Driving through the vast, scorched landscape, I hear the words that have followed me all day. ‘They roasted the pastor and his wife alive in the church. We heard their screams.’
Plateau State stretches to the horizon. Rich black soil that once grew cassava and sugar cane is now ash. Trees are encrusted with soot. Fields of maize that shone gold in the sun are grey and lifeless, stalk after stalk standing in formation like an army frozen in defeat.
Bricks lie scattered in the scrub. Concrete blocks jut from the earth like jagged teeth. Roofs have collapsed inward.
