By Aisha Talba Ballama
When Boko Haram swept through Borno State, families fled their farms, leaving fields scarred and villages empty. According to International Committee on Migration report ” over 3.2 Million people have been displaced across northeast Nigeria, and the displaced number in Borno stood around 1.6 million”.
With food and shelter in short supply, many turned to the only resource left standing: trees.
In Muna IDP camp, residents cleared roughly four square kilometers of forest to build homes and to turn trees into charcoal for a meagre income, transforming areas into busy hubs for the displaced.
In May, 2025, The Borno State Governor, Baba Gana Zullum signed an executive order criminalizing deforestation and offered vocational training to people who cut tree as a means of survival.
Seedlings now line schoolyards and public squares, and community watch groups patrol the outskirts, determined to protect what remains.
For those who once relied on firewood, new livelihoods are taking root. Training programs trains IDPs on tailoring, carpentry, and other skills, while cash transfers help them rebuild lives without chopping down another tree.
The numbers tell part of the tale, but the real change is visible in the faces of families who now watch saplings grow where once there was only dust.
One of such faces is Ibrahim Mohammed, 55, a husband and a father of thirteen children. As the bread winner, he also caters for his elderly parents and several siblings, making his household a large family abode of over twenty people.
He said “For decades, his family survived on charcoal and firewood, a trade passed down from my grandfather’’.
‘’ When the insurgency raged, the forest became a battlefield. Armed groups ambushed charcoal traders, setting fire to piles and killing anyone caught. Ibrahim recalled’’
Ibrahim attended the workshops. “They taught us how to stitch, how to fix furniture,” he says. “But it feels like learning a whole new language.”
The new livelihoods promise a cleaner, more sustainable income, yet I finds it hard to let go of the only work I have known’’ he stated.
According to Ibrahim, Charcoal business is not just a job, it is the backbone of his family’s survival, covering food, medicine, shelter, and school fees of his children.
When the government began returning IDPs to their ancestral lands, Ibrahim who hails from Bama Local Government, faced a painful choice. “My home village was still littered with bombs, and the road back was insecure. Rather than risk another attack, I opted to stay in Muna as a host community member and pivot my trade”.
” As local production reduces, I know order charcoal from neighboring states of Adamawa, Taraba, and even as far as Lagos, paying middlemen to deliver’’ he stated.
Even with the government resolution and skill based training for people who cut trees for trade purposes failed to hinder the thriving business of firewood and charcoal in Maiduguri.’
The Director-General of the Borno State Agency for the Great Green Wall,
Ambassador Usman Aliyu, he confirmed that ”following the state’s executive order, the government formally established the agency in alignment with the national body.’’
According to Amb Aliyu, “this strategic move aims to reverse desertification, restore degraded lands, mitigate climate change, and curb desert encroachment.”
“There have been remarkable successes in afforestation since the establishment of the agency, not only in Maiduguri but in other accessible local government areas,” he said.
Amb Aliyu noted that ‘’ The agency not only fights deforestation but provides alternative livelihood programs for families traditionally dependent on tree-cutting for survival while protecting the environment. These include training in briquette production, climate-friendly farming, and skills acquisition, particularly for women and youths.”
Looking ahead to the next decade, Aliyu foresees a significant positive transformation of Borno’s landscape. “With the sustained implementation of current interventions, such as large-scale afforestation, soil erosion and desertification are expected to be substantially reduced.”
Musa Ahmed, a Forestry and Reservation Officer with the State Ministry of Environment, said that in line with a 25-year development plan, the ministry has ordered the preservation of remaining forest reserves and ignited a tree-planting campaign to restore their lost glory.
“Deforestation, a business for many people for decades, inherited from parents and grandparents, is well known as a means of livelihood,” he said. “But it also has a negative impact on food production, health, and rainfall patterns, leading to heat that directly impacts health.”
According to Musa Ahmad ” The ministry is working in line with the state’s strategic plan with international partners, civil society, and community-based organizations to restore forests by providing seedlings and supporting plantations.
The ministry has also introduced alternative means of livelihood through skills training to ease the hardship of those solely dependent on the charcoal business.”
Ibrahim recounted ’’There was night when my charcoal pit attracted gunfire, forcing me to flee deeper into the bush with my children clinging to my back’. The danger made the already precarious trade even more lethal.
Yet for Ibrahim and his family, the transition remains a painful story. He said ‘’ I would finds it difficult to survive without the charcoal and firewood business.” For Ibrahim, for now, it is a story of loss and a fading hope and virtually impossible transition.
