Insecurity in the North: Root Cause and Possible Solution – A Case Study of Banditry
Mohammad Abdulhamid
INTRODUCTION
As Nigeria is battling with the coronavirus, the merciless bloodshed going on, especially in the northern part of the country in recent times, is exacting a much larger human toll. 5,000 people, mostly women and children, have been displaced in the Faskari, Batsari and Dandume Local government areas of Katsina state, the home state of the current Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari In just a week, over 100 people are reported to have been maimed in these communities.
Banditry is on the increase in northern Nigeria. This is a region with many security problems, chief among them Boko Haram’s insurgency. In the north-central region, herdsmen militancy has become a key security concern. Northwest Nigeria, which used to be the bastion of security and stability, has been hit hard by rural banditry.
Banditry refers to armed violence driven principally by the criminal intent to steal and plunder. It is motivated by the quest for economic accumulation. The victims are individuals and communities with material valuables. The most common examples of banditry in Nigeria are armed robbery, kidnapping, cattle rustling and village raids.
Crime thrives in contexts where there’s little deterrence. In most of Nigeria’s rural communities, there are many opportunities for criminal activity. For one thing, some of these communities are located in remote areas where there is little or no government presence. More importantly, households are in some cases separated by and interspersed with forest areas. This renders them vulnerable to banditry. This situation is made worse by the absence of effective community policing mechanisms capable of addressing the security challenges.
Nigeria is, arguably, a country under distress. The country’s woes are most evident in the torrential spate of armed violence and criminality in various parts of the country. Nothing explains this awry situation better than the apocalyptically volatile security ambience in the wider northern Nigeria. The northeastern Nigeria is still patently under the Boko Haram scourge, amidst the precarious counter-insurgency endeavors of the government (Okoli 2017a; Zenn 2018). The north-central area has been afflicted by herdsmen militancy, which has plunged the region into dire humanitarian crisis (Okoli and Ogayi 2018).
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
On 28 May, a terrifying video of a bandit attack in Sabon Birni, a district of Sokoto state, went viral on social media. The video shows multiple corpses on the ground covered in blood. On that day, 82 people were killed and many others ran for their lives into the bush as the few security personnel could not mount any resistance against the bandits. The bandits were said to be seeking reprisals after the police killed two of their men. According to sources in the village, hours before the attack, the community people alerted the police, but they only arrived after the bandits were done with their massacre.
Also on Sunday night, the Kware village of Zamfara state was razed, after motorcycle-riding gunmen attacked, killing over 30 people. The attack came just three days after bandits killed 32 vigilance group members at a checkpoint set up by locals. This has been an everyday occurrence in Zamfara state for the last five years and it is getting worse by the day. The so-called banditry in the northwest region arose out of similar social circumstances. Nigeria is now the poverty capital of the world, with almost 100 million people living below the poverty line, of which 80 percent are from the north. In the northwest of Nigeria, where the crisis is prevalent, six in every 10 children are stunted as a result of malnutrition. One out of every five out-of-school children in the world are in Nigeria and mostly from the north. Access to healthcare is very limited. Banditry is just a reflection of this reality of an abandoned people with a very bleak future.
CAUSES OF BANDITRY IN NORTHERN NIGERIA
The root causes of banditry and conflicts require an understanding of the social contexts, history, development and dynamics of the often conflictual, but also symbiotic relationship between two production systems, Agricultural and pastoral, that did not only depend on a land and its related resources, but are also fundamentally different in important respects. This relationship has been progressively complicated by shifting demographics of both human and livestock populations; evolving social practices related to the use and management of land and livestock resources. The impact of changing ecological and environmental forces that have progressively effected rainfall patterns, availability of foliage and increasing rate of desertification; the expansion non- Agricultural uses of land such as the growth of urban areas and the construction of roads; the collapse of formal and informal channels of conflict resolution between both groups, the expansion of criminal entrepreneur for whom rustling is big business; the well documented extortionate practices of security agencies, which in some cases propel revenge attacks; well as by migratory movements, in particular transhumance within and outside Northern Nigeria, and in other parts of the country and in west Africa in general.
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Resource conflict occurs at the vortex of internecine conflict between agricultural crop growers and transhumant pastoralists, and is linked to issues of cattle rustling and rural banditry. The basis of the conflict itself can be found in the scarcity of land and water resources. The scarcity arises from a number of factors, including changes in agrarian relations, climate change, and environmental decline. The tendency for competition among different occupational groups over scarce resources further exacerbates the tension. Such competition tends to pitch different communal groups into deadly confrontations, especially where occupational and communal boundaries overlap. This appears to be the case in the conflict between Fulani herdsmen and the different ethnic groups that constitute the bulk of agricultural farmers in the central and southern parts of Nigeria during the seasonal movement of cattle for pasture, Samuel (2015; P31).
UNDERLYING CAUSES OF BANDITRY IN NORTHERN NIGERIA
1
Unemployment
44%
2
Ethno -Religious Conflict
23%
3
Greed
18%
4
Robbery –
5.9%
5
Insecurity –
5.9%
6
Psychological Needs
2.3%
TOTAL
100%
Source: Northern Government forum, 2015.
In the last decade, banditry and violent conflicts between pastoralists and farmers in Northern Nigeria have been on the rise. This social conflict has traditionally consisted of disputes over natural resources and is often presented as a conflict between settlers and nomadic people. However, what began as conflict between pastoralists and farmers over land has recently developed into rural banditry with heavy human and economic cost, ranging from the sexual assault of women and girls, attacks on villages, to cattle rustling, amongst others.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION
Cattle rustling and associated forms of rural banditry have persisted despite efforts by the Nigerian state to fight them.
The Nigerian police, should constitute a ‘Task Force on Cattle Rustling and Associated Crime’, saddled with the responsibility for preemptive intelligence gathering, anti-cattle rustling action and prevention of associated crimes. The task force is also responsible for the investigation and potential prosecution of people involved in rustling.
Other initiatives should include a proposed bill to establish a ‘Federal Commission to cater for and Manage Transhumant Stock Routes and Grazing Reserve Areas’; such a bill should be send to the National Assembly.
The federal government should provide states with funds to establish mini-ranches. These initiatives have yet to be executed, and are being contested. Crop farmers consider the idea of grazing reserves and routes inimical to their interests, and defenders of nomadic pastoralism consider sedentarisation an erosion of the pastoral way of life, these contentions should be look at, in other to avert conflict.
The need to give strong consideration to managing local conflicts such that rights of access are constantly renegotiated by different groups at different times of the year. Given the tension between recognizing herders’ rights to free movement (as guaranteed in the Nigerian Constitution) and respecting agricultural crop farmers’ customary rights, the need for dialogue and negotiation cannot be overemphasized.
Additionally, there is need to deliberately promote an understanding among the relevant stakeholders regarding the mutual benefits that can be derived from cooperation between occupational cattle herders and agricultural farmers.
Another way of or panacea for solving insecurity challenges in Nigeria is for the government to accelerate the pace of development, whereby creating a conducive atmosphere for socio-economic activities.
Rural poverty and deprivation needs to be urgently addressed to stem the increasing tide of rural banditry and its negative effects on the rural economy.
There should be an urgent need to strengthen the traditional security system and its conflict resolution component to fill the gap of the declining capacity state formal security agencies to meet security challenges of rural areas.
The federal and the state governments must come together to work tirelessly and intelligently to dismantle and get rid of the entrepreneurs who are involved as masterminded in this act of rural banditry.
The government should make sure the fundamental human rights are being safeguarded and respected to ensure human security.
CONCLUSION
The federal and state governments should survey, demarcate and gazette existing grazing reserves. They should at the same time plan for newer reserves across northern Nigeria. The government should also undertake urgent revitalization of the country’s moribund grazing reserves routes and establish a new model of grazing reserves in all the states of northern Nigeria. Mitigation of the impact climate and Environmental decline is recognized. Also, deliberate government efforts aimed at mitigating climate change should be encouraged. Operational readiness of security agencies such as the police should be strengthened through increased staffing, equipment and training to enable them to professionally, efficiently and promptly investigate and prosecute criminals without fear or favor.
Reference:
Okoli, A.C. (2017). “Cows, cash and terror: How cattle rustling proceeds fuel Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria”. Paper presented at International Policy Dialogue Conference on money, security, and democratic governance in Africa, organized by CODESRIA and UNOWAS on October 1th to 23rd, 2017 at Blu Radisson Hotel, Bamako, Mali.
Okoli, A.C. & Ogayi, C.O. 2018. “Herdsmen militancy and humanitarian crisis in Nigeria: A theoretical briefing”, African Security Review, 27:2, pp.129-143; doi: 10.1080/10246029.2018.1499545.
Zenn, J. 2018. “The terrorist calculus in kidnapping girls in Nigeria: Cases from Chibok and Dapchi”. CTC Sentinel, 11(3), pp. 1-8.
Arewa Agenda is a Publication of young writers from Northern Nigeria towards peaceful coexistence and National Development through positive narratives.
