What really happened on Black Friday?

A memorable yet terrifying event took place in Borno, a state in northeastern Nigeria, on March 14, 2014, which amongst residents is often referred to as Black Friday. That day, from morning to around midday, black smoke filled the air as hundreds of people ran in fear to escape imminent danger. Boko Haram had launched an attack on Giwa barracks to free some of their troops who were detained by the military. Students of the University of Maiduguri who lived in estate 202 and 203 in Bama district, ran towards the school gate for shelter. However the journey was cut short for many who were hit by stray bullets. This story, and those of other citizens whose lives were at risk that day, is an important detail that was missing from media coverage across the nation. Instead, media reports focused on the numbers.

Nigeria suffered more deadly attacks last year at the hands of Boko Haram than it did in 2012. Starting July 1st 2015 , there were consistent reports of bombings and indiscriminate killings centred in the north. Through this  rise in the number of terrorist attacks in the north, the insurgent group, Boko Haram continued to receive extensive coverage from the media.

In February 2015, after months of courtship, The Islamic State (ISIS) accepted Boko Haram’s pledge of allegiance, which has materialized in better quality videos, and a stronger online presence for the Nigerian terrorist sect.

Shifting the conversation

While Boko Haram’s attacks and threats need to be reported, there is something at play with coverage of these activities that needs be addressed. Too often reporting consists of fear mongering, which is at the expense of accuracy. Beyond chronicling the attacks and recording death tolls, the media often obscures the living, who very rarely have the opportunity to tell their own account of the stories beyond the attacks, but in terms of how Boko Haram has affected their lives.

Rather than providing useful information that could aid in the battle against Boko Haram, Nigerian media chooses to do the bare minimum. This has much to do with what kind of information we’re looking for.

Why aren’t we looking for a list of sponsors? Or trying to understand more about Boko Haram’s operating structure? Why aren’t we creating endless maps, which chart the sect’s whereabouts and how they receive their funding? Why aren’t we doing a better job of understanding the army’s strategy, beyond frivolous reports of ‘the army has nabbed three boko haram suspects.’

Rather what we find are foreign media platforms trying to tell our stories, to dig deeper and understand more about the Chibok girls who escaped, or how Boko Haram activity has affected truck drivers in the North. We’re supposed to set the example, and the best way to do that is to stop the sensationalism, which is most likely at the consequence of a numbness that we desperately need to interrupt.

We need to stop portraying Boko Haram as poor and uneducated disgruntled people. Members of the sect have the expertise to assemble weapons, and bombs- they’re not restless children in need of jobs. They have an ideology and an objective that we need to start taking seriously. These are the kinds of questions we need to ask in our reporting.

Facts always matter

The Caretaker Chairman of Dikwa Local Government Area, Borno state, Alhaji Ali Modu Gana stated that the reported attack on the council area, which led to the burning of the secretariat, was false. According to him, “there was no Boko Haram attack in Dikwa as carelessly and unprofessionally reported.” Reports like this not only misinform the public but also give the rampaging terrorists cheap publicity.

There have also been reports that have suggested a grossly exaggerated death toll in certain communities of Borno state. For instance, in January 2015 while addressing a press conference in Defence Headquarters, Abuja, Major General Chris Olukolade, Director Defence Information, put the death toll in the battle for Baga community at about 150- as opposed to the alarming figure of about 2,000 initially quoted in local and international reports.

It has become too common for the media (foreign and national) to jump on a story, losing track of the main message, which is to remind everyone to be vigilant and provide accurate details and facts surrounding the events in focus.

Daniel Edward, a graduate from the University of Maiduguri, Borno state, notes that even he sometimes learned of danger that was supposedly happening around him from people of the ‘outside world.’ In many cases, the media failed to report which parts of the state were affected, and those that were not. “There were a lot of times my family and friends outside Maiduguri would call me to inform me about a bomb blast, even I hadn’t heard of.”  He explained that even though the university environment was at the helm of these attacks, they made it a point of duty to remain calm and help each other. For him and many other students who were staying ‘off-campus,’ the estate gate was the only thing between them and the militants.

In May 2014, all telecommunication signals were blocked, and Internet access was limited to one location in Maiduguri–the university library. “The only place we could use the Internet was at the library, you can imagine how difficult that was; especially for a school with so many students to be connected to just one server?!” Final year students were unable to round up their projects in good time and businesses crumbled as telecom companies recorded quite a loss starting from the second quarter of the year.

The continent of darkness?

Foreign media’s representation of Africa as a dangerous place is nothing new and Boko Haram provides a straight avenue for uncritical representation of Africa as the ‘continent of darkness’. But that’s kind of the point. It’s not about how foreign media represents Boko Haram, but rather how we tell our own stories. Instead of exaggerating these incidents, or sharing lazy reporting- we need to shift the conversation.

In July 2015, CNN’s news broadcast featured a tagline, which referred to Kenya a “hot bed of terror” in advance of U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to the East African country. The anchors were discussing the terrorist attacks in Kenya, climaxing with the murder of nearly 150 Garissa University students in April this year. In a discussion with CNN host Kate Bolduan on security matters in Kenya, two invited guests declared that the country where less than 1000 people have been killed in terror attacks, was more dangerous than Afghanistan and Iraq.

The label drew the ire of Kenyans who used the twitter hashtag #SomeonetellCNN to condemn the network’s negative labels of their homeland.

Compare the coverage of Paris attacks to attacks, which happened in Yola the same week. We need to start sharing, and we need to encourage a conversation about Boko Haram that reflects an actual urgency. We can’t be comfortable with the insurgency in the North. We need to be angry, frustrated and outraged- at both the terrorist sect and the government until life can return to normalcy for an entire region of this country, who should this insurgency come to and, could only wonder what their fellow country men were doing while they suffered in what can only be termed a loud and painful quietness.