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Our children were meant to be in schools and dream of a better future. Instead, they are soldiers forced to fight in wars.
In the northern part of Nigeria, childhood is being hijacked. Terrorists are turning our supposed playgrounds into training camps and schoolwork into weapons drills. Children are forced to the frontlines of violence they neither started nor understand. They have no knowledge of politics, no knowledge of the cause of this war; all they know is they’ve been told to fight.
Boko Haram has been a terrorist group in Northern Nigeria for decades, and up till date, they still terrorise communities, destroy homes, kill people, and forcefully take children to join their ranks to fight wars. Our girl children are used as sex slaves or subjected to other unimaginable atrocities.
In January 2025, a viral video emerged from a forest near Ajiri, Mafa LGA, Borno State. It showed a boy, no older than 10, confessing to undergoing weapons training alongside at least 30 other children. He stated: “They are training us on weapons handling… we are at least 20 to 30… some are bigger than me, while I am older than some of them.” In the same footage, the child disassembles and reassembles an AK-47, even unloading and reloading a magazine with precision (Shocking Video Shows 10-Year-Old Boy Confessing to Militant Training in Borno Forest – The News Chronicle, n.d.). This has been a recurring incident that reflects a growing pattern of child recruitment and manipulation by terrorist groups.
In June 2025, Northern Nigeria witnessed one of its bloodiest massacres when armed herders attacked villages in Benue State (At Least 140 Villagers Killed by Suspected Herders in Weekend Attacks in North-Central Nigeria | The Independent, n.d.), killing over 200 civilians and targeting women and children. Reports suggest that some fighters involved may have been children displaced, traumatised, and coerced into violence they neither understand nor choose.
Abba Gana was only 10 years old when Boko Haram insurgents attacked his village in northern Nigeria in 2014 (Boko Haram Child Soldiers Face Challenges Reintegrating – CSMonitor.Com, n.d.). Along with other boys his age, he was kidnapped and forced to herd the militants’ livestock. By the time he was 15, Mr. Gana had joined the ranks of the group’s fighters, carrying out raids like the one on his own village.
When the phrase “child soldiers” comes up, many believe it’s about a boy child, forgetting the innocent girls who are also victims of these acts. A disturbing example remains the abduction of the Chibok girls in April 2014, where over 270 schoolgirls were forcefully taken from their school in Borno State. Many of these girls had dreams of becoming doctors, teachers, and leaders, but these dreams were suddenly cut short by terrorists who took them as captives. Some were forced into marriage, others subjected to rape, used as spies, cooks, and other forms of violence. It is said to date that many of these girls are still missing. Their future was stolen, and this could have been avoided.
Many of these children do not understand the ethnic or land disputes fuelling this violence. Instead, they are being fed stories of fear and retaliation, simply doing as they’re told because they’ve been provided food, shelter, or threats. No child should be made to grow up like this, but here they are, living a life that has been forced upon them because our protection systems have failed them.
If we step in to prevent violence today, and give children the chance to flourish, they will become tomorrow’s leaders and learn from this example (Gen. Roméo Dallaire and Dr. Shelly Whitman, 2019). These children need to be given another chance in life; they need to be shown their future can be better, and sympathy won’t fix this. It requires well-coordinated action and long-term commitment.
The first action is to enforce and strengthen child protection laws that prevent abductions before they happen and respond rapidly when children are in danger. Those who recruit or use children in armed conflict must be held accountable through national and international legal systems. Overlooking their acts without proper punishment only encourages these crimes to continue.
Is justice alone enough? Former child soldiers and survivors need all support to heal and rebuild their lives. They need mental health support, education, and vocational training to help them reintegrate into society and rediscover a sense of purpose beyond violence. Without this, there is a high chance that these children will be drawn back into the lifestyle of conflict they were initially forced into.
Finally, families and communities must be empowered to help victims reintegrate back into society. For many kids, war and fighting for survival was the only structure they knew. To truly keep these children totally out of this crime scene, we must walk with them not just in the moment they are being rescued, but for years, until they feel like themselves again.
We must build systems and be a society that surrounds them with care: counsellors who listen without judgment and truly understand their pain, teachers who see potential behind the trauma and a great future, mentors who guide them toward purpose and light. Communities must be prepared to welcome these children home without seeing them as threats or reminders of past stigmas, but as survivors with stories that deserve to be heard and a promising future that can still bloom.
If we do not offer these children a more promising future, the past they had left behind will call them back. A child’s hands should hold pencils to learn, not rifles to fight with. A child’s tears should not be caused by explosions. A child who has survived war deserves more than survival; they deserve a second chance and a future. And because until we give them that future, the war will never truly end.
REFERENCES
At least 140 villagers killed by suspected herders in weekend attacks in north-central Nigeria | The Independent. (n.d.). Retrieved July 9, 2025, from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/nigeria-ap-amnesty-international-christian-fulani-b2469723.html
Boko Haram child soldiers face challenges reintegrating – CSMonitor.com. (n.d.). Retrieved July 9, 2025, from https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2024/0827/Boko-Haram-child-fighters-come-home
Shocking Video Shows 10-Year-Old Boy Confessing to Militant Training in Borno Forest – The News Chronicle. (n.d.). Retrieved July 9, 2025, from https://thenews-chronicle.com/shocking-video-shows-10-year-old-boy-confessing-to-militant-training-in-borno-forest/
**Temilola A Adegbite writes from Dalhoiuse University, Canada
