Gunmen on motorbikes have carried out raids in the northwest of the country, where tensions over the scarcity of agricultural land have increased.
Armed assailants killed 30 people on Saturday June 3, attacking six villages in northwestern Nigeria, plagued by violence from criminal gangs, local police learned on Monday June 5. Arrived aboard a “twenty motorcycles”these armed men carried out raids in the district of Tangaza (in the State of Sokoto) killing “eight people in Raka, seven in Bilingawa, six in Jaba, four in Dabagi, three in Raka Dutse and two in Tsalewa”Sokoto police spokesman Ahmad Rufai said in a statement.
The scarcity of agricultural land, a source of tension
The motive for the attack is unclear, but in these rural areas of Nigeria, fierce competition over resources between herders and farmers is fueling the escalation of violence. In this area where agricultural land is increasingly scarce, conflicts have multiplied, and these communities have mobilized armed groups to ensure their protection. Some, locally called bandits, have gradually turned into a criminal group and attack, loot villages, kill their inhabitants or kidnap them against the payment of ransoms.
According to the police, the bandits carried out a targeted expedition against these villages after the beating of several herders in a nearby village by a vigilante group. But according to two inhabitants of the district, who assure that 36 people were killed during these attacks, it is not a question of community tensions, but of an attempt at racketeering by an armed group. “We buried 36 people yesterday (Sunday) who were killed by the bandits”Kasimu Musa, a resident of Raka Dutse, told AFP, confirming the assessment given by a resident of the neighboring village of Gandaba, Mansur Abdullahi.
The attackers “were furious at our refusal to negotiate with them and pay them money for our protection, as other villages have done”, “that’s why they attacked our villages”explained Mansur Musa.
Nigeria’s new president, Bola Tinubu, sworn in as head of Africa’s most populous country and the continent’s largest economy on Monday, faces multiple security challenges. He promised, during his inauguration speech, to fight against insecurity “his absolute priority”.