Former senator and rights activist Shehu Sani has called for community resilience against banditry and terrorism, stating that Nigerians can no longer outsource their survival solely to the state, as violence continues to ravage large swathes of the North.
Speaking at his book launch in Abuja on Thursday, Mr Sani said the persistence of insecurity across northern Nigeria, despite more than a decade of military operations and policy interventions, shows the limits of a government-only response.
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He warned that without community organisation, civic consciousness and collective resolve, rural populations would remain vulnerable to armed groups.
Across Zamfara, Katsina, Kebbi, parts of Kaduna and Niger states, he said, bandits have carried out killings, mass kidnappings, razed villages and the displacement of millions.
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“This was not our lives 20 to 30 years ago,” he said, noting that entire communities have lost not just their homes but their dignity and sense of security.
Mr Sani made the argument while reflecting on “The Village and the Vigilante,” a stage play he wrote to mirror the lived realities of rural communities under siege, and to provoke a national conversation on local resilience, civic responsibility and the limits of state protection.
Though unveiled alongside two of his books – “The Councillor and the Perilous Path To Europe: The Sahara Odyssey,” Mr Sani insisted that the play captures the urgency of Nigeria’s security crisis.
“For over 15 years, efforts have been made to bring an end to insecurity in my own part of the country, but it is still persistent,” he said. “Villages and towns have fallen into the hands of bandits and terrorists. So I thought: what shall I do?”
His answer, he explained, was to turn to drama as a tool of social mobilisation.
The Village and the Vigilante, he said, is designed to inspire communities suffering from banditry and terrorism to stand firm, organise themselves and confront the dangers threatening their existence.
PREMIUM TIMES has consistently reported the scale and persistence of banditry across Nigeria, particularly in the North-west and North-central regions.
Investigations and field reports have shown how weak security presence, poor governance, proliferation of arms and the erosion of local structures have enabled armed groups to entrench themselves, turning the nations into a theatre of violence and fear.
Mr Sani argued that while Nigeria’s population stands at about 230 million, the combined number of bandits and terrorists terrorising communities is relatively small. “If you put the summation of all these bandits and terrorists together, they are not more than 5,000,” he said.
For him, this disparity underscores the need to mobilise communities to defend their freedom and sanctity as human beings, rather than surrendering to fear.
Set in a typical rural community in northern Nigeria, the play maps out the roles and failures of key stakeholders – traditional rulers, community members, vigilantes and security agencies, showing how the breakdown of trust and coordination leaves ordinary people exposed.
He said insecurity has evolved and diversified, with groups such as Boko Haram, ISWAP and Ansaru in the North-east, alongside emerging cells like Mamudawa and Lagurawa in parts of the North-west and North-central.
According to him, the spread of violence reflects not only security lapses but also social breakdown and the erosion of communal solidarity.
Beyond security, Mr Sani also warned young Nigerians against what he described as the dangerous illusion of prosperity in Europe, saying thousands continue to risk their lives because of fictitious narratives about life abroad.
Speaking on his book, “The Perilous Path to Europe: The Sahara Odyssey,” he said many young people chasing “greener pastures” end up in the hands of human traffickers, who collect large sums to transport them through the Sahara Desert to Libya. There, he said, many are trapped for months or years, subjected to exploitation, abuse and slavery before being pushed onto perilous Mediterranean crossings.
“In Libya, they spend months and years before being pushed across the Mediterranean,” he said. “The island of Lampedusa in Italy has become a camp for many of our young men who believe life will be better in Europe than it is here.”
Mr Sani dismissed the migration dream as an illusion sustained by false narratives, arguing that nations such as China and India would not have developed if their youth had abandoned home at the scale seen in Africa.
He said, “There is no dream for you to realise in Europe. Your dream can be realised here in your country.”
Literary agent and author Salamatu Sule, who reviewed “The Perilous Path to Europe and The Councillor,” said both works are united by a deep interrogation of Nigeria’s structural failures. According to her, the migration narrative in The Sahara Odyssey is not about recklessness but about desperation bred by governance collapse.
“The author presents migration not as recklessness but as a symptom of structural failure,” she said. “It is a book that demands answers while exposing the inadequacy of statistics that erase the human faces behind migration data.”
Ms Sule noted that the author raises uncomfortable questions about corruption, self-colonisation and the failure of African governments to create dignified societies for their citizens.
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She also reviewed Mr Sani’s political satire, “The Councillor,” written in 13 acts and 39 scenes. She said the play follows Kolo, a returnee from America driven by idealism and a desire to transform his society, only to confront the brutal reality of politics as a business enterprise rather than a platform for service.
For Ms Sule, Mr Sani writes not as a distant observer but as an insider deeply familiar with Nigeria’s sociopolitical terrain. While the fate of reformist characters like Kolo remains uncertain, she said the author’s emphasis on education, re-education and collective responsibility suggests faith in gradual, long-term transformation.
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