Maiduguri, Nigeria – November 24, 2025 – A palpable wave of terror has engulfed the rural farming communities of Mussa district in Askira/Uba Local Government Area, Borno State, as residents flee en masse following a brazen abduction by the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a splinter faction of Boko Haram. The attack, which unfolded on Sunday afternoon, November 23, 2025, has left the area virtually deserted, with families packing up their meager belongings and relocating to urban centers or safer villages, citing an unbearable sense of vulnerability in the face of persistent insurgent threats.
The victims—13 teenage girls aged between 15 and 20—were seized while harvesting groundnuts and other crops on communal farmlands in Mussa. Most of the girls are internally displaced persons originally from the nearby Huyim community, which was abandoned years ago due to repeated attacks. They had been resettled in Mussa by the Borno State government as part of efforts to provide relative safety and enable farming activities.
The assault occurred around 3:30 p.m. on November 23 when armed militants arrived on motorcycles and on foot, firing into the air to scatter workers before rounding up the young women. One of the 14 girls initially taken managed to escape during the chaos, running through thick bush to safety. She was reunited with her family late Sunday and is now assisting security agencies with vital information about the attackers’ appearance, weapons, and direction of movement.
By Monday morning, Mussa had become a ghost town. Over 70 percent of households fled overnight, with families loading motorcycles, donkey carts, and a few vehicles with harvested crops and household items. Many are heading to Biu, Uba, or Maiduguri, further straining already overcrowded displacement camps that shelter more than two million people across the state.
The abduction comes just days after five local vigilantes were killed in a separate ISWAP ambush near Askira town on November 17. Those vigilantes had been providing community-level protection for farmlands, and their deaths had already heightened anxiety in the area.
Junaid Jibrin, media aide to Senator Ali Ndume (Borno South), confirmed that one girl escaped and is safe with her family. “She is currently assisting officials and family members with vital information about the incident,” he said.
The Deputy Speaker of the Borno State House of Assembly, Abdullahi Askira, who hails from the constituency, urged residents to share timely intelligence with security agencies. “This is a calculated strike at our people’s resilience. We must work with our security forces—your information can save lives,” he stated.
Security sources say joint military, police, and civilian JTF patrols have been intensified, with operations extending deep into surrounding forests. As of Monday evening, no contact had been made by the abductors and no ransom demands reported.
The incident has reignited long-standing fears about the safety of rural communities and government resettlement programs. Many residents who had returned to farming under military escort now question whether it is worth the risk. Humanitarian agencies report that the abrupt halt in harvesting could worsen food shortages in a region already classified as facing crisis-level hunger.
In a separate but related development, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Sunday directed the immediate withdrawal of police officers currently attached to VIPs and politicians across the country. The order, announced by presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga, followed a high-level security meeting in Abuja attended by service chiefs and the Director-General of the Department of State Services.
Under the new policy, thousands of police personnel previously assigned to private protection duties will be redeployed to general policing and frontline operations. Individuals or organisations still requiring armed protection will now apply to the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) for specially trained and equipped personnel.
President Tinubu also approved the recruitment of 30,000 new police officers and a comprehensive upgrade of police training colleges nationwide. The moves are widely seen as part of broader efforts to address chronic manpower shortages and improve response times in rural and high-risk areas plagued by insurgency and banditry.
As search operations continue for the 12 missing girls and displaced families settle into an uncertain future in overcrowded camps, the events in Mussa serve as a grim reminder that, more than 16 years after Boko Haram’s insurgency began, large parts of rural Borno remain dangerously exposed.
