An award-winning journalist, Jibrin Baba Ndace, is set to launch three books he authored on the war against the Boko Haram/ISWAP insurgency raging in north-eastern Nigeria.
The Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect (GCRP) said more than 35,000 people have been killed in northern Nigeria since 2009 when Boko Haram launched its insurgency aimed at overthrowing Nigeria’s secular government and establishing an Islamic state. The terrorist group was later joined by the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP), thus upping the scale of mass atrocity in the region.
Mr. Ndace has spent many years reporting on the crisis for the Abuja-based daily Blueprint. He is also a public affairs commentator and peace advocate.
Organisers of the book launch said the books were written specifically to aid in the visualisation of the horrors terrorists have visited on citizens and how the Nigerian Army and other security services, Civilian JTF confronted them under the leadership of the 20th Chief of Army Staff, Lt General Tukur Yusufu Buratai.
The books are titled ‘Walking the War Front with Lt. Gen. TY Buratai’, ‘Duty Call Under Buratai’s Command’, and ‘The Lonely Grave and Other Poems – An Anthology’.
A military officer who saw the manuscripts of the books stated: “These books, which have taken Jibrin over five years to successfully complete, have taken a lot of sweat, blood and tears. These books are not just mere stories but actual realities, not just through his eyes, but also through the experiences of servicemen.”
The public presentation will be held in Abuja on a date to be announced soon.
Speaking on the event, Ndace described his trilogy as a must read for everyone seeking to have deep insight and pictorial evidence on Nigeria’s counter-insurgency warfare in the most ravaging moments.
Speaking on why he embarked on the project which took him five years of hard work, Ndace, who is the immediate past Chief Press Secretary to Governor Abubakar Sani Bello of Niger State, noted that he was encouraged by the need to document that phase of the war against insurgency in which he was a witness.
He said: “These books were inspired by many veterans who fought on and off the war field, soldiers who sacrificed their lives to serve our great nation, the courage they exhibited and the aftermath of their gruesome experiences.
“Amongst many soldiers and servicemen, Lt. Gen. TY Buratai occupies a large part of the storytelling.”
Buratai is a retired Nigerian Army General and former Chief of Army Staff, who was appointed in 2015 and retired in January 2021.
On the scope of the book, the ace defence correspondent explained that his triology contains first-hand accounts, poems, photographs, and powerful storytelling, witnessing the courage and sacrifice of soldiers, the brutal realities of combat, and the toll that war takes on both the human body and the human mind.
