On Trust TV’s banditry documentary

Last Friday, I was privileged to attend the screening of Trust TV’s unreleased documentary, Nigeria’s Banditry: The Inside Story, and enjoyed the conversations it sparked among the cast of media professionals, security experts and stakeholders, civil society and NGO executives, diplomats, scholars and government officials in the Lagos Hall of Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja. The pulsating emotions of the viewers were palpable as they followed scenes after scenes of accounts of the origin and extent of a tragedy that’s wrecked Northern Nigeria, some pitiable, others thought-provoking. 

The documentary is largely a visualization of the extensive work of Daily Trust’s brilliant and adventurous journalist and Deputy Editor, Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, who had taken risks to traverse dreaded bandit-controlled areas across the Northwest to present untold stories of banditry in Nigeria. Mr. Abdulaziz’s choices of victims, experts, and masterminds of the terror to interview for the documentary created a diversity of knowledge on a subject already saturated with dangerous conspiracy theories, but the reactions are going to differ across a variegated audience. 

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My table, for instance, couldn’t hold back their revulsion when the notorious bandit leader, Bello Turji, appeared on the screen and attempted to rationalize his choice of terror against the Nigerian state. His retelling of the mismanaged conflict between herders and farmers in the region, and in which he portrays himself as a victim may seem pitiable, but the trail of deaths and destructions he’s sustained to demonstrate his wrath and vengeance overrides his claim to being a victim of the carnage from which he profits. 

Some of the historians engaged, Dr. Ahmed Rufai and Senator Saidu Dansadau, provide backstories to the conflict, from the migration of Chadian Fulani to the Northwest as recounted by the latter to the flawed justice system that has frustrated attempt at resolving the conflict. Their positions, however nuanced, are still contestable and the small crowd that gathered at Transcorp Hilton were quick to counter them. 

Perhaps the most polarizing claim at the event was Dr. Rufai’s argument during the post-screening panel discussion that dialogues were not embraced—or perhaps he meant inadequately done—in tackling the conflict. A few members of the audience were quick to react, painting for him a mosaic of history, especially the stories of betrayals between the government and bandit leaders, to challenge the view. 

The most robust counterpoint to Dr. Rufai’s claim came from Barr. Abdul Mohammed, a private lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who recounted the programmes of northern state governments designed to grant amnesty to the bandits, citing Governor Aminu Masari’s interventions in Katsina state. These solutions were even perceived as generous by the much-victimized public, watching how bandit leaders who killed their loved ones and destroyed their livelihoods were invited to the opulent offices of Northern Governors to dine and defend their villainy in a dignified fashion. 

In February 2021, Zamfara state Governor, who had also been fooled into believing bandits’ submission to his amnesty programme, shared that the bandits had to “take the law into their hands” because they were “cheated by the so-called vigilante groups.” This open recognition of their grievance, which somewhat legitimized the criminal onslaughts on civilians, was a desperate bid to justify his expensive amnesty programme, of which the mastermind of the Kankara mass kidnap, Auwal Daudawa, was a beneficiary. 

When Mr. Abdulaziz interviewed Daudawa, after he had “announced his repentance and handed over 20 AK rifles and other weapons to the police” to accept amnesty along with his gang, he boasted that the Kankara abduction was his way of proving  “to the government (of Katsina State) that he had the capacity to carry out such an attack” because the governor had ruled out dialogues. Governor Masari’s reluctance was after the scandalized futility of the dialogues, realizing that the government was being taken for granted. It didn’t take long before Daudawa and gang proved him right, picking up arms again to return banditry. He was killed in action in April 2021. 

The transactional justice offered Daudawa and other bandits, which has been fiercely criticized by the public, stalls Nigeria’s commitment to finding a non-violent solution to banditry. The federal government’s resort to declaring bandit groups “terrorists” may not appeal to those in the business of amplifying bandits’ side of the story as done by Dr. Ahmad Gumi, but such measure is a mere response to the flagrant abuse of the amnesty programmes by undeservedly pampered beneficiaries.

One of the dangers of volunteering to serve as a bridge between state and non-state actors in a conflict is the seeming amnesia that the latter is a band of criminals undermining the sovereignty of the state, and that invitation to negotiate isn’t their right. It’s a privilege. And, whether as a reporter or researcher, mediator or victim, such line shouldn’t be lost in our coverage of the conflict. This is why Dr. Gumi’s intervention has become a frightening exercise. 

Thus, in giving voices to Daudawa’s comrades still in service and terrorizing defenceless civilians from their hideouts, we must be wary of valorizing their operations. Their existence, based on the peace deals they’ve violated and the spate of killings orchestrated, is driven by greed and awareness of Nigeria’s security lapses. The purpose of a documentary like Mr. Abdulaziz’s must be beyond archival purpose. It must remind the authorities of our journey to this chaos and, especially, the citizens languishing in ungoverned areas.

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