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This garrison town in Borno State is surrounded by deep trenches that slash into the sand in the air, giving the impression of a fortress.

Despite the recent rise in attacks on military installations by jihadists fighting a bloody 16-year war, these defenses have kept the Monguno largely secure.

Since jihadists have been forced back in Borno since the conflict’s peak in 2015, fighting may have stopped.

However, Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province group have attacked or temporarily overrun a dozen army bases in Borno and the neighboring Yobe state this year.

In 2015, Monguno itself suffered a brief fall from the jihadists.

To protect its soldiers, the Nigerian army has withdrawn from towns and smaller bases and hunkered down in what are known as “supercamps” or garrison towns.

IED explosions have soared in recent years.

Barriers are dotted around the roads that lead to Monguno to halt traffic coming from nearby.

Two soldiers with metal detectors patrol the road as they pass the last trenches in the north and toward Lake Chad, where attacks are most frequent, before moving north.

Major Oluwafemi Seyingbo, 37, the head of this demining unit, stated, “We clear this 10-kilometer&nbsp, (six-mile) route every day to neutralize any explosive devices that may have been hidden there during the night.

In Nigeria’s three northeastern states in 2024, a report from the UN Mine Action Service showed that there were 418 civilian fatalities, twice as many as there were in 2023.

The various entrances to Monguno are controlled by 12 checkpoints run by the Nigerian army.

One of them is led by Major Friday Feekwe, 37.

We thwarted two attacks in a few weeks in March. He claimed that the attackers arrived in large numbers and had large amounts of weapons.

A 12. 7 mm machine gun and an intimidating watchtower covered in camouflage netting have since been installed at the checkpoint.

For the past four years, Boko Haram has targeted Monguno.

The organization’s kidnapping of nearly 300 schoolgirls from Chibok, which is also a part of Borno, was at its height in 2013 and 2014 and was well-known worldwide.

“This place offers peace and security.”

The Multinational Joint Task Force, which consists of troops from three Lake Chad nations: Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, and Benin, has made Monguno a haven for the people of Borno.

The Nigerian sector command is located at the massive base.

Umar Bullam, who was working outside the Monguno base, was in complete safety with a spade in hand.

After Boko Haram slashed my crops and fertiliser, the 30-year-old said, “I had land more than five kilometers from here that I had to abandon.”

The 35-year-old had lived in southern Niger for 11 years before moving to the Monguno registration center for displaced people.

The mother of seven reportedly said in a low voice, “in the middle of the night, the jihadists arrived in her village and killed the adults and kidnapped the children.”

Aisha, 15, one of her daughters, was kidnapped that night, but she hasn’t heard anything.

Nearly half of Nigeria’s 3. 6 million internally displaced people are from Borno State alone, according to the UN.

According to Vincent Foucher, a researcher at the CNRS or the French Institute for Scientific Research, “Nigeria has prevented jihadist groups from capturing major cities as they did in 2013-2014 or 2016”.

The country still has a lot of trouble attacking jihadists in the heart of their territories in more remote areas, he said, despite a reinforced trench system and aerial surveillance.

Given that the groups now have new means of attack, as demonstrated by the first drone strikes against the Wajiroko military base in northeast Nigeria on December 24, the resurgence of attacks is all the more worrying.