An unprecedented insider history of Boko Haram told through survivors' voices, revealing how ordinary Nigerians endured, resisted, and rebuilt their lives amid one of Africa's deadliest insurgencies.


What does terrorism look like through the eyes of those who survived it?
For more than fifteen years, Boko Haram has devastated northeastern Nigeria, leaving behind profound human suffering, fractured communities, and enduring trauma. While governments, journalists, and security analysts have documented the movement's violence, far less is known about how ordinary people experienced its rule, survived its brutality, and reconstructed their lives after unimaginable loss.
Drawing on seven summers of immersive fieldwork and an unparalleled body of oral testimony, Ghosts of Boko Haram: Testimonies of Loss and Survival reconstructs the insurgency from the perspective of those who lived through it. Survivors, former insurgents, women, traditional rulers, religious leaders, soldiers, and humanitarian workers recount experiences of fear, resilience, loss, negotiation, faith, and recovery.

Rather than treating Boko Haram solely as a military or ideological phenomenon, the book places human experience at the center of historical analysis. It demonstrates how ordinary people preserved dignity, community, and hope amid extraordinary violence and how memory itself becomes a form of resistance.

Richly documented and powerfully written, this landmark oral history shows that survival is itself a form of historical agency, and that the aftermath of insurgency continues long after the battlefield falls silent.