Recently, Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State said there was no end in sight to the banditry going on in his state. This, he added, was because of the individuals fuelling such criminal activities. “With the kind of people we have in Zamfara State, I don’t think this issue of banditry will end very soon because, already, some people are behind it. Some people are using it,” Matawalle lamented.
The governor said he had initiated dialogue and reconciliation which brought peace for over nine months between herders and farmers in the state. However, those fuelling the attacks allegedly incited the bandits, telling them that the government was not serious about the dialogue. Their aim, Matawalle noted, was just to score political point and to make Nigerians believe that both the federal and Zamfara State governments were unserious in the issue of tackling insecurity.
The Niger State Governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, raised the same alarm recently. He lamented that bandits had taken over not less than 50 villages in five of the 25 local government areas of the state. Earlier this month, they reportedly killed 52 people in separate attacks on communities in Niger and Plateau States. Among the dead were 10 persons from the same family. Six children and four others reportedly had their hands tied to their backs before they were shot. The terrorists also burnt down food barns and all the houses in one of the communities called Nakuna. In recent attacks in Anka and Bukkuyum local government areas of Zamfara State, they killed at least 58 people. Kaduna State is already overrun. Attacks in Katsina, Sokoto and many others have seen thousands of innocent citizens being killed like fowls.
To worsen matters, bandits now go to some communities, especially in Zamfara, demanding levies. Any community that fails to remit the specified amount of money risks being attacked. Recent reports from Zamfara have it that these criminals have resorted to raping wives and daughters of those who fail to pay the N2 million levy per community in some parts of the state. As a result, residents of at least five communities in Kaura Namoda Local Government Area of the state have reportedly fled their homes.
To put it mildly, we are in a state of war. Terrorism and banditry in the North have reached a stage where both the federal and state governments must sit up and do something extraordinary. But the best the government has done so far is to issue threats upon threats. Just recently, President Muhammadu Buhari was in Kaduna. He reiterated his now hackneyed phrase that his government would crush terrorists and bandits operating in the country. He issued similar threat in July last year on the heels of the killing of at least 35 farmers at Faru in Maradun Local Government Area of Zamfara State by bandits. In August 2019, he gave a similar order in Katsina where he charged the military to be ruthless with bandits.
These threats and orders have not translated into concrete results. They have not deterred the bandits from their evil acts. In fact, the more the threats, the more they unleash havoc in the communities. It was such that the terrorists shot down a Nigerian Air Force Alpha jet returning to base from a mission on Zamfara-Kaduna border in July last year. It has become obvious that going by the way government is tackling banditry, we may not go far in combating the menace. We may need to go harder on them.
To start with, government should address the causes of banditry and terrorism in Nigeria. Some of them include poverty, illiteracy, inequality and unemployment. If youths are meaningfully engaged, they won’t be in this mess. Also, government should not allow criminals to occupy any part of Nigeria and impose levies on the citizens. Some ragtag groups cannot just override the government and hold everybody to ransom. They are a menace to Nigeria and government should step up action against them. One major way to do this is to tighten security at the borders. This is to prevent smuggling of arms and ammunition into the country.
There is need for intelligence sharing as well. The naming of six Nigerians among 32 other nationals and 15 entities as alleged financiers of terrorism and other criminal activities by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) shows that those fuelling these criminal activities could be easily apprehended if government seeks collaboration with some Nigerians and other nations. Government should also block the identifiable sources of funding of these criminals. Sponsors of terrorism must be arrested and prosecuted in accordance with the provisions of the Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011 (as amended). Governor Matawalle had given assurance that all those who had a hand in the insecurity in his state would be fished out and brought to justice after investigations. He needs to do this as soon as possible.
