Fear grips Nigerian states where raids by bandits are becoming routine

On the afternoon of Valentine’s Day, gunmen believed to be bandits abducted about 50 bus passengers travelling home from a wedding in Nigeria’s Niger state.

The kidnappings – less than 60 kilometres from Minna, the state capital – should have made international news. But three days later, another group of bandits raided a school in Kagara, less than a kilometre from the site of the first attack, abducting hundreds of schoolboys and their teachers.

The attacks are becoming almost routine in northern Nigeria as bandits and extremists hound the families and friends of their captives for ransom money.

A day after the bus attack, the bandits released a video, demanding 500 million naira ($1.2m) for the release of “your loved ones”. A week later, the wedding guests were released, but the schoolchildren and their teachers are still being held hostage.

This attack and others in recent months have contributed to an atmosphere of fear in the region. Ummulsaada Aliyu, whose town of Kusherki was raided in the same week as the bus and school attacks, said her great-uncle was the target of a recent raid.

“They shot him in his mouth, and the bullet ripped through his head, because he showed resistance. They then took my dad’s younger brother who is still in their custody.”

The bandits have demanded a ransom of 20 million naira for his release.

Acaps, a consortium of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children and Mercy Corps, estimates 21 million people living in the states of Zamfara, Kaduna, Sokoto, Kebbi, Katsina and Niger have been affected by bandit attacks.

Sokoto Idris Mohammed, researcher and lecturer at Usmanu Danfodio University, said banditry has become a profitable business in the north of Nigeria because the government continually negotiates the payment of ransoms.

“The government is always interested in granting the bandits amnesty [and] sometimes using soft approaches,” he said.

Kabiru Adamu, a West African defence and security analyst, said Nigeria’s centralised security apparatus was to blame for the proliferation of criminal groups in the region.

He said only the federal government had the power to mobilise security officers to troubled regions, states and communities. It distributes “security votes” – monthly cash allowances tailored to each state to pay for security costs.

“No matter how effective the security vote is, if the security agencies don’t support it, it is not likely to work,” he said. “That is why the problem has continued for so long.”

Dr Adamu said regional security forces are woefully outgunned by the groups they are fighting.

“The enemies they [security forces] are dealing with have combat weapons like AK-47s and other sophisticated military weapons.”In the meantime, state governors try other methods. The governor of Zamfara recently relaunched a gun amnesty, promising cows to those who hand in machine guns.

Last Thursday, retired Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai, said it would take Nigeria 20 years to address its security challenges.

Dr Adamu agrees military power alone will not solve the problem, but is sceptical about Gen Tukur’s integrity.

“What most of us are not happy about is the fact that while he [Gen Buratai] was in office as the Chief of Army Staff, he kept on saying that the Boko Haram terrorist group has been defeated,” he said.

“Now that he is no longer in office, he’s saying it would take 20 years to tackle insecurity, which shows the level of dishonesty in the fight.”

Bandits and extremists typically hound the families and friends of their captives for ransom money