In November 2024, an empty field suddenly turned into a bustling scene. Women streamed in carrying baskets of tomatoes, while others unwrapped sacks of oranges. At the time, teenage girls hawked in the crowd with trays of boiled groundnuts balanced on their heads. Along the roadside, two trailers lined up a few metres away as young men tossed heavy sacks of maize into one and rice into the other.
This was the Tumba Ra Ngabili market.
For a trader like Asmau Abubakar, she never imagined a market like this could exist, especially when she reflects on the years when the Boko Haram insurgency was at its peak. She says her fear grew the first time she heard the insurgents had arrived in Madagali in 2014, a few towns away from Michika, her hometown, both in Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria.
When rumours spread at the time that the insurgents would not harm women, Asmau urged her husband to flee while she stayed behind with the children. But he refused, insisting the family remain together.
Then came the news that the insurgents were unleashing violence in Gulak. And knowing Gulak was close, Asmau’s family fled to Uba, a neighbouring town, where they passed the night before returning home the next morning.
But the fear never left Asmau. Soon again, word spread that Michika itself would be attacked on a Sunday.
“Before they came, on that Sunday at dawn, my husband got us a car that took us to Yola [the Adamawa State capital] while he fled on foot, passing several villages to reach Gombi,” Asmau recalled. “We were at Mararraban Mubi when I heard the insurgents had entered Michika.”
Many families, like Asmau’s, fled for safety. But that Sunday in September 2014 carried the memory of gunfire echoing in the air, houses burning in flames, and, of course, the lives taken in cold blood. The insurgents did not only stop at attacking Michika, they in fact seized the town and spread into nearby villages, inflicting fear and hardship on the locals. It was a period when they were expanding across northeastern Nigeria in their bid to carve out an Islamic caliphate.
Boko Haram’s violent campaign had started five years earlier in 2009, first as an uprising in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, before spreading across the region. In its wake, families mourned their loved ones, schools and markets were left destroyed, and dozens of communities were turned to ruins, with over a million people uprooted from their homes.
Michika was soon trapped in this same cycle of bloodshed and chaos that forced people across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe to live with fear as part of daily life. Meanwhile, the insurgents held the town captive for months until January 2015, when Nigeria’s military finally drove them out. So, as locals began to return, they discovered that what awaited them were wrecked houses and the loss of nearly everything they owned.
“The walls of my house were riddled with bullets,” Asmau told HumAngle. “They destroyed doors and windows and looted some of our belongings.”
Even as Asmau and other families in Michika began to rebuild and piece their lives back together, they realised that the insurgency had sown deep distrust between Christians and Muslims. The divide between the two faiths grew so intense that, according to locals HumAngle spoke with, it spread into the main Michika market, where Christians chose Saturdays to sell their farm produce and Muslims traded on Sundays when most Christians were in church.
Asmau has not forgetten that period when she moved between the main Michika market and those in Bazza and Lassa to buy and sell bags of maize, beans, and groundnuts.
“Relations between us Muslims and the Christians became strained,” she explained. “They thought the majority of Muslims were Boko Haram.”
HumAngle also learned that, at the time, Muslims said their children could not have relationships with children from Christian families, and Christians equally insisted their children would not relate to Muslim families.
Rebuilding Trust
This situation persisted in Tumba Ra Ngabili, Asmau’s community, until 2020, when the British Council, in partnership with the Women and Youth Economic Advancement and Health Initiative (WYEAHI), brought women from the area into its Managing Conflict in Nigeria (MCN) programme.
About 200 women from Christian and Muslim households received training in peacebuilding, conflict management, and Early Warning and Early Response (EWER).
“We learned that due to the insurgency, these women lost their livelihoods. So we felt it would be good that after the training, we should also empower them,” said Aishatu Margima, WYEAHI’s Executive Director.
The women were organised into groups of 20, with each member receiving ₦30,000 to start a business or support an existing one.
“I was happy when my name made it to the list of women selected for the training and even more when I got empowered with ₦30,000,” shared Asmau, recalling it was a time when her business was struggling due to low capital and disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted movements and closed markets.
The micro-funding and training also transformed Christiana Emma’s life. She had lived in Tumba Ra Ngabili for 20 years and fled to Yola only when the insurgency struck. Though she lost her house and belongings, she returned after Michika was liberated because the feeling that it was her home did not leave her.
“We started rebuilding with my husband through the grace of God, and to support him, I was selling tomatoes, bananas, and oranges,” Christiana said. She would travel to Besso and Kirchinga villages in Michika and Madagali to collect goods on loan, sell them, repay the loan, and keep the profit.
“The ₦30,000 I got helped me grow my business. I later built a capital of ₦150,000 that allows me to buy goods upfront without taking loans,” she noted. “Today, the proceeds help me cover my family’s bills, from education to feeding and healthcare.”
Restoring peace through trade
In their 20-member group, 16 were Christians and 4 were Muslims. The training enlightened them on love and peaceful coexistence.
The group began holding weekly meetings every Sunday to strengthen relationships and discuss business challenges. And in one of those meetings, they decided to establish a market in Tumba Ra Ngabili.
The women approached the community chief, Lawan Yakubu, who, after consulting with his council members, approved their request and allocated land a few metres from his house for the market.
They believed the local market would make it easier to run their businesses and improve their earnings without the need to travel to nearby villages or the main Michika market. At the same time, they wanted the market to serve as a space for unity where people from all faiths could trade freely.
At first, the women traded in an open field until the Danish Refugee Council, an international humanitarian organisation, while implementing a different project in the community, learned about the market and decided to support and expand the women’s efforts by constructing a block of 16 roofed tents where traders could display their goods.
In the two years since it opened, the Tumba Ra Ngabili market has transformed both business and relationships in the community, especially with Christian and Muslim women trading side by side.
Blessing John, a widow and member of the group who now sells Gwanjo (second-hand clothes), remembers how isolated she once felt and how difficult it was to keep her business running or get help when challenges came.
“Now, I know I can turn to any member of the group, whether at the market or at home, whether a Christian or a Muslim, and get support,” said the 40-something-year-old mother of eight.
Blessing explained that to make it convenient for everyone, the women agreed that the market would mainly operate on Sundays immediately after morning church services.
“The market also opens on Wednesdays, but Sunday has become the main trading day,” she told HumAngle.
Traders troop into the market, mostly during the harvest period, to buy bags of food crops ranging from maize, rice, beans, groundnuts, and even tomatoes, which are then transported in big lorries to Mubi, Maiduguri, and other parts of the country.
Each trader at the market pays ₦50 to the local government as tax on every market day.
Saving together
The women have also started an Adashe (savings pool) system. Every Sunday evening, after trading, they gather to repeat sessions on “maintaining peaceful coexistence with one another,” and each member contributes ₦1,000.
The collected ₦20,000 is kept in a wooden box made by a local carpenter. The box has four keys, each held by a team of four members, and it can only be opened when all group members are present. If a member is sick or unavoidably absent, a representative from her family or relations can stand in to ensure the box can be opened.
After collecting the contributions, any member needing a loan can borrow from the pool and repay it with 10 per cent interest within a month. For example, if a member borrows ₦10,000, she will repay ₦11,000. In the early days of the system, Asmau often borrowed from the pool to strengthen her business capital.
“It helps me make more profit since the capital is much larger when I combine my initial empowerment money with the loaned amount,” Asmau said. From the profit, she buys foodstuffs each market day and contributes to the savings pool.
“I have children and pay their school fees with a part of the profit,” she added.
When no one needs a loan, the wooden box is locked and kept by the group’s treasurer, Manga Musa, who shared that the group also has a social fund, to which each member deposits ₦50 weekly.
“It’s the savings we use in case any of us gets sick. We can then support the person without asking for repayment,” she said.
And by December each year, a week before Christmas, the group gathers to share all the money in the savings pool before taking a break and returning in January for the new year.
“We buy Christmas food and clothes for our children in December after sharing the earnings,” noted Christiana. “For Muslims, during their festive seasons, if they need to borrow money from the pool, we give it to them.”
The struggle to thrive
However, despite their success stories, some challenges raise questions about how sustainable the women’s efforts are without institutionalised support.
During the rainy season, the market does not come alive like it does in the dry months. When HumAngle visited on a Wednesday, the tents were empty. And even on Sunday, the main market day, only a few items, such as vegetables, fruits, and small household goods, were on display. There were no food crops.
Locals told HumAngle that this is because most traders are occupied with farming at this time of the year and do not come to the market as often.
Last year, the community suffered a flood, and most traders whose farmlands were flooded did not harvest many food crops that could be brought to the market.
Still, the poor roads leading to Tumba Ra Ngabili, along with a river that traders from distant villages must cross, also limit the amount of produce that reaches the market.
On the other hand, Blessing admitted that business has slowed in recent months. “People focus more on looking for what to eat than buying clothes,” she explained.
Manga said the women’s savings pool is directly tied to market activity. When sales drop, some members struggle to make their weekly contributions, which sometimes delays their cycle of lending and repayment.
Even with the gaps, Blessing dreams of opening a shop to stock clothes instead of pushing them around in a wheelbarrow. Others hope to see the Tumba Ra Ngabili market upgraded into a standard marketplace with proper shops and storage facilities.
Together, the women want their savings pool to grow strong enough to sustain members and extend support to other women in the community.
Now, what remains uncertain is whether the peace they have built can withstand the challenges that still surround them.
This story was produced under the HumAngle Foundation’s Advancing Peace and Security through Journalism project, supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).