In the borderlands of Katsina State, where the Zamfara forests meet the sands of the Republic of Niger, security is not delivered by the government. It is negotiated – quietly, unevenly, and often at gunpoint.
Across local government areas battered by years of banditry – cattle rustling, mass kidnappings, and village massacres – the Nigerian state has gradually neglected its most basic obligation. In its place, communities have entered into fragile bargains with the very armed groups that terrorise them.
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This reality was laid bare on a dusty Monday evening in the Malamawa district of Jibia. Residents poured into the streets, not to welcome the governor or a military commander, but Abdu Lankai, a so-called “repentant” bandit leader.
For six days, while Mr Lankai was held captive by a rival faction, Jibia existed in a state of quiet dread. Markets closed early. Families slept lightly. The fear was not that the warlord would return, but that he might not. He had been captured by a rival gang.
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That reaction captures the essence of what residents now call the Jibia Peace Model, a precarious arrangement born of exhaustion, in which communities rely on “friendly” bandits to restrain the others.
Based on interviews with community leaders, victims, and security insiders, as well as a review of local media reporting, this investigation reconstructs how public safety in parts of Katsina was handed over to a non-state armed actor and what it has cost those who refused to comply.
The Gatekeeper of the Corridor
The model did not emerge from strategy but from fatigue. By 2025, some of the armed groups operating in Katsina’s volatile northwest had grown weary, thinned by internal feuds and pressured by sporadic security operations.
“They were tired,” said a senior official of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association in Katsina, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They were being killed from all sides. For almost a year, they sought a truce.”
The deals spread across key local government areas – Batsari first, then Jibia, Danmusa, Faskari, and Safana. Their terms were simple. Armed groups pledged to halt attacks, stop cattle rustling, and release abductees without ransom. In return, communities offered safe passage for commerce and agreed to petition the government for the release of detained relatives, a promise authorities have largely failed to honour.
In Jibia, Mr Lankai emerged as the linchpin of the arrangement.
Once an active bandit straddling strategic corridors linking Zamfara to the Republic of Niger, Mr Lankai reinvented himself as the area’s de facto security chief. He enforced the truce with discipline, mediating disputes, intercepting raids, and policing access routes.
“Lankai acts as a gatekeeper,” the Miyetti Allah source explained. “When bandits from Zamfara try to cross into Jibia, he blocks them. He recovers stolen cattle. He enforces the ban on weapons in the market.”
Residents say the town experienced nearly a year of relative calm. Bashir Lawal, secretary-general of the Jibia People’s Forum, told Daily Trust that Lankai played a “significant role in neutralising bandits who attempted to undermine the process.”
The Fracture
The peace, however, rested on a single assumption: that Mr Lankai would remain alive, armed, and uncontested.
That assumption collapsed in late January.
Tensions flared between Mr Lankai and lieutenants of the notorious Zamfara warlord, Bello Turji – particularly Dogo Rabe, a Jibia native who had relocated to Zamfara, and another commander known as “Black.”
Local sources described the dispute as territorial, triggered by Mr Lankai’s efforts to block cattle routes into Jibia. But reporting by Daily Trust revealed a financial dimension, alleging a failed arms transaction in which an aide to Mr Lankai collected ₦100 million but did not deliver the weapons.
Whether territorial or transactional, the episode exposed the model’s central weakness: peace collapses the moment money and arms re-enter the equation.
On 27 January, a purported reconciliation meeting turned into an ambush. Mr Lankai arrived with eight men. Fighters separated him from his guards under the guise of hospitality. Gunfire followed. Seven of his men were killed, and Mr Lankai was taken to Mr Turji’s camp.
“They took everything,” a source familiar with the incident said. “The money from selling his cattle. His weapons.”
An audio message later circulated by Katsina Times confirmed Mr Lankai’s capture and warned the public to stay out of the dispute.
Fear Without the Gatekeeper
Mr Lankai’s disappearance sent shockwaves through Jibia. Markets closed early. Residents barricaded their homes. Rumours of his execution spread.
For six days, the fear was not that violence would return – but that the man restraining it would not.
On 2 February, Mr Lankai resurfaced after his release. His return drew crowds to the Malamawa district, revealing how deeply public safety had become tied to a single armed intermediary.
He returned alive, but disarmed and diminished.
The Cost of Defiance: The Doma Massacre
While Jibia celebrated the return of its protector, the town of Doma in the Faskari-Kankara axis offered a blood-soaked counterexample.
Unlike Jibia, Doma B allegedly rejected any peace arrangement with armed groups, choosing instead to rely on the Nigerian state.
Following reports that a bandit’s corpse had been found near the town – an allegation residents deny – more than 30 motorcycles carrying armed men descended on Doma and the nearby settlement of Doma Biyu last Tuesday afternoon.
“They didn’t come to negotiate,” Sama’ila Doma said. “They came to punish.”
By the time the attackers withdrew, no fewer than 20 people were dead in Doma A and B.
Among them was Muhammadu Sagiru, a 35-year-old driver who had recently transported politicians to a rally in Katsina and was preparing to convey relatives to a wedding.
“When we called his phone later, someone else answered,” his elder brother, Ahmadu Sagiru, told PREMIUM TIMES. “He told us, ‘We have killed him.’”
Residents said security forces arrived hours after the attackers had left. No permanent security presence followed.
The Absent State
The massacre in Doma and the jubilation in Jibia share a common thread: the state was absent in both.
In Doma, residents say soldiers arrived only after the attackers had withdrawn.
“The jet came two hours later,” Mr Ahmadu said. “When the soldiers finally arrived, they asked us for directions.”
Elsewhere, an informal order has emerged without law. In Batsari, illegal gold mining reportedly continues under the supervision of local power brokers and armed actors rather than state regulators.
“It is illegal mining,” a source who spoke under anonymity explained, “but it is peaceful.”
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A Model Without a State
What is unfolding in Katsina is not peace, but the outsourcing of violence management. Communities face a brutal choice: submit to the protection of armed intermediaries, or confront unchecked violence with little expectation of state rescue.
Security analyst Yahuza Getso has warned that such arrangements are inherently unstable. Without disarmament, he noted, peace enforcers remain armed actors capable of reverting to violence at any moment.
Yet some local leaders argue that stability, however compromised, is preferable to mass killing. One proposal advanced in Batsari calls for integrated boarding schools where the children of bandits and villagers would live and study together.
The logic is stark: if armed actors have family stakes within a community, violence becomes less likely.
For now, Jibia sleeps again, not because the border is secure, but because its bandit (gatekeeper) has returned.
