Bridal party victims of kidnap boom as Nigeria faces collapse into chaos
Aicha Ibrahim was six months pregnant when they came to her village at night. The 19-year-old had returned to her birthplace in north-western Nigeria to celebrate her brother’s marriage.
The bride and eight other women, including Aicha, were meant to spend the night before the wedding together.
But at 10pm, around 20 heavily armed bandits arrived on motorcycles and abducted the entire bridal party.
“I was so scared,” Aicha told The Sunday Telegraph. “We didn’t know what they were going to do with us, if they were going to rape or kill us”.
The women were forced to march for six hours through the thick Dajin Rugu forest, away from the village of Muji in Katsina State. One of the grandmothers struggled to keep pace and was beaten mercilessly.
After they reached the border with Zamfara State, Aicha was held for 13 days in appalling conditions before a £5000 ransom was paid for her release.
Unfortunately, her story is now common in Africa’s most populous country. Armed bandits have kidnapped thousands of people in Nigeria’s north west in recent years – and the problem is getting worse.
Experts fear that the massive West African country may be becoming a failed state, with security breaking down in almost all corners amid a deadly mix of poor leadership, corruption and widespread unemployment.
On top of the kidnappings, Boko Haram and other jihadist groups have started launching attacks outside of their historical base in the north east. And there is a small but growing secessionist movement among the Igbo and Yoruba tribes in the south.
“We are just a couple of steps away from what we have in Somalia,” said Kola Alapinni, a human rights lawyer based in the capital city Abuja.
“It will be catastrophic for Africa and the world if Nigeria gets to that point. Nigeria has a population of around 215 million people. If anything happens to Nigeria, millions of people will flood into small West African countries and up to Europe.”
A total of 7,222 Nigerians were killed in the first six months of this year, according to a report last week by Beacon Consulting, an Abuja-based security firm – a 30 per cent increase on the first six months of last year.
The arid north west – where Aicha was kidnapped – has seen one of the most shocking descents into chaos. Previously safe, it has seen more than 3,800 people abducted this year.
An estimated 30,000 bandits roam the area, most linked to the Fulani tribe, which spreads across many West African and Sahelian countries.
Over the last few years, the gangs have launched steadily more audacious attacks that include kidnapping entire schools and holding up a train from Abuja to Kaduna State in March. Attahiru Turaki, 50, told Telegraph bandits had never ventured into Katsina, the capital of Katsina State, before he was abducted in June.
“They came to my house at around 2am holding AK-47s,” he said. “I gave them some cash, but they didn’t like my money so they took me and my wife captive.”
Mr Turaki believes he was seized because he is a well-known businessman and the gangs hoped for a large ransom. He and his wife were placed on separate motorbikes, sandwiched between two men and driven for 10 hours towards Zamfara State. They arrived at a huge camp where more than 1,000 bandits lived alongside several hundred captives.
The couple were placed in a “VIP hut” where they stayed for two days before Mr Turaki paid almost £24,000 for their release. Others were not so lucky – there was a designated spot called “the mortuary” where those who could not pay were killed.
There is mounting evidence that the gangs are now becoming more ideological, with many either working with jihadists from the north east or joining terror organisations. That means they have started killing people rather than releasing them for ransom.
“Bandits killed more people than they abducted in the first three months of this year, which goes against the notion bandits do it for money,” said Bulama Bukarti, senior analyst in the Extremism Policy Unit of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. “Their modus operandi is changing.”
Officials said bandits collaborated with Boko Haram in an “unholy handshake” to launch the attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train. Some of the bandit leaders have reportedly joined the group and its offshoot the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) to spread its beliefs in the north west.
The little-known Ansaru terrorist group is also taking advantage of the explosion of banditry in the region. Mr Bukarti said the group has launched multiple attacks in Kaduna State against Christians, as part of wider aims to spark a “civil war” in Nigeria.
The group wants Christians to believe the Fulani is responsible for the attacks, which it doesn’t claim responsibility for. “If you suspect that they are Fulani bandits then Christians will attack Fulani communities in Kaduna State,” Mr Bukarti said.
This dynamic feeds into concerns that tensions between Christians and Muslims will spill over into other peaceful parts of the country.
“If you had asked me a year ago if the north west would become like the north east, I would have said no,” Mr Bukarti said. “But the data shows that it is very possible.”
Most analysts blame the explosion of violence on a failure of leadership at the highest level. Despite being a former army general, President Muhammadu Buhari has failed to make military advances against the criminals or jihadists. His presidency has been criticized for inaction and incompetence.
Other public officials have been accused of profiting from banditry through corruption. And Nigeria’s war on terror faces a similar set of issues. Experts claim that entities within the government are working with and benefiting from Boko Haram.
According to a report, the
‘I was so scared. We didn’t know what they were going to do, if they were going to rape us or kill us’
government was warned 44 times about an upcoming Boko Haram attack on a prison in June, but it did nothing.
Nigeria’s military strategy to combat insurgents is also criticised. It has spent billions of dollars on kit that is ineffective against insurgents who live in forests and rural areas.
After she was kidnapped, Aicha spent several days in hospital worried that she might have a miscarriage.
Despite her losing a lot of weight and catching malaria, the doctors said her baby would be fine.
She is now healthy again – but she still suffers from nightmares.
“I wake up every night, worrying that they will come for me again,” she admitted.