In northwestern Nigeria, the army struggles to counter the “bandits”

Violence is not abating in northwestern Nigeria, as the most recent attacks in Zamfara State recalled. Between Wednesday January 5 and Thursday January 6, 2022, several hundred men, armed and on motorcycles, stormed a dozen villages, looting, burning houses and shooting on sight at terrified inhabitants. This savage outfit, which targeted the districts of Anka and Bukkuyum and lasted nearly 24 hours, claimed at least 200 victims, according to the testimonies of survivors.

This new massacre, condemned by the authorities, marked the spirits, but it is far from being an isolated case. On October 17, 2021, an attack at the market in the town of Goronyo, in Sokoto state, left some 120 people dead. In the same region, a few days earlier, those we nicknamed “Bandits” in Nigeria surrounded a market in Sabon Birni district and sporadically shot crowds before robbing the stalls. At least thirty people were killed.

In November 2021, armed men also killed 13 people and captured 17 others in the district of Batsari, located in the state of Katsina … But the toll of these bloody events is often difficult to apprehend, and rarely confirmed by the authorities.

In the northwest of the country, there are at least a hundred armed gangs. Some have about ten members, others several hundred, sometimes sedentary, sometimes mobile, moving according to the abuses. “There are real warlords in the region, but also a multitude of small autonomous bands, led by very young men, almost teenagers”, describes James Barnett, an affiliate researcher at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC, who approached and interviewed several bandits, in the heart of their territory.

“Outburst of violence”

According to him, the murderous attack of January 5 and 6 was probably not carried out by a large leader, but rather by an alliance of secondary groups. “These are not particularly well organized. They can operate independently from day to day, then put themselves under the orders of a local baron to whom they are loyal ”, continues James Barnett.

Because of this protean organization, it is not easy to analyze the motivations of these groups. But observers agree that they are probably more motivated by greed than by any ideology. “Nothing says there is a strategy behind this outburst of violence”, James Barnett slice.

Other experts raise the possibility of reprisals from these criminal groups, when the Nigerian army launched a large military operation in the north-west of the country in September. The maneuvers were initially concentrated in Zamfara State – the heart of banditry in this part of Nigeria – before spreading to the neighboring States of Katsina, Sokoto and Kaduna and in the State of Niger.

In recent months, the bandits have therefore been forced to move to escape the bombardments of the Nigerian air force, which recorded some victories, by eliminating, for example, two important gang leaders on the 1^er January. The wave of kidnappings has also largely lost its intensity. And many hostages have regained their freedom in recent months, as the first part of 2021 was marked by a litany of mass kidnappings in schools, high schools and universities in the northwest.

Aerial bombardment is no longer enough

“It is possible that the attacks in Anka and Bukkuyum districts are linked to the military intervention, but it is not clear”, acknowledges Nnamdi Obasi, analyst for the NGO International Crisis Group. In any case, the joint operation of the army and the police represents a turn ” 360 degrees “ (to 180 rather?) according to the expert, compared to the initial strategy of some local governors, convinced that a way out of the crisis would necessarily go through the negotiation of surrenders.

Several amnesties were signed in early 2021 in the states of Zamfara or Katsina, but the ceasefires never lasted very long. In contrast, the governor of the state of Kaduna has always been a fervent defender of the hard way, demanding for months the systematic bombardment of the forests of the north-west, hideout of many bandits.

Except that this method is showing its limits today. “These bands are very dynamic and they have proven their ability to lead large operations, but also to constantly innovate”, underlines Idayat Hassan, director of the Center for Democracy and Development in West Africa, in Abuja.

Faced with multiple and highly mobile groups, aerial bombardments are not enough. “To win this war, we would have to put more forces on the ground and carry out simultaneous action, rather than one-off operations”, hammers Idayat Hassan. “For the moment, the bandits are systematically returning after the intervention of the army and redoubling their violence on the spot”, she notes. The lack of manpower and resources of the Nigerian security forces does not help, even if President Muhammadu Buhari shows his determination to fight against those he calls “Mass murderers”.

On January 5, the authorities officially qualified the “bandits” as “terrorists” in order to tighten the sanctions against the perpetrators of the attacks, their supporters or their informants. Nnamdi Obasi is concerned about this new designation concerning “Fluid groups which often mingle with the population and sometimes live within the very communities”, – while admitting that the term “banditry” is no longer appropriate.

Likewise, the possibility of using the Super Tucano fighter planes, delivered at the end of August by the United States, to crush this insurgency raises questions. “We saw that the air strikes had only limited effects. By intensifying them, we really risk making collateral victims ”, the analyst alarmed. Many civilians have been the victims of the same strategy of military shelling in Borno State in northeast Nigeria, which has been plagued by the insurgency of Boko Haram jihadists for more than a decade.