Katsina terror attack

 Fifty bodies were reported retrieved and search continuing for more, though officials confirmed below 40 fatalities, in the  attack by bandits on a mosque in Unguwan Mantau community, Malumfashi council area of Katsina State. The attack on 19th August ranked among the deadliest terror incidents in recent times.

It happened during the dawn (Fajr) prayer. Reports said the first call to prayer was barely concluded at about 5a.m. when gunmen stormed the small mosque packed with worshippers, young and old, all bowed in devotion. The timing was obviously intended for maximum surprise and ambush of the worshippers, who scampered hither and thither for their lives when shots rang out from the intruders. 

A target couldn’t be softer for the agents of terror: the worshippers were unarmed and possibly praying for peace when violence struck. Survivors recalled a brief moment of stupefied silence in the mosque before the bandits released an indiscriminate volley of gunshots. “Many worshippers were killed in the instant. Others were rushed to hospital with wounds, and some died there,” an eye witness was cited saying. It was reported that after the mosque attack, the bandits estimated to number about 100 rampaged through the village, torching homes, killing and abducting people. According to accounts, some 15 houses got razed and 10 people killed in the inferno, with scores of women, children and the elderly abducted.

Government deplored the attack and vowed to hunt down the perpetrators, saying security operatives were on their trail and would bring them to swift and decisive justice. Information and National Orientation Minister Mohammed Idris Malagi assured that there is no hiding place for terrorists. Chief of Defence Staff General Christopher Musa voiced concern over renewed wave of violence in the North-west, but noted that the military lately made profound gains in the war on terror. “These are evil and deranged individuals going around because of ideologies they feel people must accept. If you are not with them, then you are an enemy. They don’t respect religion or borders, and that is very critical,” he said on national television. 

The CDS pointed out that the military arrested key commanders and more than 200 other terror suspects in recent operations, which he described as highly significant breakthroughs in the fight against insecurity. “This shows that intelligence and operations are working together. The synergy we now have with all security agencies is yielding results. (The menace) is not going to stop overnight, but I can assure Nigerians that things are improving by the day,” he stated. The Defence chief, however, stressed that citizens must also play a part by refusing to shield terrorists and their collaborators. “Why this thing keeps thriving is because we still have individuals that are hiding the bandits for one reason or another,” he said.

Since the Katsina terror attack, grief has mixed with an old debate, especially in the North, as to whether it is wise to negotiate with terrorists who have turned vast rural communities into raiding targets. Government appeared to have looked on as Islamic clerics, in recent times, held peace talks with notorious terror actors. Early in August, a delegation of clerics disclosed that their negotiation with Zamfara warlord Bello Turji secured the release of 32 captives and a symbolic surrender of weapons. There were varying accounts on details of that deal and government’s role in the negotiations, but the message of engagement was clear. The military, at some point, even had to openly dispel speculations that Turji himself had surrendered. You never know whether the alleged peace deal plays any role in the relative calm that currently prevails in the axis – that is in addition to the exploits by the military.  

Opinions have always differed on the benefit of negotiating with bandits, and the recent Katsina attack has hardened views against peace dealing. Failed peace accords are not a distant history in the country. In 2019 and early 2020, former Katsina State Governor Aminu Bello Masari and his Zamfara counterpart, Alhaji Bello Matawalle, currently the Defence Minister of State, brokered peace deals with local terror leaders in their jurisdictions that quickly unravelled. Masari came in the open sometime to voice frustration with the unreliability of the terror actors’ word.

“Banditry: If you want to stop an unruly dancer from gyrating endlessly, you would have to take away the drum beats”

Part of the challenge is that  there is a multiplicity of terror camps, such that a peace deal with one or two camps does not hold up with other active camps operating in the area. The current set of state governors in the North-west, early in this dispensation, announced that they would adopt a common approach to tackling the menace of banditry that would not involve private peace dealing with terror actors. It is not certain how far they’ve come with that commitment, but local authorities and community groups were said to be pursuing their own negotiations with bandits. Only late last week, it was reported that local authorities in Kurfi council area of Katsina State facilitated negotiations by some community leaders with suspected bandit groups – the catch, under watch by security representatives! The Unguwan Mantau community attack should again show the futility of hinging hope on the capacity of bandits to uphold truce deals, even if engaged.

But there is ample room, of course, for non-kinetic approach to complement kinetic operations by the military in another dimension to the security challenge. CDS Musa articulated that dimension when he spoke of some citizens shielding terrorists and their collaborators. And he only echoed a concern already raised by the Katsina government when an official, late in July, said 80 percent of attacks by bandits were being aided by informants and community members who supply  the terror actors food and other basic needs in their forest hideouts. Katsina Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Nasir Mu’azu, said findings showed that some members of communities affected by banditry provide information to the criminals or supply them essential items in the bush for profiteering motives.

Speaking to journalists on security situation in the state, Mu’azu noted that the tendency identified was making it difficult for the government and security operatives to address the menace of insecurity in those areas. According to him, investigations revealed that some dishonest individuals within communities were providing services to criminals for economic gain. “They sell items such as fuel to the hoodlums for five thousand naira per litre, while a bottle of soft drink goes for about three thousand naira,” he said, lamenting that with the efforts by security forces, insecurity would have become a thing of the past. The persistence of banditry and kidnappings in the state, according to him, is attributable to the activities of informants and collaborators. “Why I said this is that the bandits do not know where to buy all these things, but some members of the communities who own shops sell their products to them at exorbitant prices, making it difficult to get their cooperation to address the security challenge,” he said, adding: “Drugs that are usually sold for little amounts of money in pharmacies and other shops are sold for millions of naira by community members to the bandits.”

The commissioner also said some community members connived with bandits to abduct targeted victims, including their own family members. “In one of the cases, we found a man who connived with bandits to abduct his biological father, who was diabetic, for ransom. When the bandits took him to their hideout in the forest, they had already procured diabetic medication for his daily consumption. A total sum of 30million naira was paid as ransom for the man, and eight million naira was given to the son of the kidnapped man for allowing his father to be abducted,” he stated. Besides, informants were known to alert bandits whenever Nigeria Air Force jets leave the airport to strike at their hideouts. Those jets often end up not reaching their targets because some community members allow the criminals to shelter under them.

Legendary Chinese leader and founding father of modern China, the late Mao Zedong (also known as Chairman Mao), once expounded the mechanistic theory of war as opposed to the psychological theory – the ‘soft war’ that he considered more crucial in victory strategy. The latter approach, roughly articulated, involves alienating fighting armies (terrorists) from base populations (communities), because it is people who provide the passions that drive fighting zeal. Non-kinetic approach to dealing with the menace of banditry should consist in re-orientating collaborators embedded in the communities to see that the activities of bandits aren’t in their own interest either. If you want to stop an unruly dancer from gyrating endlessly, you would have to take away the drum beats.