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Over the past decade, criminal gangs in northwest Nigeria have terrorized communities, attacking villages, looting, raping, stealing livestock, trapping travelers and kidnapping people.
Groups have also turned to mass kidnappings, seizing hundreds of students in a series of raids on schools – apparently mimicking tactics used by jihadists hundreds of kilometers (miles) away.
Here is what we know about these “bandits”, as the gangs are known locally:
How did the violence come about?
The violence in northwestern Nigeria began with community clashes over access to land and resources – a phenomenon that worsened with the alleged impact of climate change.
On the one hand, there are mainly Fulani herders and on the other, Hausa farmers.
After years of conflict and favoring land ownership laws, some pastoralists have turned to violent criminal activity, spurred by illegal arms flows from as far away as Libya.
How many are there?
These groups, composed mainly of Fulanis but also of Hausa and other ethnic groups, have set up camps in Rugu Forest, in Zamfara State.
This became the springboard for attacks in the neighboring states of Kaduna, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi and Niger.
These groups, composed mainly of Fulanis but also of Hausas and other ethnic groups, set up camps in the forest of Rugu. By (AFP) Some have hundreds of fighters and others only a dozen, according to Nnamdi Obasi of the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank.
In 2019, Zamfara authorities estimated there were more than 10,000 bandits in 40 camps across the state.
What are their goals?
The “bandits” primarily target people in rural areas, but also ambush highways, killing those who attempt to resist kidnapping or refuse to pay ransoms.
Between 2011 and 2019, up to 3,600 people were abducted in Zamfara alone, while violence killed 8,000 people and displaced 200,000, according to the ICG.
Gangs have also stepped up attacks on informal gold mining workers.
And in recent months, they have targeted schools for boys and girls. Four mass kidnappings of students have taken place since December.
In the latest attack, 279 girls were taken from their boarding school in Zamfara last Friday.
As in other kidnappings, the girls were subsequently released, under conditions which remain obscure.
Links with jihadists?
Gangs are largely motivated by financial motives and have no known ideological leanings.
But there are fears they may be infiltrated by the Islamists who led a ten-year insurgency in the northeast.
The jihadists rose to international notoriety in 2014 with the kidnapping of schoolgirls in Chibok, sparking the #BringBackOurGirls movement.
Some bandit groups have pledged allegiance to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, while some fighters from the rival Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) have deserted or fled to the northwest, according to analysts.
On December 11, 344 boys were torn from a school in Kankara, Katsina state. Initially blamed on bandits, the kidnappings were later claimed by Boko Haram in a video.
The students were released a week later after negotiations between criminals and local authorities who dismissed Boko Haram as having anything to do with the ordeal.
What are the authorities doing?
The Nigerian military deployed to the northwest in 2016 and launched airstrikes in 2018, but the attacks have persisted.
In November 2020, the air force struck camps along the Abuja-Kaduna highway, a key axis in the capital where kidnappings have become commonplace.
But the military is largely focusing its efforts on the northeast, where insurgents have killed at least 30,000 people in the past 10 years.
At the local level, the Zamfara authorities tried to negotiate with bandits, offering amnesty in exchange for disarmament.
A peace agreement was signed in 2019, but remains fragile.
In a statement last Friday, the presidency said Head of State Muhammadu Buhari urged state governments “to review their policy of rewarding bandits … warning that this policy could have a disastrous boomerang.”
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