The insecurity triad (II): Banditry — rural siege and the weaponisation of harvest, By Max Amuchie

 

…nations across the Sahel often endure poor harvests and famine as a consequence of natural forces — chief among them desertification. History offers even starker examples, such as the devastating famine in Ethiopia during the 1980s, when environmental stress combined with structural weaknesses to produce humanitarian catastrophe… Nigeria’s case, however, is more troubling. Our crisis is not primarily driven by nature, but by human agency. Banditry — this self-inflicted disaster — is now producing conditions of severe hunger.

There is a different kind of silence in the countryside. It is not the anxious quiet of a ringing phone, but the heavy stillness of abandoned farmlands. Crops rot where they are planted. Footpaths disappear into overgrowth. Entire communities live with one eye open — not listening for a call, but for the distant echo of motorcycles approaching.

Brigadier-General Lawal Bature Mohammed (rtd.), former commander of the Zamfara Community Protection Guards (CPG), was meant to be part of the solution. Instead, he became part of the story. Popularly known as Dan Gusau, he was shot by bandits in a brutal attack last year, sustaining severe bullet wounds that required evacuation to Egypt for advanced medical treatment. He would later succumb to those injuries.

His funeral prayer was held on Thursday evening, 26 March in Sabon Gari, Gusau, the Zamfara State capital, where he was laid to rest in accordance with Islamic rites.

In a functioning system, men like him secure the land. In this one, they are claimed by it.

Last week in “The Sunday Stew” as we examined kidnapping in the first part of The Insecurity Triad, I promised that today we would turn to the next front in Nigeria’s deepening security crisis — banditry. If kidnapping is the marketplace where human lives are traded, then banditry is the siege that makes that market possible. It is the slow, grinding occupation of Nigeria’s rural heartland.

While kidnapping targets the individual, banditry targets the land itself. This is no longer just a “Nigerian problem.” In a world of fragile supply chains, the rural siege of Northern and Middle Belt Nigeria has become a critical bottleneck for global food security.

From Raids to Occupation

Banditry in Nigeria has evolved beyond sporadic violence into something more structured and enduring. What began as cattle rustling and opportunistic raids has matured into a system of territorial control.

Across vast stretches of the North-West and North-Central, armed groups now operate within what are effectively “ungoverned spaces” — zones where the authority of the state is weak or absent. In these areas, bandits do not simply attack; they administer, regulate, and extract.

In the vast “ungoverned spaces” of the North-West, banditry has evolved into a medieval form of territorial sovereignty. It is no longer enough for criminal gangs to raid a village; they now “tax” the very act of survival. 

The Harvest Toll: Farmers in states like Katsina, Zamfara, and Niger are forced to pay “protection fees” just to plant their seeds, and a second “exit fee” to harvest their crops.

The Price of Defiance: Refusal to comply often invites violent reprisals — raids, kidnappings, or the destruction of entire communities.

This is not taxation in the civic sense. It is coercion, enforced through fear and sustained by violence.

The Abandoned Acre

According to recent agricultural surveys, over 2.5 million hectares of arable land remain uncultivated due to the threat of violence. Entire farming seasons have been lost, not to drought or flood, but to insecurity.

 

For the Nigerian farmer, the land is no longer just a source of livelihood — it is a contested space. Stay and risk death. Pay and perpetuate the system. Or flee and lose everything.

This has triggered widespread displacement, with thousands of rural families relocating to urban fringes or internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, where livelihoods are uncertain and futures diminished.

Perhaps nowhere is this convergence more evident than in Zamfara State, where banditry and illegal mining have become dangerously intertwined. In these territories, the bandit is no longer just a raider of farms, but a gatekeeper of gold. Control of land now means control of both harvest and mineral wealth. This dual economy — agricultural extortion above ground and illicit extraction below it — has created a powerful incentive structure that makes the crisis far more difficult to dismantle. 

But this model is no longer confined to Zamfara. It has expanded into the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and its neighbouring states — Niger, Nasarawa, and Kaduna — evolving into what can only be described as a sophisticated conflict economy. 

Recent security assessments from agencies such as the EFCC and the Ministry of Solid Minerals indicate that these armed groups no longer rely solely on kidnapping or rural taxation. They are now actively managing, taxing, and securing mineral extraction as a parallel revenue stream to fund their operations.

The “Mining – Insecurity” Nexus

The Federal Government has identified illegal mining as a primary enabler of banditry. The Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, has noted that many bandit attacks are not random acts of violence, but are often linked to efforts to clear communities from mineral-rich lands.

Attacks in parts of the FCT — such as Kwali, Kuje, and Bwari — have forced residents to flee. Once these areas become effectively “ungoverned,” illegal mining syndicates move in to extract gold, lithium, and lead without resistance.

Security data from late 2025 suggests that over 60 per cent of bandit camps in the North-Central region are located within 10 kilometres of illegal mining sites, highlighting the strategic overlap between violence and resource extraction.

This is not incidental. It is deliberate — violence as a precursor to extraction. 

Revenue Streams and the Financing of Violence

Illegal mining now funds banditry through multiple, structured channels:

• Direct extraction: Armed groups occupy mining sites and compel artisanal miners, who are often displaced work under coercion. The extracted minerals are sold to middlemen and trafficked through porous borders.

• Protection fees: Mining syndicates pay “rent” or protection money to bandit leaders to guarantee uninterrupted operations and shield themselves from rival groups or security interventions.

• Barter systems (minerals for arms): In some cross-border corridors, gold and lithium are exchanged directly for small arms and light weapons, bypassing formal financial systems and making these transactions extremely difficult to trace.

Banditry — this self-inflicted disaster — is now producing conditions of severe hunger. Farmers are heavily taxed, fields are abandoned, and entire communities have been emptied of productive life… What drought and desertification achieve through nature, banditry is now replicating through violence. The result is the same: scarcity, displacement, and hunger — but with one critical difference. This is a crisis we have created, and therefore one we can resolve.

What emerges is a closed-loop system in which natural resources finance insecurity, and insecurity protects resource exploitation.

Geographic Hotspots: The New Resource Frontiers

The mineral-rich belt surrounding Abuja has become a focal point of this evolving crisis:

Niger State (Shiroro and Munya): Rich in gold deposits, these areas have seen bandits transition from cattle rustling to controlling mining pits, using proceeds to acquire more advanced weapons and logistics.

Nasarawa State: The recent lithium rush has triggered a surge in illegal mining. Security agencies have uncovered multiple sites where so-called “conflict minerals” are extracted to fund local armed groups.

FCT Forest Corridors: Remote zones along the Bwari–Tafa axis serve as strategic transit hubs, where minerals are aggregated before being transported to urban centres or smuggled across borders.

These zones form a resource corridor of insecurity, linking rural violence to national and transnational economic networks. 

Economic Loss and the Limits of State Response

The financial implications are staggering. Nigeria is estimated to lose approximately $9 billion annually to the illegal export of gold and other solid minerals.

In response, the Federal Government established a specialised Mining Marshal Corps in 2025 to secure mining sites and disrupt illegal operations. However, reports indicate that these forces are severely stretched. Many illegal mining locations are situated in deep forest territories, where bandit groups have established fortified positions and high-intensity operational bases.

The result is a familiar pattern: a state struggling to project authority into spaces where criminal economies have already taken root.

A Self-Inflicted Famine

As I argued in the second edition of The Sunday Stew, “A Country Without Earthquakes,” nations across the Sahel often endure poor harvests and famine as a consequence of natural forces — chief among them desertification. History offers even starker examples, such as the devastating famine in Ethiopia during the 1980s, when environmental stress combined with structural weaknesses to produce humanitarian catastrophe.

 

Nigeria’s case, however, is more troubling. Our crisis is not primarily driven by nature, but by human agency. Banditry — this self-inflicted disaster — is now producing conditions of severe hunger. Farmers are heavily taxed, fields are abandoned, and entire communities have been emptied of productive life.

What drought and desertification achieve through nature, banditry is now replicating through violence. The result is the same: scarcity, displacement, and hunger — but with one critical difference. This is a crisis we have created, and therefore one we can resolve.

From Farm to Table: The Inflation Spiral

For the international observer, this is a clear case of what can only be described as “Agricultural Terrorism.” When the  acclaimed “Breadbasket of Africa” is under siege, the consequences extend far beyond national borders.

Nigeria’s food inflation, currently hovering at record highs, is a direct result of this disruption:

• Reduced agricultural output leads to scarcity;
• Scarcity drives price increases;
• Rising prices erode household purchasing power.

The result is a vicious cycle of economic strain, hunger, and vulnerability.

The correlation between banditry and food costs in 2026 has moved beyond temporary disruption. It has hardened into what can only be described as a structural tax on the Nigerian dinner table… While headline inflation figures have shown signs of statistical moderation, the lived reality tells a different story. The underlying cost of food remains stubbornly high, driven by persistent insecurity in Nigeria’s primary “food basket” regions.

The “Bandit Tax” and the Price of a Meal

The correlation between banditry and food costs in 2026 has moved beyond temporary disruption. It has hardened into what can only be described as a structural tax on the Nigerian dinner table.

While headline inflation figures have shown signs of statistical moderation, the lived reality tells a different story. The underlying cost of food remains stubbornly high, driven by persistent insecurity in Nigeria’s primary “food basket” regions.

Insecurity has created an invisible but deeply entrenched cost layer — what analysts describe as an informal tax regime imposed by bandits. Farmers in Zamfara, Katsina, and Niger are compelled to pay ‘protection fees’ and  ‘harvest taxes’ – costs that are passed directly to consumers.

Apart from these taxes imposed on Zamfara, Katsina and Niger farmers, there is also Transportation Premium: Transporters moving goods to Abuja now pay between ₦5,000 and ₦50,000 per trip, adding an estimated 20 per cent – 30 per cent to retail prices.

This is taxation without representation, enforced not by the state, but by armed actors embedded within the supply chain.

Current Food Prices in Abuja (March 2026)

Despite a modest decline in overall inflation (15.06 per cent), food inflation rose to 12.12 per cent:

Rice (50 kilogrammes): ₦75,000 – ₦90,000

Maize (50 kilogrammes): ₦60,000 – ₦70,000

Beans (50 kilogrammes): ₦70,000 – ₦85,000

Garri (50 kilogrammes): ₦45,000 – ₦60,000

Yam (per tuber): ₦2,500 – ₦4,000

For the average Nigerian household, these are not just prices — they are signals of a shrinking economic margin of survival.

Closing the Gate

For the Nigerian government and the international community, it is important to state that food security is not a climate issue; it’s a security sovereignty issue.

If kidnapping is the “venture capital” of the Triad, then banditry is its “real estate strategy.”

To break the siege, Nigeria must pursue economic sovereignty:

• Secure the value chain;
• Deploy surveillance technology;
• Reclaim indigenous control of land.

Banditry is the quiet strangulation of Nigeria’s food system and the slow erosion of rural life. A nation that cannot secure its farms cannot secure its future.

Join me next week for “Part III: The Ideological Ghost and the War for Nigeria’s Soul.”

Trust is sacred. Stay seasoned.

Max Amuchie, CEO of Sundiata Post, writes The Sunday Stew, a weekly syndicated column on faith, character, and the forces that shape society, with a focus on Nigeria and Africa in a global context. X: @MaxAmuchie | Email: [email protected] | Tel: +234(0)8053069436.