Deadly attacks and kidnappings have decreased in Nigeria’s Kaduna State owing to a peace pact between bandits and officials, which is still unstable but has provided a welcome break in the country’s ravaged northwest.
Criminal groups, known to the locals as bandits, have terrorised Kaduna and several other states in the country’s central and northwest for years. These gangs raid communities, rustle cattle, and kidnap large numbers of people for ransom.
Despite military deployments, the cycle of violence has continued, and in November, the state administration reached a peace agreement with the criminal groups after months of discussions.
Nevertheless, after several months, analysts are concerned that the agreement may fall through due to the bandits’ ability to retain their weapons, the porous nature of Kaduna’s borders, and the increasing number of terrorists in the northwest.
According to Ikemesit Effiong, a partner at the risk consultancy SBM, located in Lagos, “Kaduna realised that the conflict cannot be solved by military means alone,” he told AFP. The agreement, however, “lacks comprehensive demobilisation and rehabilitation elements.”
The weak governmental presence in rural Nigeria has been used by Nigerian bandits to establish their control. These bandits are driven more by economic goals than by the same ideology as their terrorist rivals.
They operate out of camps tucked away in the forests in the states of Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi, and Niger and are notorious for mass kidnappings from schools.
The crisis’s underlying social tensions and violence have been exacerbated by the competition between farmers and nomadic herders for natural resources, which has been exacerbated by climate pressures and a fast population increase.
The Nigerian military claims that more than 2.2 trillion naira ($1.45 billion) in ransom payments were made in 2024 alone.
Security forces detained 12,538 offenders and killed about 10,937 of them.
Requests for information about the arrangement were repeatedly turned down by state representatives.
However, security sources told AFP that the agreement calls for the bandits, who have mostly recruited from ethnic Fulani herders, to stop attacking communities so that farmers can work their fields, especially in the violently devastated Birnin Gwari district.
In return, military actions against the bandits would stop, and local herders would be permitted to go to markets to buy products and sell their animals, activities that they had previously been prohibited owing to opposition from the community.
– Broken deals –
Negotiations with criminal groups have been a common strategy used by Nigerian authorities to end bloodshed. In 2009, the government offered armed militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta amnesty in return for giving up their weapons.
A comparable programme was implemented for remorseful terrorists in the northeastern region of the nation.
In the northwest, the states of Katsina and Zamfara have put in place cash-for-guns schemes for violent gangs. But these agreements fell through after a few months.
Already, there are problems with the Kaduna arrangement.
Residents in Birnin Gwari district claim that two separate attacks on the Dawakin Bassa hamlet last month violated the peace agreement by killing and kidnapping several people.
Northern Kaduna has remained mostly peaceful, and authorities described the attack as a rare event.
However, concerns have been raised that bandits may exacerbate long-standing ethnic and religious tensions due to a wave of attacks in the state’s Christian-majority south.
Effiong noted that there are worries that gangs or renegade bandits from nearby Niger and Katsina states, which are not included in the agreement, would attack Kaduna.
But last month, lawmakers in neighbouring Niger State accused bandits of using Kaduna as a haven and were responsible for attacks there.
– Terrorist infiltration –
Terrorist groups have moved from the northeast into central and northwest Nigeria, where they have established partnerships with bandit groups, contributing to the instability.
A security source claims that Ansaru, a Boko Haram terrorism group with ties to Al-Qaeda, is operating in central Kogi state, the Birnin Gwari forests, and the vicinity of Kaduna, where “they collaborate with bandits.”
According to Effiong, “Ansaru has strong financial support from terrorist groups in the wider Sahel and the Middle East,” and it might undermine the accord by pressuring supporting bandits to break it.
Furthermore, unlike the northeast’s terrorist amnesty programme, there is no clear disarmament policy.
“The bandits have largely kept their weapons; all the government wants is for them to stop attacks and maintain peace,” Effiong said. “It highlights the weakness of the state government’s position.”
