The siege of banditry

Security services were reported at the weekend to be revving up their response to the siege of bandits on Kaduna State. The police readied some personnel for deployment as special intervention forces in Kuriga, Chikun council area where bandits abducted 287 schoolchildren on 7th March, while police and military units were to be deployed in Kajuru council area following another mass abduction there early last week.

Bandits had penultimate Sunday night struck at Kajuru Station, in Kajuru council area, and herded some 86 villagers into captivity. It was the eighth incident of bandit attacks  within four weeks in which more than 400 persons have been abducted, and it happened barely 24 hours after 14 people were kidnapped in Dogo Noma, another community in the same Kajuru council area. Since the 7th March abduction of Kuriga schoolchildren, there’ve been four other incidents. On 8th March, two residents were killed and many kidnapped by bandits during Friday prayers at Kwasakwasa community in Birnin Gwari council area. On 12th March, 30 villagers got abducted by bandits in Budah village, Kajuru. A day after – that is, 13th March – one person got killed and eight others kidnapped when bandits stormed a settlement under Angwaku community, also in Kajuru. There were also incidents preceding the Kuriga abductions. On 18th February, bandits attacked Gindin Dutse village in Kajuru council area and killed 12 persons; and on 29th February, bandits struck at another community in Chikun council area and abducted 10 residents. 

Speaking on the Kajuru Station abductions, community sources said the bandits arrived in a large number at about 10.30p.m. on 18th March, shooting sporadically as they broke into shops,  ransacked houses and looted foodstuff plus other valuable items before making away with residents. Although the state government had not officially confirmed the incident, the Kaduna police command did, saying however that it was yet to ascertain the number of abductees. The lawmaker representing Kajuru constituency in the Kaduna State House of Assembly, Usman Stingo, was also reported saying 86 of his constituents were kidnapped. 

The concentration of bandit attacks in Kaduna Central zone was apparently partly informed by the terrain and it is helpful that security services are deploying to the troubled areas, because Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani acknowledged that there were ungoverned spaces owing to inadequacy of security personnel in the country. Speaking on national television recently, he noted that the Nigerian military lacked the manpower required to man the ungoverned spaces, while local vigilance operatives were limited by Nigeria’s constitution to low grade weapons not suitable to match the firepower of bandits. “I don’t think we have enough boots to cover those ungoverned areas where these attacks happen,” Sani said, adding that only the military could access some vulnerable terrains, especially in forest areas where bandits terrorise the locals. He illustrated the challenge with Kajuru, saying the Department of State Services (DSS) had informed his government of the area’s vulnerability but there were not enough security personnel to forestall the attacks. “DSS told us these places were vulnerable and we reported to the military, but they don’t have enough boots to cover the areas.”

Although the state government established local security outfits to fight the insecurity menace, the governor said they were hamstrung by the constitution from bearing the kind of weapons that could match the bandits’ firepower. He restated his advocacy for creation of state police, because “when you create state police, you will give the state police legal authority through our constitution to bear firearms, including AK-47s. Then those communities can defend themselves.” As for local security efforts, he said: “Vigilantes don’t have adequate weapons to confront the bandits. Vigilantes cannot hold AK-47, we can only equip them with pump-action rifles. At this stage, vigilantes can only work with military, the police and other relevant security agencies by providing them with intelligence.”

“There is no chance the present arrangement can suffice to tackle the insecurity challenge.”

The challenge of banditry is by no means limited to Kaduna, only other states experience the menace at lesser levels of intensity. But the governors seem not so fired up about the state police agenda like their Kaduna counterpart. The Federal Government, last week, called out state governors as slowing down the take-off of state police by their lethargic disposition. Reports cited Vice-President Kashim Shettima, at a meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC), frowning on slow pace of work by the council’s ad-hoc panel on state policing initiative because only 16 out of the 36 states had made required input for constitution amendment. Meanwhile, there is no chance the present arrangement can suffice to tackle the insecurity challenge. The Nigeria Police currently has a workforce of about 370,000 personnel, of which more than half are involved in special protection services to politicians and other dignitaries – leaving the remainder to attend to the security needs of the country’s estimated 220 million population. The armed forces, for their part, have some 230,000 active personnel. But the country’s terrain is so vast and remote that security coverage is far in-between. 

There’s much to agree with in the analysis of the menace of banditry by National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Executive Secretary Anthony Ojukwu. In a recent presentation, he recalled the origin of the police institution in Nigeria as dedicated to protecting a privileged elite: “It started from being something the colonial master introduced to force us to pay taxes. So ab initio, it was formed to protect the authorities. When we now got our independence, there was no concerted effort to re-orientate the Nigeria Police… These guys are just protecting the elite, particularly the executive and legislature. Governors have a convoy of 1,000 policemen, leaving the rest of us unprotected.” Ojukwu added with particular reference to the Kuriga abductions: “That is why you can go on a road that stretches about 10 kilometres and you won’t see one single policeman. That is also why you can come into a school and take away 282 (sic) students. Do you even know what 282 students look like? If you want to bring in luxury buses, you would need about three or four to pack them. And if you decide to use motorcycles, you need about 200 to lift these children. How did these people go about it without being noticed? I am not a data analyst. But from what I heard, the number of policemen guarding all these rich individuals is far more than the ones left to look after the rest of us.”

Another insightful intervention was by a security analyst, Major Mohammed Bashir Galma (rtd.), who adduced at least four reasons for the high frequency of abductions. “There are many reasons why there is a high spate of kidnappings in Kaduna State. One is the poor economic situation of the country; because people are looking for means of sustaining themselves, they would do anything to make money including going into crime such as banditry. Two is the long closure of border with Niger Republic as punishment for the country by ECOWAS. The people of Niger Republic became nonchalant about what happens to Nigeria or who comes into Nigeria, and that allows all sorts of criminals to have free entry into the country,” he was reported saying in a newspaper interview. The analyst added: “Three is lack of pursuit of these  bandits to their enclaves whenever they attack, to see where they come from and their camp site. Also, there is no punishment for bandits caught and their informants. Such punishment should be clearly heard and seen by all to serve as deterrent to others. Intelligence gathering should be upped and focused on the cities because the people controlling these bandits are in the cities. They design the plan and send it to the bandits in the forests to execute. We should train vigilantes on counter-intelligence to enable them counter the plan of the criminals. Fourth, lack of cooperation between the state governments rob them of the strength of synergy of working together. Also, lack of seriousness on the part of government. Anytime there is an attack, they become serious about it, but they soon forget about it and go about other businesses instead of pursuing the bandits till they are arrested and brought to book.”

There are useful insights to gain from the foregoing on what to do about the menace of banditry in this country. While government works on overall redress, there is need to make haste on the state police agenda, so to take security down to the grassroots.