At the instance of the Federal Government, the Bring Back our Girls (BBOG) campaigners were flown to Sambisa Forest by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) for an assessment of the military’s efforts to locate the abducted Chibok schoolgirls and others. The BBOG came back with a different perception of troops and respect for the military. Assistant Editor Seun Akioye was part of the guided tour.
Former Education Minister and Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) convener Dr Oby Ezekwesili and four other BBOG leaders arrived at the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) 103 Strike Force Group in Yola like celebrities. They arrived in the company of Information, Culture and Tourism Minister, Lai Mohammed. Top NAF commanders, pilots, technicians and soldiers were at the facility to receive them.
After the exchange of pleasantries, the former minister walked briskly towards the briefing room where the BBOG interacted with military chiefs.
The first flight over Sambisa
The briefing hall was packed with the dignitaries and soldiers, many of them directly involved in the fight against Boko Haram. In reenacting a war situation, the NAF followed every sequence of a mission briefing, including talks on the weather, the number of platforms that are available and serviceable, the nearest airports and platforms that could be called for rescue in case of an accident, rules about exiting the facility in case of fire, fire prevention equipment and where they could be found, medical information etc.
The Air Officer Commanding, Tactical Air Command, Air Vice Marshal (AVM) Nurudeen Balogun, who addressed the audience, is a tall and imposing man, conspicuous in any gathering. After giving a background on the Air Component of the war against insurgency, AVM Balogun gave a detailed background on the ‘point of interest’ – the Sambisa Forest.
“Our main observation today is Sambisa Forest and it is 60,000 square kilometres or 18 times the size of Lagos. So, we are talking about a vast area,” Balogun said. There were some slight movements from the BBOG group as if trying to adjust to this new piece of information.
He explained that the Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) mission of the NAF is to gather data and intelligence from the Theater of War, analyse information and transmit to the ground troops as a guide. The ISR can reveal the movement and location of enemy troops, the strength and what ammunitions are available. The ISR can also direct the ground troops to the likely strategy of enemy troops, this is done to prevent and minimise casualty among troops.
After the fall of Camp Zairo, dubbed as the spiritual headquarters of Boko Haram, Balogun said the NAF had conducted several ISR missions in the Sambisa General Area and had made recent sightings of people in the region.
Villages where human activities were recorded, include: Njimia, Dure, Tumbun Rego, Dogon Chuku, Arege and Camp Zairo itself. On January 12, 2017, a video showed a Boko Haram Terrorist (BHT) movement in Kangarawa on the way to attack a contingent of ground troops but were successfully repelled.
On January 7, an ISR mission noted that some women and children were seen fleeing close to Dure village and again on January 8, a group of women, many of them in Hijab, and children were seen in Njimia, after analysing the data, a decision was taken to evacuate the fleeing women.
“What do you mean by to evacuate,” Mrs Ezekwesili asked impatiently. If the NAF commanders were angry, they did not show it, instead, Balogun pleaded for patience as he explained the process of evacuation.
A Mi-17 helicopter was deployed to evacuate the women and children in Dure, eight women and 11 children were evacuated and taken to Maiduguri where they were treated at the NAF hospital before handing them over to the government. A picture of the evacuation was shown on the slide and a sigh was let out among the civilians, the women looked emaciated and the scruffy children had sores on different parts of the body.
The evacuation mission was not without its dangers. The AVM stood up to explain that the women might not have been ‘real women’ after all but Boko Haram fighters in disguise. “The fact that they are on Hijab does not mean they are women when you come close, you may discover they are actually men in disguise and they will open fire,” he said.
AVM Balogun also explained that getting the Chibok schoolgirls and other abductees remained close to his heart and the NAF.
His words: “Getting the girls is very close to our heart in the Air Force but we are careful not to bomb innocent people. We are fighting Boko Haram because they are killing innocent people. If we do the same, we are not different. We have many occasions where pilots came back with their bombs because they saw women and children.
“We are doing everything we can to locate the girls. We conduct ISR both day and night. Some of the pilots do not return to base until 4:00am, looking for the girls and other abductees. I am glad you are here and you will see for yourself some of the things we have been doing,” he said.
Understanding the capture of Camp Zairo
The BBOG team had so many questions after the briefing. Aisha Yesufu, co-convener of the group, was more combative. She wanted to know more about the sightings of the abductees; showed concerns about calling some of the women terrorists. She wanted them to be seen as victims.
But the Information Commissioner in Adamawa State, Ahmad Sajoh, would have none of that. “These Boko Haram militants don’t think like us. They do not behave like normal people and so, you cannot deal with them with the same level of reasoning as you. In Magadali, some women were taken into the IDP camp but unknown to us, they had bombs strapped on them. These women carried their children and with the bomb detonated in an IDP camp, what kind of mother would kill her own child with a bomb,” he asked.
When Mrs. Ezekwesili spoke, she sounded to be having some trouble processing some of the information that have been given. She wanted to know why the NAF was still fighting when the Sambisa Forest had been captured; how accurate is the coordination between the Army and the NAF and what would be the endgame of the whole operation.
The Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, responded. He said: “Boko Haram is not an organised force. As you have been told, Sambisa forest is a vast area and Camp Zairo is the spiritual headquarters of the group. The capture of the camp does not mean all of the fighters would disappear but it is significant because it was once said to be impregnable.
“It is not the end of the war, but it is the end of the mission to capture the headquarters of Boko Haram. The end of a particular mission in a war is not the end of that war. There are still some of the fighters scattered around and that is why we are still mopping up the remnants,” he said.
The team then moved to the flight line, two aircraft, King Air 350 Diamond Beechcraft waited for airlift. Young pilots stoop over a large map showing the sprawling Sambisa Forest. A young pilot explained the mission and locations the team will fly over.
Ezekwesili wanted to be shown Chibok town and Sambisa Forest on the map. She knelt down with the pilots and began to trace the locations. “Look at the distance, how they managed to take them from here to there….”
Several voices cut in, offering explanations that the girls were not transported at a go and they moved probably in the night. The entourage was then were ushered into the waiting aircraft for the two-hour sortie in search of the Chibok schoolgirls.
The second flight over Sambia
The second flight took place in the night around 2:00am but it involved only one Beechcraft surveillance plane. The BBOG group did not show any signs of weariness as they walked towards the tarmac, Ezekwesili emerged with her torchlight to show the way. Mohammed was still in the overall he wore in the morning and he also did not show any sign of fatigue. The flight lasted for more than two hours and the group went over several villages in the Sambisa General Area. When the crew returned in the wee hours, it was time to do a debriefing and it was Group Captain Olufemi Odeyinde’s turn to analyse the footage.
After every ISR mission, the NAF technicians would take the footage and subject it to a thorough analysis. This, according to Odeyinka, was to determine the threat level captured and the appropriate response.
In the two sorties over Sambisa, the team flew over Camp Zairo, Tokombere, Njimia and a certain location known as “Tree of Interest (TOI).” According to Odeyinde, the TOI is a tree found in Sambisa Forest and some activities have been noted under its shade.
“We have seen some activities around the tree but it has not called for an operation. Some of them were women and children. It has been under our radar for some time. We will keep monitoring it until we are sure of what it is,” he said.
In the afternoon sortie, the team found two persons walking around the TOI but there were no activities at Camp Zairo. “The whole place looked deserted and burnt,” he said. But Njimia was different. According to some of the pilots who have conducted several sorties over Sambisa, Njimia is a medium size community in the heart of Sambisa Forest. Not everybody in Njimia is a bad guy, that is why you have to be careful,” he said.
During the sortie, about 14 women were seen moving around in Njimia which was relayed to the ground troops.
The flight over Sambisa left the BBOG group with a new respect for the military and the efforts to find the abducted girls but not necessarily to change their model of protest for the rescue of the schoolgirls.
“We embark on this journey on the invitation of the Federal Government to learn a few things. We have learnt that NAF is very much working to generate the information that supports Nigerian Army to ensure the security of the Theater of War. By joining NAF to do ISR day and night, we saw what it looks like to embark on a search for targets like the Chibok girls,” Mrs. Ezekwesili said.
But she also reiterated that the experience only helped the group frame the question of their demand. “It helps to frame the question we have been asking. The information has enriched our demand. We leave here to say the Federal Government should be able to say what strategic decision should be taken. It becomes a strategic question and we will hold the government to a decision on what options work better for our girls and others, As citizen-activists, we shall remain the voice of the people and hold the government accountable to its promise to rescue the Chibok schoolgirls and others,” she added.
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