This is the second part of the series. Read the first part of this series here.
Katsina’s “peace accord” was meant to end banditry. Instead, there are strong indications that it is emptying villages.
“Well, possibly, the whole arrangement was a farce,” was the blunt assessment of Mahadi Guga, a community leader from Guga in Bakori Local Government Area. He was invited to the peace talks but refused to join.
|
|
“I think it’s a plan—a gimmick to get money,” he said. “Both by the politicians and the bandits.”
His assessment is not hyperbole. It is a precise diagnosis of the systemic rot that, just weeks earlier, led to the abduction of 23-year-old Joshua James and the financial ruin of his family.
|
|
|
|---|
The story of Mr James’ family, detailed in Part 1 of this series, is not a tale of a peace deal gone wrong. It is the story of how the failed deal functions — a perfect case study in a system of extortion enabled by a fractured, naive, and ultimately absent state.
While the family was selling its ancestral land to pay ransom, the “peace accord” in neighbouring Bakori, signed in October, was already collapsing in blood.
Failed deals with bandits force thousands to flee southern Katsina
In late October, local leaders gathered under a tamarind tree in Kakumi for what was billed as a renewed peace accord between communities and bandits operating across southern Katsina. There were smiles for the camera, handshakes, and promises.
Stay Ahead with Premium Times
Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting.
Add as a preferred source on Google
“Just two days after the peace accord, we started experiencing attacks,” Mr Guga told our reporter.
On 25 October, bandits simultaneously attacked three communities—Ganjar, Gidan Nagari, and Alhazawa—killing one man instantly and abducting 43 people.
The peace was not just broken; it was used as a cover. The bandits, Mr Guga explained, even launched a targeted assassination. On 28 October, they hunted down a local vigilante member, Abdussalam Danjuma.
“He was invited to a farm to provide protection for the workers,” Mr Guga said. “The bandits came there and surrounded them. They singled him out, killed him, and took their leave.”
This was no random killing.
“It was like a revenge mission,” Mr Guga concluded. “The deceased was quite hardworking… I think they felt he had caused extensive damage to their operations.”
By the next morning, hundreds of families had begun to flee.
“People are trooping out,” Mr Guga said after visiting the attacked villages.
This is the enemy the state is attempting to sign “peace deals” with — a strategic, organised, and ruthless force that conducts targeted killings and mass abductions, even while negotiating for peace.
The result, Mr Guga said, is not peace.
“It’s a kind of exodus. Residents of these areas are leaving their communities… They’re migrating into Bakori, Funtua, and Kafur—running from the very peace that was meant to protect them.”
(AI Photo illustration: Ogalah Dunamis / Premium Times)
The nightmare that Mr James’ family endured in Unguwar Maga is a micro-level snapshot of this same system. It is a systemic failure that explains the ₦4 million ransom paid by the family. Their story is not an outlier; it is the blueprint of a failed state policy.
The attack that broke the Bakori peace accord was swift and brutal.
“They came at about 10 to 10:30 p.m.,” Mr Guga recalled. “They killed one person at Alhazawa and abducted 14 others. From Ganjar, they took 29 more and rustled many animals.”
“We left our village at night,” said Amina, a mother of three from Ganjar. “We just ran. The bandits said they’d return. We couldn’t wait.”
This is the context for the bandits’ new ₦1 million demand on Mr James’ community: they are extorting a starving population for the right to harvest their last remaining food.
The myth of “non-kinetic peace”
Official silence, bureaucratic buck-passing
In the wake of this development, our reporter made repeated attempts over two days to contact Katsina State officials responsible for security and the Bakori peace accord, seeking comment on the failure of the deal.
Multiple calls, text messages, and WhatsApp messages were sent to the Commissioner for Internal Security, Nasiru Mu’azu; the Commissioner for Information, Bala Zango; and the Bakori Local Government Chairman, Abubakar Barde.
The information commissioner and the Bakori LG chairman did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The Internal Security commissioner eventually replied with a single text message, deflecting responsibility from the state government. He urged this reporter to “talk to the local govt chairman pls.”
The chairman, however, remained silent.
This official vacuum—where state authorities pass responsibility to a mute local government—is the environment in which community leaders like Mr Guga say bandits thrive. Mr Guga’s comment was not just an opinion; it was a description of a reality where no one in power will answer for failure.
To understand why these peace deals keep collapsing, our reporter spoke with Abdullahi AbdulRahman, chairman of the Coalition of Civil Society Organisations in Katsina.
“The issue of peace deals… is quite complex,” he said. “Each local government handles it in its own way. Even among the bandits, they belong to different enclaves and operate under different leaders, which means they have varying interests.”
“You’ll find situations where one local government negotiates with bandits, only to wake up the next day to hear that another group—which was not part of the negotiation—has attacked the same community.”
This was precisely what happened to Mr James’ family. They were victims of a fractured marketplace—paying one group while another held their son.
The anatomy of a failed system
Every element of Mr James’ family tragedy illustrates a specific failure of the peace process.
Failure 1: The “peace deal” is a protection racket.
Mr James’ uncle, Mr Danlami, explained that the community was already paying for “peace” before his nephew was taken. “We’ve held several peace talks and even given them money for protection,” he said. “Sometimes, we contribute ₦10,000 each… sometimes ₦3,000 or ₦4,000. It depends on what they demand.”
Failure 2: Victims are forced to finance their own oppression.
The most cynical part of the “deal” was its capital investment. “At one point, they demanded we buy them a motorcycle,” Mr Danlami said. “We bought them one Boxer bike—what they call Boko Haram motorcycles—for ₦1,170,000. That was part of the condition for peace.”
Failure 3: The “Deals” are fractured and naive
The most devastating part of the family’s ordeal was the confusion. “Three different groups of bandits extorted money from us,” Mr James’ mother wept, “all claiming he was in their custody.”
This chaos, which cost the family an unrecoverable ₦350,000 paid to the wrong “negotiators,” exposes the central flaw of the entire strategy.
Failure 4: The “Waterbed Effect.”
Mr AbdulRahman noted that localised deals do not stop crime; they merely displace it.
“When an LGA signs a peace deal with bandits, the attacks don’t necessarily stop—the bandits just move to the next LGA.”
This explains the vulnerability of Unguwar Maga. “Malumfashi,” he added, “is not a frontline LGA. The bandits attacking Malumfashi usually come through Kankara, parts of Bakori, and Faskari.”
A peace deal in one LGA becomes a green light to attack another.
Failure 5: A Pattern of Predation
The Shehu family’s ordeal was not an isolated case, but the fifth in a series of targeted abductions in Ungwar Maga. This reporter has confirmed that the other victims mentioned by Mr Joshua’s mother in Part 1—including the community’s pastor and an elderly woman named Zinai—were also released only after their families paid substantial ransoms.
A community source, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, confirmed that the families of these other victims have also fled the area. This demonstrates that the “peace deal” has not protected the community but instead provided cover for the systematic, one-by-one financial ruin of its residents.
The 1-kilometre gap
The state has left its citizens to fend for themselves in an impossible fight.
“If the bandits are carrying AK-47 rifles and you send vigilantes with pump-action guns,” Mr AbdulRahman said, “you can see that the power balance is highly unequal.”
The only entity that can change this balance is the federal government.
“The best defence is attack,” he charged. “And the only government that can do that effectively is the federal government. Unfortunately, it is not willing to take that step.”
This unwillingness is not just a policy—it is a matter of geography.
“It will surprise you,” he said, “that bandits can operate in areas not more than 10 kilometres from where a Nigerian Army super camp is located. In Faskari, for instance, there’s a super camp on the right. From that camp to the bandits’ enclave is no more than one or two kilometres.”
He has seen it himself. “I was in Faskari some time ago… we could see bandits on a hill—not more than one kilometre away—and at the same time, the observation tower of the Nigerian Army right beside us.”
He let the image sink in.
“Go to Marabar Dan Ali—there’s another super camp there. Despite that, several attacks have occurred in the Yantumaki community.”
His conclusion was damning:
“And they’ve coexisted like that for over five years.”
It is a space where a family can be forced to pay ₦4 million ransom, where they are now being taxed ₦1 million to harvest their crops, and where the Commissioner for Security tells a reporter to “talk to the local govt chairman pls.”
When reached by phone for a response to the “one-kilometre gap” allegation, army spokesperson Appolonia Anele advised this reporter to “go to the military formation there” in Faskari for answers, stating that it was a “different sector head operation.”
This deflection from Abuja pushed the accountability to the state and local command. However, at the state level, Abubakar Lawal, a lieutenant and the spokesperson for the 17th Brigade in Katsina, which oversees operations in the state, did not respond to multiple calls or text messages sent to his phone lines.
As of the time of filing this report, no official clarification has been provided by the military on the specific allegation of “coexistence” between its outposts and bandit enclaves.
This is the one-kilometre gap where the James’ family, and countless others, now live. A space where the state is visible—an observation tower on the horizon—but its power is absent.
Crisis of leadership
The tragedy of the James family is not a private sorrow; it is a public concern. It is a public failure of leadership.
Mr Guga, the leader from Bakori, sees this as a profound moral crisis.
“Leadership is a responsibility, and they should live up to it,” he said. “Leaders are there because the people are here. It is their duty to protect the people in accordance with the Constitution.”
“Secondly,” the religious man warned, “I want to remind them that responsibility will be accounted for—if not here, then hereafter.”
Discover more from Premium Times Nigeria
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
More News
