Rout the Zamfara bandits now

  Even as this country made much headway in defeating Boko Haram insurgents in the North East and curtailing activities of pipeline vandals in the Niger Delta, yet another type of bandit rule reigns, this time in the north western state of Zamfara. On Monday last week, Governor Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar said in a special […]

According to Yari, 53 innocent citizens were killed in Shinkafi Local Government; another 50 were killed in Maru Local Government; 37 died in Maradun Local Government while bandits killed another 15 in Zurmi Local Government. This sorry state of affairs has persisted for many years now despite a major military operation launched in the state last July. President Muhammadu Buhari himself went to Zamfara and launched the operation, code named “Harbin Kunama” or scorpion sting. Even though the army moved lots of troops and equipment and initially had the bandits on the run, it looks like the operation did not make much headway. Yari said last week that “the criminals regrouped and returned with vendetta, killing and kidnapping innocent people and demanding large sums of money as ransom.”

Indeed, Daily Trust reported a week ago that fear gripped the people of Duhuwa, Baude and Kawaye  villages in Anka local government area of Zamfara State because armed bandits demanded N3 million from the hapless villagers in order not to attack the communities. The report said residents of the three villages were scrambling to raise the money in order to avoid a bandit attack. “They are going from house to house to collect the amount from every household.” A resident was quoted as saying it was the fourth time this year that the hoodlums demanded protection money from the community. The demand was conveyed through a local farmer who the armed men accosted as he worked on his farm. Ironically, the villagers even identified the bandits’ leader, a man called Gajere, who they said is a notorious cattle rustler.

Two weeks before this report, there was another story saying bandits served notice on the people of Kawaye village of Anka Local government area  to pay N6 million to the bandits or be attacked. Chairman of Anka local council Alhaji Mustapha Gado said during a visit by the Special Assistant to the President on Social Investment to monitor disbursement of a Child Development Grant that armed bandits told the village head to mobilize his subjects to raise the money and also ask security operatives already stationed in the community to withdraw or face dire consequences. He said they even brought a bag into which the money must be placed.

Only last month, newspapers were awash with a story that bandits attacked an illegal miners’ camp in Zamfara State and killed 40 of them. The illegal gold miners were shot dead at Bindin village in Maru local government area. Reports said the bandits had lately targeted the illegal miners’ camps for deadly attacks, suspecting them to have more money than hapless local farmers. Newspapers published a gut-wrenching picture of the 40 dead miners being lined up for funeral prayers.

In his broadcast last week, Governor Yari said a meeting of stakeholders was held in Gusau, after which the Zamfara State government set up a crisis management committee comprising security agents, civil servants, legislators and retired security agents. The body was charged with assessing the damage caused by the activities of the hoodlums to enable the government to assist the victims. Yari appealed to the Federal Government to deploy more soldiers to the state to defeat the bandits. Days earlier, Minister of Defence retired Brigadier General Mansur Muhammad Dan-Ali said the army battalion in the state would be upgraded to a brigade as part of efforts to banish the bandits. Indeed, after last July’s launch of Operation Harbin Kunama, Daily Trust quoted military sources as saying that the soldiers deployed for the operation were woefully inadequate. We sympathise with the army because it is performing too many internal security duties all over the country. Still, we urge Army Chief Lt Gen Tukur Buratai to scrounge around and find more men and material to rescue Zamfara State from the tyrannical rule of bandits.

The truth is that Zamfara State’s current crisis, which has been on for about five years now, is actually part of a region wide banditry problem that includes several forested areas of the North West region. Southern Zamfara State’s forests are contiguous to similar forested areas of north western Kaduna State as well as southern Katsina State, western parts of Kebbi State and also northern parts of Niger State. The governors of these states, together with their Kano State counterpart, have been meeting in the past year and jointly sponsored a military effort to rout the bandits. As the bandits are chased from one state, they simply migrate to a nearby state. What started as cattle rustling has since morphed into many other forms of criminality including armed robbery, hostage taking and deadly reprisal attacks against any community that dared to challenge their activities.

The communities did set up vigilante groups to defend themselves but any time the vigilantes succeeded in killing or apprehending a bandit, his comrades unleashed deadly vengeance attacks that sometimes wiped out entire communities. It is time to bring this ugly phenomenon to an end. We urge the federal authorities, with the assistance of state and local governments in the region, to launch a major operation and rout the bandits once and for all. Things are tough enough in Nigeria without bandits disrupting the local economy and taking away even the little that locals have.