According to PUNCH Investigations, it was revealed that the violent Islamic sect had in the past week stepped up the looting of villages, markets and food stores in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states for food items including grains and bread.
Residents of these communities told journalists that the rate at which the insurgents stole their foodstuffs was unprecedented, noting that the pressure to feed the abducted girls might have contributed to the desperation of the insurgents to steal and kill the villagers in the process.
One of the villagers, Bukar Umar, who resides in Kamuyya village in Borno State, told one of our correspondents that though it was normal for the insurgents to ask communities to contribute money towards "God's work,'' they were usually satisfied when communities raised money for them.
He, however, said the insurgents in recent times had stepped up their activities by invading their communities and carting away food items.
With the pressure on Nigerian soldiers to clamp down on the Islamic sect, it was learnt that the insurgents no longer felt safe to go to markets to buy food items for fear of being arrested.
Some of the insurgents recently met their waterloo in Madagali, Adamawa State, where they were given up by a local food vendor from whom they had planned to buy foodstuffs.
Consequently, members of a vigilance group pounced on them and killed over 70 of them while seven others were reportedly handed over to the police.
The vigilantes acted after they were tipped by the local food vendor that the insurgents were coming to get food before going for a major operation in a neighbouring village.
A Madagali resident, who did not want his name mentioned, had said, "The vigilance group mobilised, laid ambush and waited patiently for the insurgents.
"As soon as the insurgents, numbering over 100, showed up in the village to pick up their favourite meals, the vigilantes attacked them, killing most of them in a hail of bullets."