How Civilian Harm Breaks Nigeria’s Counterterrorism War
Editor’s note: Nigeria’s fight against insurgency faces a greater problem as civilian deaths during military strikes affect intelligence flow. Lekan Olayiwola, peace and conflict researcher and policy analyst, shows how the cycle continues and the wider risks involved.
Nigeria’s counterterrorism war is shaped by a critical disconnect. The military designates certain areas as hostile enclaves based on intelligence and surveillance, yet civilians living or trading there are sometimes not clearly informed or effectively evacuated. They remain in spaces the state already considers in the line of fire.
Source: Getty Images
This gap between military knowledge and civilian awareness is a key driver of civilian harm. Strikes may be intelligence-led, but those affected are often unaware they are within a battlespace. The result is structural exposure. And over time, that exposure erodes the flow of local intelligence on which operations depend. Civilian harm does not simply reflect error; it disrupts the human networks that make counterterrorism possible.
A pattern written in blood
In January 2017, a military jet struck a displaced persons camp in Rann, Borno State, killing over fifty civilians and injuring more than two hundred. While UNHCR documented the scale of the error, the official explanation (“mistaken targeting”) set a precedent: acknowledgement, investigation, but little structural reform.
The pattern has since deepened. In January 2023, Reuters reported that dozens of Fulani herders were killed in Nasarawa after being misidentified. In December 2023, a strike in Tudun Biri, Kaduna, killed 85–120 civilians; Human Rights Watch described it as emblematic of recurring failures, while Amnesty International questioned accountability.
Between 2024 and 2025, repeated strikes in Zamfara, Sokoto, and Kaduna killed civilians in markets and villages. By 2026, the Associated Press estimates 400–500 civilian deaths from such errors since 2017, with the Jilli strike marking an escalation.
After Rann, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the International Crisis Group noted reduced civilian cooperation—fewer tips, slower responses, and declining targeting precision.
The intelligence system that makes the war possible
Nigeria’s counterterrorism operations are fundamentally HUMINT-dependent. The terrain is vast, surveillance capacity is limited, and insurgents are embedded within civilian populations. The intelligence chain runs from local observation through informal reporting and vigilante mediation to military interpretation and action.
Civilian harm disrupts this chain. The immediate effect is information withdrawal: communities withhold knowledge, informants go silent, and vigilantes grow cautious. If reporting leads to strikes that kill neighbours, informing is recoded as betrayal. The medium-term effect is intelligence contamination. As trust collapses, information quality deteriorates. Rival groups exploit the system, and communal tensions shape reporting. What reaches commanders becomes less reliable and harder to verify.
Human Rights Watch reporting from Zamfara and Kaduna highlights misidentification driving retaliatory misinformation. Over time, this produces intelligence desertification: a shift to pattern-based targeting where airstrikes increase but precision declines. International Crisis Group reports indicate reduced civilian cooperation in affected areas.
Official narratives and public reception
Military explanations have remained consistent: “credible intelligence”, “mistaken identity”, or operations in hostile zones. Strikes occur in complex environments where insurgents embed within civilian populations or use markets and villages as cover. Some targets are real, and the fog of war is genuine. Initially, such explanations receive cautious acceptance. But repetition without reform erodes confidence.
Repeated errors without visible systemic reform sustain public scepticism. Investigations or compensation to victims acknowledge harm, but do not fully resolve concerns about recurrence. Observers, including Amnesty International, have pointed to limited transparency and weak accountability. The result is hardened distrust, as communities interpret official narratives as justification rather than explanation.
In the Northeast, cooperation is now conditional. In the Northwest, fragile trust has weakened further. In the North-central region, misidentification has reinforced identity-based mistrust. The trajectory is clear: from cooperation to caution.
Is Nigeria’s collateral damage an outlier?
Civilian harm is not unique to Nigeria, but its persistence without clear reduction is striking. In Afghanistan, early high casualty rates declined after post-2013 reforms introduced stricter targeting protocols and verification systems. Data from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) shows airstrike-related civilian deaths fell by roughly 30–40 per cent in some periods.
In Iraq, similar measures, including pre-strike legal reviews and intelligence fusion, reduced casualties during later operations against ISIS. Nigeria, by contrast, shows recurrence without measurable decline. In the Sahel, especially Mali and Burkina Faso, Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group report rising civilian harm alongside weakening local cooperation and stronger insurgent adaptation.
Source: Getty Images
What has worked elsewhere
Three elements stand out. First, intelligence fusion. Effective systems integrate human intelligence with signals intelligence, aerial surveillance, and independent verification before strikes. Second, civilian harm tracking. Dedicated units that document and publicly report incidents, combined with compensation and community engagement, help restore trust and demonstrate institutional learning.
Third, decentralised engagement. Embedding forces within communities improves situational awareness and reduces reliance on remote targeting. These measures did not eliminate civilian harm in Afghanistan or Iraq, but they reduced its frequency and improved operational credibility.
What US partnership could actually change
External partnerships are often framed in terms of equipment. That misses the point. The most meaningful contribution from the United States would be systemic. Support for intelligence verification frameworks could reduce reliance on single-source reporting. Assistance in establishing civilian harm mitigation cells would improve transparency and accountability.
Training in rules of engagement that prioritise civilian protection could recalibrate operational doctrine. Technological support in surveillance and data integration could improve targeting precision. Perhaps most importantly, conditionality—linking support to measurable improvements in civilian protection—could create incentives for reform that internal dynamics alone have not produced.
The paradox and strategic consequences
For insurgents such as Boko Haram and ISWAP, civilian harm is a strategic asset. It reinforces narratives of state hostility and aids recruitment. For soldiers, degraded intelligence increases operational risk, such as more ambushes, more mis-targeting, and more uncertainty. For communities, cooperation gives way to survival logic. Neutrality or quiet alignment replaces active support.
Nigeria’s counterterrorism effort is caught in a self-reinforcing loop: The weaker the intelligence, the greater the reliance on force. The greater the reliance on force without precision, the higher the civilian harm. The higher the civilian harm, the weaker the intelligence becomes. This is a structural contradiction, not simply a tactical failure.
Critical questions for breaking the cycle
What types of spaces—markets, pastoral routes, religious gatherings—are repeatedly misclassified as hostile? Which communities are disproportionately affected, and why? Do compensation efforts restore trust or deepen grievance? Are communities beginning to distort intelligence in response to past harm? How does degraded local intelligence affect international partnerships that rely on Nigerian inputs? Until these questions are confronted directly, the cycle may persist.
None of this diminishes the scale of insurgent violence, which in absolute terms far exceeds civilian harm caused by the state. But counterterrorism effectiveness depends not only on defeating the enemy, but on maintaining the civilian trust that makes that defeat possible.
Civilian harm in Nigeria’s counterterrorism war is not just a humanitarian concern. It is a strategic liability. Each mistaken strike weakens the intelligence foundations of future operations. This doesn't mean every strike is reckless or that the military isn't making gains against groups like Boko Haram/ISWAP, but the recurring pattern risks long-term operational effectiveness and civil-military trust.
Lekan Olayiwola is a public-facing peace & conflict researcher/policy analyst focused on leadership, ethics, governance, and political legitimacy in fragile states.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Legit.ng.
Source: Legit.ng
