Abstract
Over these last few years, the Northern region of Nigeria has been ignited with spates of students’ abductions and ransom demands which throw parents, security agents, and government (both federal and states) into confusion. In fact, it has become an existential threat such that national dailies break even with captivating, yet regrettably stylistic reportage of this ugly menace. The popular discourse for this threat is rooted in the motive for financial gains. In contrast, this paper situates it within the context of education eradication and Islamization project. In this light, the paper aims to pigeonhole the interface between the rising menace of banditry in the Northern Nigeria and the mission of annihilating western education which would further set the region on the track of socio-economic backwardness and form the catalyst for Islamization. The current form of banditry has a close relationship with known terrorist groups in the Nigerian state (Boko Haram, ISWAP, and Ansaru) and therefore, has common ideology of eradicating education in the region and setting the center stage for Islamization. Abduction of students and ransom collections are just logic in furtherance of the ideology. The paper does not involve field work; hence it adopts a qualitative approach that draws data from scholarly works, newspapers, and publications from international bodies. It recommends therefore, that government adopt a stick and carrot approach; provide more security around schools and prosecute identified sponsors and apprehended bandits.
Introduction
Nigeria is on the throes of total collapse due to lingering security issues in virtually all the geopolitical zones of the country. In the North West, banditry is more dominant, terrorism in the North East, herder-farmer clashes in the North-Central, IPOB secessionist agitations in the South-East and Niger-Delta militancy as well as cult clashes in the South-South while hostage taking and kidnapping are prevalent across the country. In all these, the state appears to be retrogressing developmentally as economy is heavily hit by insecurity and partly, COVID-19. It is an established fact that no meaningful development takes root in an insecurity-laden environment. More so, lack of investment in education is insecurity in itself.
Education is a veritable tool for civilization and its impact on social construction, national development and upward social status attainment cannot be over-emphasized (Aghedo, 2015; Ebohon, 2015). At birth, education takes an unstructured form of rigid socialization of a child into the culture, production processes, and rudimentary politics existent in his domain. This enables him to interact and be accepted by his people having developed the mental capacity to reason and act within the bounds of established societal norms and values (Agulana, 2000). However, as globalization becomes associated with human development in contemporary human existence, the need to acquire sophisticated and nuanced educational methodology that would enable man adapt to the growing changes in his environment becomes inevitable. To that extent, there is an undeniable need to develop a new form of education or modify some conservative aspects of informal education visible from birth to further stimulate growth and development of both man and his environment (Okoroma, 2006). This heralds the advent and adoption of formal or simply, western education by individuals and states that wish to develop.
Today, there is a sharp divide between states with phrases such as “the core and the periphery,” “the north and south,” “developed and underdeveloped,” “the industrialized and non-industrialized,” “the haves and have nots,” and some others. Truthfully, at the base of these sharp differentiations lies education. What makes a state industrialized or developed and another non-industrialized or less-developed depends on the rigorous, sophisticated, and nuanced educational system which necessitates the development of robust and strong mental capacity to exploit the environment through R&D that leads to innovations and technological advancement.
Nigeria keyed into the global consciousness of the importance of education in social transformation. The first contact with the Portuguese ensured that the region began to experience a new wave of education different from the one it was used to even though it was largely based on soul winning (Omamurhomu, 2002). At independence, there was a strong embrace of western education by leaders who replaced the colonialists. The Universal Basic Education was introduced in the Eastern and Western Regions and these regions reaped the benefits of development associated with it leaving behind the conservative North that seemed to embrace Islam and Quranic schools.
To that extent, the North-South educational disparity and development asymmetry in Nigeria has continued to draw the attention of leaders and writers. Successive leaders in the Nigerian post-military era have established schools and marshalled robust educational policies to bring the North to the position of their southern counterparts (Omamurhomu, 2002). Shades of the benefits of such moves were witnessed until the emergence of Boko Haram insurgency whose ideology is premised on conservative Islam and stark refutal of western education. At incipience, the supporters and sympathizers of Boko Haram ideology felt it was more of Islam eliminating Christianity, until the insurgents advanced toward attacking schools and kidnapping school children and also attacking, kidnapping, and killing government personnel, security agents, and persons who questioned their motives and stood as obstacles to eliminating schooling in the region.
This paper tries to assess the renewed attacks on the Northern region of Nigeria by bandits who seemed to have replaced the decimated Boko Haram group in the last few years on the overall educational and socio-economic development of the region. Over the last few years, what started as farmer-herder clashes seemed to have metamorphosed into a fully birthed banditry group that attacks schools and kidnaps students for ransom unrestrained. Writers and think tanks, therefore, have begun to search vigorously for the cause(s) of this new phenomenon, having areas of convergence, and divergence among them. To that extent, while some have blamed government’s neglect of the region which has bred poverty, unemployment, relative deprivation, and infrastructural deficit as the reason behind attacks (Jaiyeola & Choga, 2021), some have blamed the influence of religion as the cause (Eriye, 2021), while some have blamed the devastating effects of climate change and contracting land spaces (Olaniyan et al., 2015), yet others have argued the business nature of the attacks and kidnappings which incidentally appears to have turned the bandits to millionaires after ransoms are paid (Campbell, 2021).
While not differing totally from the narratives of these scholars and writers, the paper argues that school attack in the region is a furtherance of Boko Haram initiatives and ideology against western education which it sees as evil. By this, the paper places both the bandits and Boko Haram groupings as Siamese twins that are inseparable with the same ideology. Therefore, the bandits’ attacks on schools in the region are to further “darken the dark,” a phrase used here to mean taking the region further backward in terms of socioeconomic development. The backward nature of the region has well been captured locally and internationally (Jaiyeola & Bayat, 2020; National Bureau of Statistics [NBS], 2010; Ojeleye, 2018; World Bank, 2014). As education is believed to be a light shining on every embracer, attacking schools would invariably set more “darkness” in an already “dark” region and further stagnate it developmentally. Furthermore, the paper sees incessant school attacks and humongous ransom demands and collections by the bandits as powerful strategies designed to perform two major functions in furtherance of their mission: dissuasion and persuasion. First, the incessant abduction of students and ransom demands would dissuade parents, guardians, and even school owners from sending their wards to school, a form of education apathy. Second, abductions, associated killings, and humongous ransom payments would persuade the government into closing down schools. In either way, the logic is the mission and the mission is to enthrone Islamic caliphate and suffocate western education which the bandits see as an obstacle to their mission.
Conceptual and Theoretical Underpinnings
It is important to clarify three key concepts for proper understanding of the discourse of the paper. These three concepts are banditry, education, and socio-economic development. Egwu (2016) dwelt on rural banditry and likened it to cattle rustling. He defined it as the practice of stealing cattle and animals from herders or the raiding of cattle from the ranches. He went further to explain that rural banditry thrives as a means of “primitive” accumulation of cowherds in the context of subsistence and commercial pastoralism. Dekane (2021) in his article might not have expressly defined urban banditry but the cities mentioned gave the impression as to what he meant by urban banditry. To him, by implication, urban banditry is a type of banditry that occurs in the cities and perpetrated by an organized group with the purpose of making illicit gains. In fact, he warned that urban banditry could use modern technologies such as phones to achieve their aims. Shalangwa (2013, p. 3) on his part widened the scope of armed banditry when he conceptualized it thus:
the practice of raiding and attacking victims by members of an armed group, whether or not premeditated, using weapons of offence or defense especially in semi-organized groups for the purpose of overpowering the victim and obtaining loot or achieving some political goals. Such bandits are usually regarded as outlaws and desperate lawless marauders who do not have a definite residence or destination, and they roam around the forest and mountains to avoid being detected or arrested.
The deduction from these array of definitions on banditry is that banditry is a high level organized crime perpetrated by armed individuals that attack innocent people with sophisticated weapons in various locations such as homes, schools, farms, worship centers, markets, and even security formations for the purpose of killing, rustling of cows, raping, extorting money for ransom, kidnapping, and denigrating government efforts in developing the region through formalized education. In fact, the mode of operations and scope of this new form of banditry is very close to the operations and scope of a terrorist group like Boko Haram (West Africa Network for Peace Building [WANEP], 2020).
Education represents a viable tool through which societal culture, norms, and values are transmitted from one generation to another. It is in this light that Osokoya (1987) sees education as a “distinctive way in which the society inducts its young ones into full membership. So every modern society needs some educational policies to guide it in the process of such initiation” (p. 2). Aside the crucial impact of education on the socialization process of any society, it also has an inextricable connection with modernization or simply, civilization. Thus, transition to modernity which translates into socio-economic and technological development of a state revolves around quality education. It is for this reason that Ukeje (1966) sees education as “for life and for living. It is an investment in people which pays untold dividends to the society. When that investment is not made or is made inadequately, the society suffers a loss” (p. 155). Similarly, Kwapong (1995, p. 182) in his explication of the importance of education to Africa’s development averred that,
education satisfies a basic human need for knowledge, provides a means of helping to meet other basic needs, and helps sustain an accelerated overall development . . . and helps to determine the distribution of employment and income for both present and future generations . . . and influences social welfare through its indirect effects on health, fertility and life expectancy
In addition, education fosters cooperation needed for peaceful co-existence and harmony. It eschews and detests every form of societal evils and crimes (Egharevba & Aghedo, 2013). This perhaps explains the deep hatred global terrorists and insurgents have for liberal and modern form of education as a veritable weapon for interconnectivity.
Socio-economic development is the degree of progress made on both economic and social fronts of any society. From the deluge of literature on the concept (see Bellu, 2011; Chojnicki, 2010; Stemplowski, 1987), it is a process of quantitative, qualitative, and structural changes that are results of actions of subjects taken within social (economic) practice. These changes would have bearings on the material conditions of the people, heralding access to public goods and services, improved economic structure and entrepreneurship, relations with social system, and life satisfaction. It is believed that the concept has widened the scope of development which was previously predicated on poverty alleviation in developing societies (Massey, 1988). It now encompasses critical humanitarian indices such as reduction of poverty, health, sustainable use of resources, education, food security, and good governance (UNDP, 2000).
Modernization theory is concerned with changes and development of societies. Modernization emphasizes development of an individual arising from discouragement of traditional educational policy or culture and encapsulates growth where developing countries can achieve the same level of development as their western or developed societies. It is “a socio-political process through which a country becomes modern only after its population has adopted modern attitude, values and beliefs” (Kubow & Fossum, 2007, p. 44). Emerging in late 1950s and 1970s, Western, including American economists started searching for ways to bring Third World Countries to the same path as the developed North. The gains of the searches led to the emergence of different strands of economic paradigms like modernization theory. To that extent, Rostow (1990) unleashed his five stages of growth that would transform a given society from underdevelopment to development as traditional society, pre-condition for take-off, take of stage, self-sustaining growth, and the stage of high mass consumption.
Goorha (2017) averred that the focus of the theory is essentially from microcosmic and macrocosmic evaluative perspectives. The former envelops componential elements of social modernization such as urbanization, gender and income inequality, skills acquisition and education, the role of political communication and the media, bureaucratic corruption, and other related concepts. The latter broadly focuses on empirical trajectories and manifest processes of the modernization of nations and their societies, economies, and polities. With the microcosmic categorizations, it became easier for scholars to beam their research lights in studying the effects of these social processes on the broader macrocosmic levels (see Delacroix & Ragin, 1978; Inkeles, 1969; Smith & Inkeles, 1966). Moreover, the microcosmic modernization moved to address structural, economic, and political anomalies that characterized Third World Countries which included corruption, poverty, weak institutions, ethnicity, weak economic growth, and illiteracy. Hence, the postulations of modernization theorists converged at a point: greater interaction between developing nations and developed nations, improved technical assistance from developed nations to developing nations, open economy, and viable political institutions (Mazi Mbah & Ojukwu, 2019).
In more recent times, albeit following from the criticism of the theory as underdevelopmental, given the nature of parasitic and asymmetrical outcomes in the relations between the developed and developing societies as espoused by dependency and world system theorists, greater emphasis of modernization theory has been anchored on deeply—rooted and robust educational policies that focus primarily on R&D (Afonso, 2013; Freire & Lima, 2018). The essence is to sustain modernization theory and eliminate all forms of social ascriptivity, including conservatism that suffocates development. The backward nature of the Northern Nigeria, in development terms, takes its root in Islamic tenets which drive conservative education that is antithetical to open and liberal modern education. It is for this reason that as much as there are insurgent groups in the region, they appear to have a common ideology (eradication of liberal education) which stagnates the region and provide incentives for recruitment in furtherance of their ideology.
Education-Socio-Economic Development Nexus in Nigeria: The South-North Dichotomy
The drafters of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria understood the importance of education in setting the state on the path of development. Section 18 of the constitution, for instance, summarizes the stance of Nigerian government on education. Section 18, sub-section 1 states that “government shall direct its policy toward ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels.” Sub-section 2 further states that “government shall promote science and technology.” Sub-section 3 finally states that “government shall strive to eradicate illiteracy; and to this end, Government shall as and when practicable provide, (a) free, compulsory and universal primary education, (b) free secondary education, free university education, and (c) free adult literacy programmes” (Federal Republic of Nigeria [FRN], 1999, p. 18).
As a follow-up on this human-centric constitutional provision, the federal government came up with the National Policy on Education in line with Ake’s (1988) assertion that “education is the process of becoming the best we can be” (p. 2). Certainly, the euphoria that greeted this move by the government meant that states across the federation securitized illiteracy which heralded massive enrolment of students in the various primary, secondary, and even tertiary institutions with initial massive government financial support. In fact, this level of euphoria was well-captured by the National Educational Research Council Report of the Baguada Seminar of September 1980 as thus:
The introduction of the new system of education is deemed crucial to the implementation of the philosophy of “developmentalism”. It is hoped that when fully operational, it will help transform the society and launch the nation along the developmental trajectory that will lead us to a state of parity with the advanced world (Baguada Report, 1980, p. 7).
However, while South East and South West geopolitical zones embraced western education and started reaping the gains that emanated from it, the North appeared disinterested. This was aptly corroborated by Professor Omamurhomu Solomon Okobiah in his landmark lecture delivered in 2002 at the Delta State University when he said:
The central thesis of this lecture is that educational imbalance between the north and south has a historical origin arising from the “rejection-acceptance” dichotomy, by the north and south respectively, of the external influence and innovation process of modernization registered by western education system. The observed imbalance exists at all levels of inception into the educational institutions and industry, including the primary, secondary and tertiary education (Omamurhomu, 2002, p. 1).
Evidentially, by 1999, following National Policy on Education, the dichotomy in school enrolment differed considerably between the North and South to the extent that virtually all the 11-year-olds in the South-East and South-West were in school, while only one out of four of all the 11-year-olds in the North-Central was in school. In the South, the 14-year-olds rate of participation was 85% and 71% in North-Central while in the other Northern zones only about 40% of both 11- and 14-year-olds were in school (Federal Ministry of Education [FME], 2003). In addition to the lower rates of participation in the Northern zones, entries into school were also at later age. The gross enrolment rates across the zones in 1999 were, 41.8, 117.0, 68.7, 117.5, 118.2, and 129.5 for North-West, North-Central, North-East, South-West, South-South, and South-East, respectively (FME, 2003).
This educational disparity arising as a result of “rejection-acceptance” dichotomy has its roots from pre-colonial period. Before the colonial domination in the 19th century, the North had embraced the tenets of Islam embedded in the Holy Quran. At a time, Quranic education became a formal education given to its adherents (Omamurhomu, 2002) with special attention to reading and writing. The advent of western education in Nigeria in the middle of 19th century which was Christian—evangelism embedded meant that the North rejected it on the grounds that it would mean their conversion from Muslim to Christian faith. Their Southern counterparts embraced the new form of education. Although, opinion leaders in the North have refuted the claim that the North rejected western education, evidence abounds that the missionaries made frantic efforts to introduce schools such as Church Missionary Society (CMS), the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM), the Sudan United Mission (SUM), the Roman Catholic Mission, and the Cambridge University Missionary Party in the North but were utterly rejected (Omamurhomu, 2002, p. 7).
Today, the dichotomy is so ostensible that the Federal Government stressed that in order “to foster the much needed unity of Nigeria, imbalance in inter-state and intra-state development (including educational imbalance) has to be corrected” (FRN, 1981, p. 2). However, in spite of government’s efforts to bridge this wide gap in education, the gulf remains wider. Aside the first generation universities in the north: Ahmadu Bello University and University of Maiduguri, other institutions possess many lecturers without doctorate degrees when compared with their Southern counterpart (Moghalu, 2019). As a result, the literacy level in the north has been reported to be 34% compared to 67% in the south with female primary school attendance level standing at 47.7% and 47.3% in states in the North-East and the North-West, respectively (Moghalu, 2019).
No doubt, this education deficit palpable in the North impacts socio-economic development of the region. Unlike their Southern counterparts, the youth in the North are largely artisans, farmers, herders, and hawkers with no meaningful earnings from their toiling. In terms of development, the gulf between the south and the north remains wide. The reason is very simple. Education brings social upward movement and status attainment. It enhances awareness to new opportunities and develops in an individual the capacity to tap them. Therefore, even though Nigeria is seen as being marred in extreme poverty, the North is the poverty capital of the country. Statistics as shown by Moghalu (2019) revealed that when compared with other regions in terms of poverty rate, North-West had 80.9%, North-East, 76.8%, North-Central, 45.7%, giving a northern poverty average of 67.8%. South-West had 19.3%, South-South had 25.2%, South-East had 27.4%, with a southern average of 24%. Thus, it is safe to say that Northern Nigeria is nearly three times poorer than the Southern Nigeria.
The Northern Nigeria: From a Region of Education Deficit to an Epicenter of Violence
As relationship exists between education and socio-economic development, so also there exist a relationship between socio-economic development and peace. In other words, the extension of education to security should not be in doubt. Elusive peace has become a monicker of the region. Security has been defined as freedom from fear of imminent harm; an act of being secure (Liotta, 2002). Nabhon (2012, p. 223) sees security as a protection against or safety from a future risk of severe deprivation, injury, or death, and requires rules and impartial adjudication and application. Security is also the protection of life and properties from intruders, attack, trespassers, or theft. However, it appears that the region distastes calmness and tranquillity that security assures. Instead, violence, which has been conceptualized by The World Health Organization (2002) as the “intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against a person, or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, mal-development or deprivation,” has become frequent (p. 4).
Indeed, historical analysis of the violent nature of the region has its roots from Islam. In about 1804, the region became hot as a result of Jihad War waged by Uthman Dan Fodio against the Hausa caliphate. The war perpetuated the dominance of Fulani caliphate and brought their Hausa counterpart under their control. From then onwards, other forms of crises have been unleashed in the region. The majority of this violence manifests deep division along religious line leading to devastating clashes between Muslim majority and Christian minority in the region. Indeed, during colonial period, attacks on Southern delegation led by Anthony Enahoro where the bid for Nigeria’s self-determination was to be discussed took religious and identity pathway. Many were injured and others lost their lives. At independence, crises in the region deepened as fights over who control the national resources and treasury became evident. For sure, the North saw the military as a tool to realize this objective of control.
Coups and counter-coups from mostly military men from the region destabilized the state for more than a decade. Often citing corruption as reasons for the coups and counter-coups, they forgot that it was the people from the region that mostly orchestrated and perpetuated the corruption in question. Post-military Nigeria in 1999 saw the tension brewing once more with the introduction of Sharia Law in about 14 states. Though not utterly successful as anticipated, it nonetheless shook the foundation of the region by leaving scores incarcerated, stoned, or killed through other means. The story goes on and on. The nomadic nature of cattle rearers from the region has seriously taken the violence in the region to an unprecedented height. To be sure, this has frequently orchestrated farmer-herder conflict leading to Jihadists from bordering countries finding their ways into the region to cause more mayhem. The souring competition over land and water resources between predominantly Fulani herders and mainly Hausa farmers tend to worsen the security situation in the region as both groups often mobilize armed groups (referred to by the authorities as “bandits” and “vigilantes,” respectively), for protection. Besides, climate change-related environmental degradation and high population growth have assisted in intensifying this struggle (Olaniyan et al., 2015).
The violence in the region took a twist from communal clashes, farmer-herder confrontations to terrorism when Boko Haram Jihadist group unleashed mayhem not only to the inhabitants of the region but also to African neighboring states, seeking to establish Islamic government in Nigeria. The fight to get rid of this Jihadist group is still what governments of Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger Republic, and other African neighbors are still battling till today. Boko Haram insurgents seem to have gone underground in recent times as a result of the reported killing of its leader, Abubakar Shekau. However, it is now an existential truth that marauding bandits who now terrorize the region and other parts of the country are equally “Boko Haram” insurgents with just a change of nomenclature.
The human costs of violence in the region and beyond have been very alarming over these years. According to International Crisis Group (2020), over the last decade, more than 8,000 people have been killed—mainly in Zamfara state—with over 200,000 internally displaced and about 60,000 fleeing into Niger Republic. Livestock and crops have been decimated, further worsening the crisis of poverty among the people in the region. Between 2011 and 2015, various Boko Haram bombings and shootings, particularly in Kaduna and Kano left so many women and children dead (United Nations Human Rights Council, 2015). More recently, in just between July and September 2021, more than 2,000 people lost their lives in Nigeria with the north-west region of the country recording the highest number of killings with 961 deaths, where Zamfara State alone recorded 495 deaths; the north-central came second with 646 deaths, followed by the north-east with 336 deaths (The Cable, 2021). Further, electoral violence is just one out of many forms of violence that occur in the region. For instance, following Mohammed Buhari’s defeat to Goodluck Jonathan in 2011 general elections, protests that ensued in 14 Northern States degenerated into cataclysmic explosions that would later claim about 800 lives and left about 65,000 people displaced (Brock, 2011; Ndujihe, 2011). This is not to exonerate the southern part of Nigeria of indulging in electoral violence when voting and results do not go as expected, however, the magnitude of its occurrence in the North usually leave the entire country in fear.
More alarmingly, criminals and Jihadists usually take advantage of the porous nature of the Nigerian borders to infiltrate the region. In fact, it has been speculated that the herdsmen that terrorize the entire country are not even Nigerians but rather from other neighboring African countries such as Niger Republic, Chad, and even Mali. Moreover, security agents have been reported to have been colluding with these infiltrators, allowing them access to the region unhindered. The consequence is smuggling of illicit fire arms and other sophisticated weapons for attacks (Ayodele, 2017). Also, the pervasive corruption among Nigerian elite, including politicians and even traditional rulers in the region further implode grudges among the poor people (with the youth inclusive) and explode further crises and violence in the region.
The Rise of Banditry in Northern Nigeria
Banditry has found its way into the daily conversation of an average Nigerian. Hardly a day passes without hearing one form of bandits’ attack or the other. To that extent, banditry appears to have assumed different meanings and interpretations to different people in Nigeria mostly along ethnic, political, and religious divide. Along ethnic divide, the people of the South would see it as a strategy used by the North to “fulanize” the country and dominate other ethnic groups. Yet along political divide, members of the ruling party may see banditry as an opposition-sponsored group that is meant to discredit their good governance and therefore, delegitimize the government through public complaints and uproar. Finally, along religious line, banditry may be seen by the south as a strategy used by the north to Islamize the country and bring other religions, particularly Christianity to extinction. The North may see it as a reaction to age-long pervasive corruption, poverty, disgruntling, decayed infrastructure, deprivation, failed promises and neglect. To be sure, one glaring explanation is that banditry has in one time or the other taken place in each of the geopolitical zones of the country and perpetrated by even indigenes.
According to Ellis (2016), in his well-read book, The present Darkness: A History of Nigerian Organized Crime, stated that the history of banditry in post-independence Nigeria could be said to have started shortly before the civil war, when government broke down in some parts of the Western Region and there was a blurred line between political violence, crime, and organized insurgency. After the war, the Gowon-led military government mismanaged demobilization of combatants who surged back to their respective homes with nothing to do or live with. Outlawry became an appealing option. The Southern Nigeria soon became an epicenter of armed robbery, especially in the urban areas.
To be specific, in the South-West, a notorious armed-robber, Ishola Oyenusi, simply nicknamed “the Doctor,” a high-school dropout, terrorized major cities of Lagos at the end of the Civil War (Odinkalu, 2018). Similarly, the escapade of Shina Rambo in the 1990s in which he terrorized the entire South-West before his sudden disappearance was also on record (Osifadunrin, 2007). In the 1980s, Bendel State and surrounding environs came under the control of Tony Anini and his gang (Odinkalu, 2018). In the South-East Nigeria, Otokoto and his gang revolutionized crime with unremorseful indulgence in human sacrifice (Odinkalu, 2018). More recently in 2000s in Aba, Abia State, a notorious criminal, Osisikankwu and his gang, commercially kidnapped, extorted, and assassinated their victims before their apprehension by a coordinated Joint Task Force (Okoli, 2010). In the South-South oil-rich region, the menace of Niger Delta militants whereby they kidnapped expatriates for ransom, killed security agents, and took control of oil pipelines until their surrender following the grant of amnesty by the then President Musa Ya’adua government is also on record (Aghedo, 2015). Therefore, banditry has never been only a Northern affair.
During this time, the pattern of government response to addressing menace of banditry was repressive and combative actions as well as public executions. According to Odinkalu (2018), the first set of public executions took place in front of Bar Beach in Victoria Island, Lagos on April 26, 1971. Less than four and a half months later, on September 8, 1971, Oyenusi was executed at the same location. By 1976, over 400 armed robbers had been publicly executed by firing squad. In 1984 alone, under the regime of Major General Muhammadu Buhari, there were at least 338 such executions. In 12 years between 1984 and 1996, over 1,200 of such executions had taken place (Odinkalu, 2018).
The contemporary form of banditry in the Northern Nigeria, particularly in the North-Western States takes nuanced and sophisticated pattern than what obtained during post-civil war period, making conceptualization of banditry more complex. Perhaps, the difficulty in the definition makes writers and scholars to rather dwell with the use of name differentiations such as “rural banditry,” “armed banditry,” “urban banditry,” etc. Meanwhile, it is worthwhile to state that the current spate of banditry in Nigeria seems to connote all and even more than these names “rural,” “armed,” “urban,” and other associated names in scope and operations.
Banditry activities appear to differ based on geopolitical zones. The North-West (Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, Kaduna, Niger, and Kebbi) is the most receiving geopolitical zone of the menace of marauding bandits: with daily experiences of killings, cow rustling, rapes, extortions of money, kidnapping for ransom as well as attacks on security agents and schools. Other geopolitical zones appear to be experiencing all of these menaces except attacks on schools, students’ abductions, and demand for ransom. In recent time, Jos, the capital city of Plateau State in the North Central geopolitical zone has become an exception, experiencing existential threats of school attacks which necessitated the suspension of examinations in the University of Jos.
The humanitarian impact of banditry in the region has been shocking. On the recorded number of deaths, it was reported that in the six North-West states alone, 1,100 people lost their lives in 2018, over 2,200 people in 2019, and more than 1,600 fatalities were recorded between January and June 2020 (International Crisis Group, 2020). Njadvara et al. (2021) quoting the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) reported that in 2020 alone, over 8,279 Nigerians in the North lost their lives to bandits, Islamic fundamentalists, and terrorists. Of those figures, 1,026 persons were from Kaduna, 876 persons from Katsina, 843 persons from Zamfara, and 236 from Niger. Further, Sahara Reporters (2021a, b) while relying on the figures provided by Nigeria Security Tracker (NST) reported that between January and June 2021, the North-West recorded the highest number of deaths of 1,976 peeople, the North East recorded 1,424 deaths, the North Central recorded 1,090 deaths, the South East recorded 574 deaths, the South-South recorded 406 deaths, and South West recorded the lowest with 330 deaths.
Aside recorded deaths, there were also figures of cases of kidnapping by geopolitical zones between January and June 2021. In the North West, 1,405 persons were kidnapped, 942 persons in the North Central, 210 persons in the North East, 169 persons in the South West, 140 persons in the South-South, and 77 persons from the South East. Thus, a total of 2,557 persons were kidnapped in the North and 386 persons in the South during the period (Sahara Reporters, 2021a, b).
Furthermore, figures of internal displacements are ridden with shocks. In September 2019, a Joint Assessment Mission by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees/National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and IDPs (2019), relying on the information provided by local government authorities, reported that 2,10,354 persons were displaced from 171 towns and villages in the North West. Of these figures, 1,44,996 were in Zamfara state, 35,941 in Sokoto, and 29,417 in Katsina. About 60,000 of the displaced persons also fled over the border to Niger Republic where the same insecurity along border areas has resulted in 19,000 Nigerians internally displaced. Further, by June 30, 2020, more than 309,000 persons have been displaced in the North-West (UN High Commissioner for Refugees/National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and IDPs, 2019).
Refugee crises following from the displacements have become burdensome to states in the North and neighboring countries in Africa. As of June 17, 2020, the UNHCR reported that Zamfara state accommodated about 69,000 IDPs, Kaduna 71,000, Katsina 61,000, Sokoto 45,000, and Niger 300,060 (UNHCR, 2020). Also, between May and June, 2020 alone, more than 30,000 of the refugees arrived in Niger (Hamrouni, 2020). The deplorable state of the IDP camps leaves much to be desired. They lack basic services and items such as safe water sources, toilets, sleeping tents, beddings, blankets, and cooking and washing utensils. Hunger and starvation bites hard as bandits take over farmlands, destroy crop plantations and disrupt market activities (Abdulrasheed, 2021). Moreover, the rising figures of IDPs on daily basis appear to be overstretching the states in the region, federal government, and even international humanitarian assistants. As a result, many of the IDPs have resorted to begging on the streets for sustenance and consequently becoming vulnerable to recruitment by the bandits and terrorists.
Banditry and Terrorism: Two Names, One Mission
The scope of activities and operations of bandits in the North has fueled arguments among scholars, public analysts, think tanks, and concerned persons. They tend to liken their activities to terrorism while linking them to Boko Haram. The argument is heightened by the hasty manner in which the federal government described the IPOB, a self—determination agitation group in the South East, as terrorist groups and proscribed their activities even though their activities have been largely peaceful and their demands seen as legitimate by many while tagging blood-tasty and AK-47-wielding bandits as mere bandits. As a result, suspicion of ethnic politics where the northern- dominated federal government takes sides with the “terrorists” and heavily repress genuine freedom agitations from the South. For sure, there is little or no difference between the current banditry in its form and terrorism perpetuated by Boko Haram. Moreover, the link that exists between the two has been well established.
On December 7, 2020, the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, Kayode Fayemi, declared that there is a nexus between terrorism in the North East and banditry in the North West. Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics program on the opinion by concerned citizens that the federal government should declare state of emergency in the North East after about 43 rice farmers were massacred in Borno State, he said:
If a state of emergency were to be declared, I have no opinion on that. . . insurgency is not limited to Borno State. We will be making a mistake if we do not draw a correlation between what is going on in Borno State and what is happening in other parts of the country — banditry, kidnapping, militancy, they are inextricably intertwined. Some of the insurgents that escaped from the Boko Haram territory are the ones prosecuting the banditry in the North-West, some of them are involved in the South-West. ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province) insurgents coming down from Sudan, from Niger Republic are involved in what is going on. How many states are you going to declare state of emergency on them? So, we must take a holistic view on this (Oyero, 2020, p. 7).
Corroborating the above statement made by Governor Fayemi, Ojewale (2021) asserted after the Kankara abduction that:
The recent Kankara abduction bears the operational footprints of the Boko Haram group that has perfected the act through previous abductions of school girls in Chibok and Dapchi in Northeastern Nigeria. This incident gives credence to the jihadists’ perpetual attempt to forge an alliance with splinter terror groups in the Northwest. While Boko Haram maintains a coordinating centre in the Lake Chad basin, ISWAP operates from Southwestern Nigeria. These two centres of Jihadism are separated by Northwest Nigeria, increasing the likelihood of interaction and collaboration among these actors (including bandits) there.
Indeed, in recent times, jihadists from Nigerian neighbors have been taking advantage of the porous nature of the Nigerian borders to infiltrate the ranks of the bandits. Even, there were reports from security forces that they (security forces) intercepted communications showing delivery of ammunition from Boko Haram or ISWAP to a “bandit” (International Crisis Group, 2020). Two groups appear to be heavily linked with infiltration into the Northern borders: Ansaru and ISWAP, both are splinter groups from Boko Haram.
Ansaru is an Al-Qaeda affiliated group that split from Boko Haram in 2012 and took dominance of the North-West before the Nigerian security forces dismantled and rendered them impotent. They were until their incapacitation, involved in so many criminal activities such as high profile kidnappings, especially expatriates. They were also wilfully discrediting government’s democratic efforts in the region by regularly deploying powerful clerics to preach against the government in order to appeal to the minds of the vulnerable citizens in the region. Though, they seemed to have gone into oblivion since 2016, they are regrouping and carrying out nefarious activities surreptitiously. In recent times, it has been discovered that they have started forging common bonds with smaller radical groups in Zamfara state, specifically around the areas of Munhaye, Tsafe, Zurmi, Shinkafi, and Kaura Namoda, wooing some of the armed groups to its ranks by offering them incentives such as gifts of money, offering, and selling AK-47 rifles to them at a lower price and even sending them as far as Libya for combat training (Zenn & Weiss, 2021).
ISWAP seems to have resurrected in recent times after attacking Boko Haram’s base in Sambisa Forest and ensuring that Abubakar Shekau paid the ultimate price for not backing down as the leader of Boko Haram. The group is incrementally taking foothold on states across the North West. Like its Ansaru counterpart, ISWAP offers financial assistance to not only its members, but also to other locals which it recruits to its ranks. It also discredits Nigerian government’s efforts and preaches against the practice of democracy by employing the services of vocal clerics to speak to the minds of the people and appeal to their conscience (Odunsi, 2021; Sahara Reporters, 2021). Therefore, it is quite indubitable that bandits and terrorists that operate across Northern states of Nigeria have close relationship and by implication the same mission.
The mission of terrorists in Nigeria is to subdue the state and establish Islamic Caliphate. They believe that the surest way to achieve this is by eradicating all forms of western education which they perceive as breeding corruption and therefore obstacle to growth and development of the country. In fact, the name “Boko Haram” means “western education is evil” (Afzal, 2020) and since all these splinter groups such as Ansaru and ISWAP were once tutored by Boko Haram, it will not be far from the truth that their mission has a close similarity, if not totally similar. Evidence to this regard abounds.
Government sources and residents in the North West have at various times revealed that their attackers since 2019 use religious slogans previously used by Jihadists. Some security officers have equally revealed that some of the arms recovered from the bandits bore an inscription Allahu akbar (“God is Great” in Arabic). In the attack on Zamfara State on January 2020 where about 14 persons lost their lives, it was reported that the gunmen told residents that they were on “jihad” (Opeyemi, 2020). Furthermore, during the attacks on three communities of Gurmana, Old Gurmana, and Ashirika in Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger state on 8 February, 2020, the attackers were heard shouting “Allahu akbar” (Opeyemi, 2020). Though, shouting of or bearing an inscription “Allahu akbar” which is a common slogan among Muslim faithfuls may not in itself constitute sufficient evidence for nursing Islamization agenda, however, the circumstances of the attacks should not have warranted the shouts or the inscription if there was no sinister motive behind it. Going by this granted oral evidence therefore, it is safe to state that both the bandits and terrorists are Siamese twins; two sides of the same coin; bearing different names, having the same mission. To that extent, the earlier the government and security agents start treating the bandits as terrorists, deploying counter-insurgency measures as deployed against Boko Haram with utmost urgency and caution, the better for the achievement of peace and harmony which the Nigerian state craves for since 2009.
The Logic of Students’ Kidnappings and Ransom Demands by Bandits in the Northern Nigeria
Attacks on innocent students are the gravest of banditry attacks in recent times. Indeed, it appears that school attacks have led to the reduction in other forms of criminal activities the group is known to indulge in such as cattle rustling and farmer-herder clashes. In the case of cattle rustling, it appears abandoned as cases of it have stopped appearing on the front pages of the national dailies. However, when cattle rustling project was in vogue, it shook the region when an estimated 300 herders were killed and about 60,000 cattle rustled in 2013 alone (Egwu, 2016, p. 25). It was also evident in the region to the extent that residents knew the markets where rustled cows were sold and some criminals that were involved in it (Egwu, 2016).
Attacks on students could be traced to the period of 2014 when Boko Haram abducted about 276 Chibok Girls in Borno State. From that period to September 1, 2021, when the students of the Government Day Secondary School were abducted by bandits (see Table 1), the region has witnessed additional school attacks where some of the students have either lost their lives or have no traces of their whereabouts.
The Timeline of School Attacks and Students’ Abductions in Northern Nigeria (April 14, 2014–September 1, 2021).
Source. Author’s compilation from different Nigerian newspaper reports.
Homes have been torn apart as parents, guardians, and loved ones of the abducted students live with mixed feelings, particularly when they read that between December 2020 till date, over 700 abductions of school students have been effected (Aljazeera, 2021) in addition to unspecified number of deaths. Parents’ mixed feelings are exacerbated when some of them see their children again after securing their release having spent so many days in the captor’s den and others who are yet to see or hear anything concerning their wards. Aside the parents, the whole Nigerian state is thrown into mourning when one thinks of what life could portend for these children who are mostly between the ages of 3 and 18 (Olukoya, 2021). By way of evidence, after the attack on the students of Salihu Tanko Islamic School where one student was reportedly killed and three teachers also abducted on May 30, 2021, Ashiru Adamu Idrisa, one of the parents whose three daughters of which the youngest was just at the age of 5 were among those abducted said during an interview by AP News: “What I saw was horrifying, right in front of my eyes my children were taken out” (Olukoya, 2021). Beyond the children, the nation also mourns for the loss of its gallant security agents and vigilante groups who lose their lives either in the process of trying to repel the attack or in searching for the rescue of the abducted.
The psychological and social effects such abductions have on the children when in their captors’ den as well as when released are always unimaginable. One would imagine the effects of having to travel long miles in a thick forest without eating good food, drinking clean water, being exposed to cold weather and possible dangerous animals, frequent beatings and floggings, rape, forced marriages, witnessed killings, and dangerous lifestyle such as smoking and taking of hard drugs, use of foul languages, and forceful radicalization on the abducted. More sadly, these abductors have left imprints in some families of the abducted by impregnating and making babies with their children while in their den (Amnesty International, 2021). The psychological and nostalgic effects those bandit-bred babies would have on the families would live with them till death.
Ransom demand and collection is always the end point of these students’ abductions. Initially as reported, kidnapping for ransom was restricted to road users in the North-West who paid between $20 and $200,000 for their freedom before the change of narrative after the kidnap of Chibok school girls that drew global attention (Orjinmo, 2021). Similarly, Mayer (2021) asserted in response to a recent kidnap of poor people in the region, “the kidnappers have deviated from traditional kidnap and ransom (K&R) schemes, where the attackers target someone who is well-off and whose relatives are likely to pay a high amount for their safe return. Instead, they are focusing on poor villagers, ordinary school children and bulk ransoms” (Mayer, 2021).
A comprehensive data on ransom collected by the bandits seem difficult due to the fact that government and security agents have always denied paying ransom to secure the release of some of the students kidnapped even though emerging reports have suggested otherwise (Campbell, 2021; Channels Television, 2021). In apparent abandonment by the government, parents, and loved ones of the abducted students amidst heart brokenness and biting economy shoulder the burden of paying ransom whenever its demand is made. In one of the abductions in Kaduna State, the government of Nasir El- Rufai blatantly refused to pay the ransom demanded by the bandits. In his words, “we will not give them (bandits) any money and they will not make any profit from Kaduna” (Aljazeera, 2021). These comments infuriated the abductors who killed about five of their abductees in order to show their meanness to kill the students if their demands were not met (Aljazeera, 2021). Parents, heavily disturbed by the continued detention of their wards yielded to the demand of the abductors.
In all these, however, the consideration should be the logic behind school attacks and students’ abductions which have necessitated opinions and writings from scholars and the media. Most writers and media reports point that it is a lucrative venture that leaves the pockets of the bandits bourgeoning. Arvin (2021) reported Bulama Bukarti, a senior analyst in the extremism policy unit of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change to have said,
kidnap-for-ransom is the most lucrative industry in Nigeria today. Two weeks ago, I made a Zoom presentation with the deputy director of Nigeria’s intelligence agency, the Department of State Services. In the first six months of this year alone, he said, kidnappers have extorted 2 billion naira ($4.9 million) from ordinary Nigerians
In the same vein, Munshin (2021) reported the interview granted to Aisha Yesufu, a social justice activist from the Northern Nigeria where she said, “Sadly the kidnapping industry is thriving across Nigeria. We are in a situation in Nigeria where people who ordinarily would enter normal society, would work, they do not have any hope for anything. Instead they . . . go and kidnap people [to] make money.”
However, it is apt to state that though the lucrative nature of kidnapping and ransom collections may not be doubted, it makes more sense if it could be analyzed from the perspective of a calculated logic. The logic is the mission and the mission is quite apt: to establish Islamic caliphate in the region and by extension the whole country. Since it is well-established that the bandits and terrorists are inextricably intertwined and seem to have the same ideology as already argued above, education is the only obstacle to achieving the mission. Therefore, abductions and ransom collections are double and similar strategies calculated to achieve dissuasion and persuasion in the following ways:
First, frequent abduction of students and sometimes teachers and ransom payments would dissuade parents and guardians from sending their children to school; dissuade the students from schooling and teachers from teaching. Ultimately, it will lead to loss of incentive for learning. To be sure, this is gradually working out. For instance, Aljazeera (2021) quoting UNICEF reported that mass students’ abductions have disrupted studies of over five million children. In fact, the fear is striking that a guardian would rather want his ward remain an illiterate than sacrifice him on the brazen altar of “foolishness”—sending the ward to school.
Second, frequent abductions and ransom payments or negotiations in the case of government would persuade government to shut down schools even when the parents and their wards may still be willing to continue learning. This is also working out gradually. For instance, Shiklam et al. (2021) reported that 618 schools have been shut in six Northern States over abduction scare. The six states were Sokoto, Zamfara, Kano, Katsina, Niger, and Yobe. In Sokoto State, the state government has closed about 16 boarding schools along border towns. In Zamfara State, the governor has also closed boarding schools in major towns after Jangebe incident in addition to 10 schools along the borders with Sokoto and Katsina States. In Katsina State, government initially closed 38 boarding schools after kankara incident before opening four later. In Kano, four tertiary institutions and twelve secondary schools were closed by the government. In Niger State, about 496 schools have been closed and about 56 boarding schools affected. In Yobe State, all boarding schools have been closed and day schools allowed to continue for the meantime with the Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education in the state declaring that students from SSI and SSII should vacate their schools immediately. Even though the closure of some of these schools may be reviewed subsequently, the fact has been established that school closure appears to be the surest measure in the hands of the helpless states.
Lastly, shootings before abductions in the schools would create additional fear in the minds of the parents, guardians, and even the students which would facilitate the likelihood of mass exodus and relocation of the students to other areas, particularly to neighboring states to continue their education while leaving the spaces for the bandits to overrun. Similarly, killings of security guards attached to schools would further create security vacuum in the schools as government and school owners providing security may be dissuaded. To that extent, bandits would take advantage to overrun more schools and have their mission accomplished.
Darkening the Dark: The Socioeconomic Implications of Students’ Attacks in the Northern Nigeria
Darkening the dark is an intentional implication of banditry and its mission on the overall educational and socio-economic development of the Northern region. Both would create a fertile ground for the emergence of Islamic Caliphate. As the mission captured under the logic of students’ abductions and ransom payments has been well-established—eradication of western education to ensure the eventual realization of the Islamic caliphate project, there is no doubt that it will have far-reaching implications on the region and the entire country.
First, education develops in an individual the capacity to evaluate issues thereby creating an open mind to receive innovative ideas that would transform an individual and by extension, the state. In view of this, the conservative nature of Islamic education which the terrorists advocate is incompatible with the level of development the Northern region and indeed, Nigeria craves for. In fact, the phenomenon of development dislocation and ravaging poverty in the region is the first among many push factors breeding banditry (Jaiyeola & Choga, 2021). In the view of Jaiyeola and Bayat (2020), though Nigeria is seen as the poverty capital of the world, the Northern Nigeria is the most obvious with the highest rate in Sokoto State with a poverty rate at 86.4%. The poverty rate in the North East and North West zones of Nigeria is 77.7% and 76.3%, respectively, and 67.5% poverty rate in the North Central zone of Nigeria (Jaiyeola & Bayat, 2020). An Islamic State project that is built on total repudiation of western education cannot guarantee the needed change.
Second, the Northern people are predominantly subsistent farmers with traditional skills in farming. Agriculture is a common narrative for socio-economic development globally that requires special and modern skills to ensure better returns to those who embrace it. The special skills required can be acquired through exposure to high level education which western education brings. This would ensure the mastery of climatic conditions, operations of modern-day agricultural technology and practices, loan applications and obtainments, export dynamics, and others. To be fair, the nomadic nature of cattle herders which is one of the architects of frequent farmer-herder clashes has its root in poverty (NBS, 2020).
Third, western education brings incentive and the needed drive for personal success. It takes its root in the encouragement of development of personal initiatives that are part and parcel of the core cardinal principles upon which capitalism is based in contrast to rudimentary and conservative education advocated by these terrorists. The development dichotomy between the North and South of Nigeria is not based on the level of more infrastructural intervention in the South against the North, but on individual-level drive to succeed which is made more possible by contacts with innovative education. Table 2 presents a situation in which all other geopolitical zones fared better in poverty headcount rate and poverty gap indices than their Northern counterparts with the exception of North Central region. National poverty headcount ratio is the percentage of the population living below the national poverty lines. The poverty gap index measures the extent to which a person falls below the poverty line as a percentage of the poverty line. The value of poverty line is equal to 137,430 Naira per person per year (about 377.00 daily; NBS, 2020). Below the figure means the person is poor.
A 2019 Poverty Headcount Rate and Poverty Gap Indices.
Source. NBS (2020).
Therefore, abductions, ransom demands, and payments and closure of schools would ensure that an already impoverished state becomes more impoverished, creating more burden for states who are already trapped in the revenue shortfalls occasioned by mismanagement, embezzlement, high level financial corruption, reckless spending, COVID-19 impacts, and even unstable global oil prices upon which the source of revenue is based (Jaiyeola & Choga, 2021; Khan & Cheri, 2016).
Fourth, education guarantees opportunities and widens the likelihood of employment. No owner of an enterprise would employ an illiterate that is bereft of needed modern skills. Today, high rate of unemployment in the region has been associated with criminality such as banditry and terrorism (Ojeleye, 2018). People, including children are daily lured into it (criminality) by a mere offer of stipends which may not be enough for an average poor to sustain himself in a day (United Nations Human Rights Council, 2015).
Lastly, eradication of education in the region under the logic of abductions and ransom demands and payments will portend more security issues for both the states in the region and Federal Government. Already, apart from incidences of poverty and unemployment, there are far greater incidences of early marriages, rape, unwarranted explosion of birth rate, deadly infectious diseases, and drug abuse with far greater consequences in the region. The ideology which these abductors hinge on is supportive of most of these incidences and it is only exposure to massive sensitization and education that can stand the chance of addressing these infectious issues.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The premise of this paper hinges on the activities of the marauding bandits in the Northern part of Nigeria which has taken a new dimension in recent times. Before now, farmer-herder clashes formed the common narratives in the country’s security discourse. In recent times, the narratives have taken a nuanced level given the incessant abductions and killings of innocent school children and subsequent demands for ransom particularly, in the North West of Nigeria leaving helpless and shattered parents in the dark. The common attributions to this devastating menace are unemployment, poverty, relative deprivation, and the likes.
The paper sees the growing menace of these bandits differently. It sees it as a logic rooted in the context of Islamic ideology that is incompatible with western education as Boko Haram professes. In that light, it is established that Boko haram and this new form of banditry are two names with one mission. The mission is to utilize incessant kidnappings and demands for ransom to dissuade students from going to schools and persuade government to shut down schools. By so doing, the region will be darkened and education which is seen as an obstacle will give way for Islamization to take a firm root in the region and indeed, Nigeria.
Against this backdrop, the paper recommends that the government should see these bandits as terrorists and treat them as Boko Haram was treated. First, the treatment must involve a stick and carrot approach in which the underlying poverty indices ravaging the region will be addressed while at the same time ensuring kinetic application where necessary to save the country from this islamization project. In other words, the stick approach should involve a firm application of military force, particularly in the states regarded as their strongholds such as Zamfara and Kaduna states. Commendably, the government has started applying this approach with the deployment of the recently purchased military gadgets from the United States in addition to other measures put forward such as banning of motor bikes and cutting of telecommunication lines. However, the synergy between military forces fighting the threat appears to be lacking, allowing the bandits to regroup and unleash coordinated attacks. There should be a complete synergy among military forces for the stick approach to be effective. The carrot approach entails human-centric approach in which the government is expected to empower the youth with tasking jobs that would divert attention from crime indulgence. In empowering the youth, adequate check is needed to avoid mismanagement of funds meant for the empowerment which has been the common narrative in the region. Second, security should be beefed up in schools to ensure that the lives of innocent school children are protected. The use of CCTV should also be encouraged in order to capture suspicious movements. This also would make the job of the security forces less-cumbersome. Furthermore, intelligence gathering is apt. This will ensure that security agents become proactive and not reactive. Lastly, government should ensure that both the sponsors of banditry in the region and the members of the group are apprehended and prosecuted to serve as deterrence to other persons who are harboring sinister motive of joining them. The idea of repentant bandits should be discarded as an ideologically-driven bandit would remain resolute in actualizing his motive irrespective of any benign and co-opting offers from the government, more so when he has viable sponsors and financial backups.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
