The complexities of ethnic identity associated with banditorism in the states like Kaduna, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto and Zamfara are further compounded by social class. In my conversations with several people deeply familiar with this issue, it appears that when bandits point accusing fingers at ‘Hausa people’ as being the perpetrators of both material and emotional injustice and neglect, they are not always referring to any particular ethnic group in Nigeria to which we might apply that label, which itself is not an easy undertaking in today’s northern Nigeria in the first place.
When bandits talk about ‘Hausa people’, they are, in effect, referring to both Hausa and Fulani people of particular social and economic classes: settled rather than itinerant, urban rather than rural, and possibly economically better-off. That the bandits mete out their “revenge”, if their terrorising of whole communities in those states can be called a form of revenge, which as we argued last week, cannot, is probably more a matter of convenience. After all, in almost all cases of criminality in the name of imagined or real injustice, the targets are usually the innocent but most conveniently available.
And then, there is the complex nature of government response to banditorism. For a crisis that has festered for more than a decade, government response has been remarkably incompetent, inadequate and largely ineffective. For the most part, there has been about five clear strategies by both the federal and various state governments, individually or jointly, if we recognise that—and we must—in conflict as in nearly everything else, a lack of strategy is itself a strategy.
These include: silence and quiet and more silence and quiet; futile negotiations with bandits’ leaders, lamentations, prayers and appropriate noises by both the federal and state governments when the crisis would not go away on its own; minimal police, vigilante and military operations; extreme and wholesale social and economic blockade of the areas affected; repeat and repeat any one or all of the above measures.
As far as counter offensives against banditorism goes, this is more or less where we are. Even the declaration of bandits as terrorists would find easy slot in one of these, because it is if not really a game-changer in any sense. After all, the federal government has not yet succeeded in completely defeating any group of terrorists in this country, declared or not. And yet, as anyone familiar with the issue will tell you, everyone knows where the bandits are located. Some of the bandits have even boasted about this, without incurring any consequences.
In other words, that still leaves us with a problem begging for solution. Meanwhile, many other solutions that would demonstrate genuine willingness to bring the crisis to an end have not been tried, not tried sufficiently enough. Massive deployment of boots on the ground, including the boots of local vigilantes is one. Infiltrating the ranks of the bandits and stoking internecine conflicts between them, thereby getting them to diminish one another’s ranks is another.
The use of professional mercenaries, local or foreign, deployed to engage bandits in the forests or other locations where they camp is a third. Wholesale extraction of the civilian population to temporary and safe locations immediately followed up with massive bombardments of the forests, as suggested by Malam Nasir El-Rufai is a yet another. And of course, for each of these extreme measures, a short window of amnesty for all foot soldiers wiling to recant and lay down arms should be on the table, followed up with a massive social and economic reconstruction of the areas affected. The point is that the federal government has might that it has not yet used.
The chief culprit in all of this seeming government inertia is the Commander-in-Chief, President Muhammadu Buhari himself. The president has been accused of harbouring a soft for bandits as an explanation for the minimal military operations that have not yielded much positive results. I personally have no time for such narrow-minded arguments, but there is no gainsaying that the President could personally have done better, not only in terms of addressing the crisis head on, but also in showing solidarity with the victims.
Indeed, one person in Katsina with in-depth knowledge of these events told me that it would not take more than Nigerian security forces more than two weeks if the President orders all military chiefs to produce some of the key bandits’ leaders dead or alive. This view is widely shared by many people in the communities affected, and most lay the responsibility for the perpetuation of their situation squarely at the doorstep of the President. It is implausible to imagine anywhere else best fit for that.
And third, there is the complex economics of conflict which fuels banditorism. This operates at many different levels, not least of which is the military—indeed militarised—state that Nigeria has become in the past quarter of a century. Amed conflict, of any kind, is the arena in which military strategies are tested or refined, and new ones developed. Armed conflicts make militaries more relevant in democratic states. Above all, armed conflicts justify huge military budgets.
So, at the broadest level, it is in the interest of the military to perpetuate armed conflict. And while military officers anywhere constantly talk about peace and non-combat operations, they also crave armed conflict. This is particularly true of Nigeria where rising defence expenditures in budgets and other “security votes” have gone alongside allegations of corruption in the security sector and worsening insecurity. Of course, most of our military top brass will disagree strongly that the economics of conflict has anything to do with worsening banditorism and perpetuation of other insecurity challenges in the country. It doesn’t mean there is no correlation at least though.
But locals and others are also intimately involved in the economics of conflict that helps to perpetuate banditorism. Because the bandits are isolated in forests and other remote camps, they need information about potential targets and about community and government response against them. Moreover, bandits are human beings who need food and other supplies that they certainly do not produce. They also need phones, fuel for their motorcycles and for generators for charging their phones and keeping light at night. All of these are supplied by local informants who make brisk business out of betraying their own communities, and sometimes, even neighbours.
Paradoxically as part of the political economy of banditorism, some bandits foot soldiers are compelled, as I have been told, to join up not to steal, loot or destroy, but to afford their local communities some protection from the ‘real bandits’. It is not unlikely, therefore, that some of these are forced to give away relevant information and resources that help to sustain the whole mess. And most outrageously, as we saw only a few weeks ago, some women traffic other women as sex slaves for the bandits, for a fee, of course, in addition to the brutal rapes the bandits perpetrate on their own.
These various dimensions of banditorism, and more, are part of the overall super-structure of banditorism, but for me, the most damaging of them all is the one we consider next, that is, what I call the discursive dimension of banditorism.
