Birnin Gwari: Where residents live in uneasy peace

The first place where the signatures of the bandits are outrageously present is the Birnin Gwari town itself, located over 120km from Kaduna, the Kaduna State capital. The town has bustling grains and cattle markets, some of the biggest in the entire state.Last year, as people went to bed, suspected armed robbers invaded the community, […]

The first place where the signatures of the bandits are outrageously present is the Birnin Gwari town itself, located over 120km from Kaduna, the Kaduna State capital. The town has bustling grains and cattle markets, some of the biggest in the entire state.
Last year, as people went to bed, suspected armed robbers invaded the community, bombed the branches of two major banks and stole undisclosed an amount of cash. They also blew up the town’s police station.
A year after the attack, the banks and police stations are still in ruins. The closure of the two banks crumbled activities at the two markets, owing to traders’ fears of moving large sums of money by road.
Even before the attacks, Birnin Gwari and other towns and villages under it had been held under siege by armed robbers who camped in forests around the area, wreaking havoc on them, as well as on commuters who ply the busy Kaduna-Lagos highway.
The about 123km stretch between Kaduna and Birnin Gwari is notorious for gangs that attack vehicles and dispossess passengers of their moneys and valuables. In some cases, they abduct and rape female passengers.
Communities around the forest hideout of these robbers also suffer the same fate or even worse. Residents of various villages in the area revealed that all their cows had been stolen by the bandits, giving rise to a situation that they say will affect food production in the area.
Alhaji Abdulkadir Jibrilu, the Wazirin Birnin Gwari painting a vivid picture of the quagmire, traced the invasion of the community back to decades.
“Armed robbery first came to us here about 15 to 20 years ago and started with the rustling of Fulani cows and tillage bulls. Sometimes they killed people and at other times they were resisted,” he said.
The traditional ruler added that some years later he witnessed “the first modern day armed robbery attack” of his life while returning from Kaduna on the way to Birnin Gwari.
“From that day, armed robbers continued to operate in daring fashion with sophisticated weapons,” he explained.
Birnin Gwari, Jibrilu said, had the largest grain market in Kaduna State and was listed on the commodities market. It was attracting customers from far-away Lagos, Enugu, Niger Republic and many other places. “The banks were operating then, so what traders only needed to was to deposit their money at wherever they were and withdraw it on arriving here. But to God, it got to point when nobody was coming to buy anything at the market again,” he said.
The buyers were scared of coming to the market, he added, as many of them had been dispossessed of their money and some of them had been killed. “That was the sad situation,” he lamented.
The attacks were frequent on the portion of the road leading to Kaduna and another one linking Birnin Gwari to Funtua, in Katsina State. Robberies were, however, not recorded on the section of the road leading to Lagos after Birnin Gwari, said Alhaji Jibrilu, who described it “bewildering.” “But from Birnin Gwari to Kaduna or Funtua was bad.”
While all these was happening, the people were updating the Kaduna State government of developments on their travails through the Emir of Birnin Gwari, the Waziri, said.
As things got worse, the Emir used the opportunity of a Sallah homage to the governor to drive home the message in simple and practical terms: “He told him, ‘Your Excellency I no longer have power over my domain and you are not the governor of that zone. The robbers are in control.’ This would tell you the gravity of the situation on our hands,” he pointed out.
“Things got so bad that we stopped visiting our relations anywhere. The only place we continued to go was Kaduna, because it was compulsory upon us to go there. And whenever you were setting out for Kaduna you would have to pray hard and employ some decoys. If God saved you, good luck for you,” Jibrilu elaborated.
While the situation attracted journalists from across the country, the traditional ruler recalled that one of them who came to do a report on the life of the besieged people of Birnin Gwari went back with what was more than a story – a bitter experience. “They shot him on the leg on his way here. So he came to us shocked and eager to leave,” the community leader stated, recounting the ordeal of the pressman.
According to him, things got nasty and many people were forced to flee. Some people relocated from villages to Birnin Gwari town and others left for other towns.
“There is no village in Birnin Gwari that has not been attacked,” he said. He gave the names of some of the villages as Kuyalo, Tabanni, Layin Danauta, Dogon Dawa, Kutemeshe, Kazage, Kwasa-Kwasa, Kwanda and Anguwan Nacibi. He informed that the bandits had settled in some of these areas.
Also affected was the state government’s Taungya system of farming, an initiative designed to empower local communities in the state. “The farmers have abandoned the project for fear of their lives. Some of the beneficiaries are not from the area and that makes the robbers to be apprehensive of their presence,” he said.

Rampant rapes
One of the ugliest atrocities committed by the armed robbers on both commuters and villagers was rape. Waziri confirmed that such attacks were rampant. “When they stopped vehicles and spotted women that they like, they would drop them and take them away into the forest where they, in turn, rape them,” he said.
“How many wives have they also raped during attacks on villages? Nobody has got the number,” he explained, painfully.
When the attacks and rapes became frequent for residents in Rumana village, they deserted their homes and took refuge in neighbouring villages.
In Kuriga, located some kilometres from Birnin Gwari, the story is also of rapes and pillage by the bandits. One of the victims was the Emir of the village, Alhaji Lawal Abdullahi.
Nine months ago, Abdullahi and his friends were travelling to Kaduna when they drove into an armed robbery gang operating on the road. All of them were robbed. The traditional ruler was dispossessed of his handsets and money.
After his own ugly experience, a group of women from his village who were traveling to Kano also fell into the criminal’s trap. “The armed robbers robbed and raped them,” Abdullahi said, adding that on the Funtua axis, brides were being constantly abducted when on the way to their husband’s houses.
Three months ago, the robbers raided his village, searching house to house, collecting money and personal belongings. In the process, they shot one person. Not long after that, they returned to the traumatized villagers.
“Now we don’t own cows, armed robbers have taken them,” Abdullahi said, sitting in his palace and recalling series of atrocities that the armed robbers had perpetrated on his people.
“There is a Fulani man who was living on my farm with his herd of cattle. Sensing danger of losing his flock to rustlers, he planned to relocate on a certain day, but two days before that day the robbers came and stole all his cows numbering about 100,” he said.
One week after that, he further recalled, the bandits stole another herd of 100 from another Fulani man. As they were still grappling with the shock, the gang ransacked the farm of a Chief Imam of Unguwar Rahama and went away with additional 96 cows.
“Now we don’t have cows,” the community leaders said repeatedly, before elaborating on the emphasis. “We have now been rendered handicapped and incapable of cultivating large portions of our farms. When we had our cows, we cultivated big hectares and produced tons of food, but without the cows I can guess that the produce will reduce because people will farm only one per cent of what they were doing. I cannot think of a better way of expressing our despondency,” he stated.
What would further cut down this year’s harvest is the fear that people are being trailed to their farms and robbed, he said.
“Anytime one is traveling to Kaduna, family members will join him to pray because he may not come back. And once he is gone, his family keeps praying until he returns,” he explained the situation. “Kaduna almost became a no-go-area for us, except for strong reasons,” he re-echoed Waziri.
Residents of Kuriga say on such days that the town does not fall victim, they watch as the robbers take over the nearby road and attack passengers.
At Labi, residents say they witness four to six armed robbery operations take place nearly every day, sometimes two being executed simultaneously.
“We see them as they block the road and stop vehicles. On some occasions, they mount two road blocks, less a kilometre from each other and rob,” the acting ward head of Labi, Sale Wakili, disclosed.
According to him, the criminals were mostly Fulani, who spread out on the road in large numbers to ambush motorists. His community itself had never experienced any attack, leading to a situation where people there were being accused of having a hand in the crime, according to another traditional leader, Idris Shu’aibu.
“We were living under fear even though we were not attacked. But seeing them attacking people gave us reasons not to feel safe and our fear was heightened by allegations of complicity that were being directed at us,” Shu’aibu noted.
Explaining how the community reacts whenever the armed robbers are operating in sight, Shu’aibu said: “We normally hide inside our rooms. We don’t dare come out unless they are gone.” He said some of the operations were carried out in daylight, with the robbers showing no signs of apprehension or fear of being caught.
Wakili believes that the situation can be permanently brought under control if government clears parts of the forest along the between Kaduna and Birnin Gwari. “The forest is too big and it is the greatest threat because it gives the robbers cover,” he argued, saying: “Government should clear it and allocate farmlands to us.”
The acting ward head of Uduwa village, located near Labi, also accused the Fulani of being behind the attacks in the area, noting that they were not afraid of revealing their identities.
Alhaji Ibrahim Ciroma said the robbers had raided many villages under his domain and stole people’s cows and motorcycles. “They come in large numbers and called their guns AK-47. They have taken all the tillage bulls in the neighbouring village. We could not go to the farms and they had been threatening to attack our village,” he explained.

We want the banks open
The Waziri’s house, like the Emir’s, is situated some metres away from one of the bombed banks. He believes it was high time the banks were reopened in order to save what was left of the community’s battered economy.
One other bank still operates in the town but Jibrilu said it doesn’t have the capacity to meet the monetary needs of the people in Birnin Gwari and their trading partners all over the country and beyond, as the two closed banks had been doing “effectively.”
“The (closed) banks should reopen. They were not robbed by the people of Birnin Gwari. They were robbed by people from nowhere and a similar attack was repeated around the same time on a bank in Niger State. Since banks that came under such attacks have resumed operations elsewhere, what is our offence that is stopping them from reopening the ones here?”

Soldiers brought peace, but…
In May, many communities took part in a concerted protest that saw the blocking of the Kaduna-Lagos highway over the killings of the son of the Chief Imam of Brinin Gwari, by suspected armed robbers.
The victim was killed on the dangerous highway as he headed for Kaduna where he was working as a lecturer. The protestors called on the state government to improve security in the area. Many saw the demonstration as not only a disapproval of the killing of the lecturer, who was connected to the communities, but also as a strong call to authorities to end years of repugnant siege by armed robbers on people in the area.   
All the communities are unanimous in commending government for deploying soldiers to confront the criminals, a move they said had helped disperse the armed robbers and restore security.
Troops were camped in the Birnin Gwari forest at the same time soldiers were deployed in Zamafara and Jigawa states to check raising cases of insecurity.
The Wazirin Birnin Gwari succinctly captured the tranquility pervading the area since the deployment . “Now we can go anywhere without fear and with rest of mind. Travelling to Kaduna is no longer a nightmare; commuters ply the road at any time, day or night and that is what we were used to. The soldiers are not up to one month here but sanity has been restored,” he said.
“The Kaduna State government has done something that has impressed us and given us confidence by posting here these soldiers who have taken the war to the robbers in their forest hideouts. We are also grateful to the federal government for allowing the soldiers to come. Things are beginning to return to normal, even though it’s too early to begin to hope for full recovery,” he added.
The traditional ruler, however, advised against premature redeployment of the troops. “They should not be in a haste to remove the soldiers because some of the criminals may choose to play hide and seek, so that they can bounce back fully when they are gone. If the soldiers are here they will check that possibility, so they should remain here,” he pleaded.
Other traditional rulers in the area also expressed similar sentiments, saying the presence of the soldiers and the reported arrests they had achieved so far are already turning the tides against the criminals.
The Emir of Kuriga, Abdullahi, argued that the attacks had dropped since the soldiers arrived, save for one where about 100 cows were stolen near his village. “The soldiers should not be taken away and they should maintain the tempo of their operations so that we can continue to ply the road and live peacefully in our homes,” he prayed.
The traditional rulers of Uduwa and Labi also spoke in the same vein.
Probably, when the Emir of Birnin Gwari pays another visit to the state governor, he will gladly announce that Birnin Gwari has been brought back under the governor’s and emir’s control.