating a device attached to himself. A number of people died, and the majority were hurt

A state of emergency had been declared in the city when the catastrophe eventually struck, but the residents weren’t yet prepared. When I learned about the incident, I was on my way home after school, but I was now in senior high. My mother had planned to go shopping at the market on the day of the attack, which was launched in Gombe State’s largest domestic market.

My heart skipped a beat as I hoped my mother would have made it out of the market after hearing about the attack. A few calls later, I learned that she had somehow survived the attack. A while after she exited the market, the attack was launched.

Sadly, several others did not make it. My mother’s saving was the result of Time and Chance as the rumors we heard became true. The city’s face has since changed.

Following this, security checks and precautions were increased, but it was too late because Boko Haram had already struck. Residents began sleeping with one eye closed weeks and months later. My paraphrase. Schoolchildren were taught safety precautions, and even the toughest of men were broken. That reality persisted for a while, primarily between 2012 and 2015, and awoke residents, young and old alike, to the new reality of uncertain looming dangers.

They claimed that life goes on, but those whose lives were cut short did not.