Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday condemned the attacks that left at least 140 people dead this week in Zamfara State, perpetrated by him by “mass murderers” who terrorize the populations of rural northwest Nigeria.
Northwest and central Nigeria have for several years been the scene of the activities of criminals known locally as “bandits”, who attack, loot and kidnap residents, stealing their livestock and burning their homes.
The head of state did not report any precise results, but a local official and several residents told AFP that at least 140 people had died in recent days.
Hundreds of armed men on motorcycles invaded ten villages in Anka and Bukkuyum districts between Wednesday and Thursday, shooting at residents, looting and burning buildings, the sources said.
“We buried a total of 143 people killed by the bandits in these attacks,” Balarabe Alhaji, head of one of the villages attacked, told AFP.
A resident of Kurfa Danya village, Babandi Hamidu, said the gunmen shot on “sight” at anyone they passed in their path.
“More than 140 people were buried in the ten villages and we are looking for other bodies because many people are missing,” Hamidu said.
Idi Musa, a resident of another village, said that “the death toll is enormous”, citing the figure of around “150 people killed by the bandits”. According to him, the criminals also stole “2000 head of cattle”.
Another resident, who only declined his first name, Babangida, spoke of the same record.
Both the chief and the three residents said they attended the funerals of the victims in their respective villages.
“Retaliation”
“The latest bandit attacks on innocent people are an act of desperation on the part of mass murderers,” President Buhari said in a statement on Saturday.
“Let me reassure these besieged communities and other Nigerians, this government will not abandon them to their fate, because we are more determined than ever to get rid of these outlaws,” he added.
On Wednesday, the government officially branded the “bandits” operating in Nigeria as “terrorists” in order to toughen sanctions against perpetrators, their informants and supporters.
In the official gazette, the activities of “Yan Bindiga” and “Yan Ta’adda” – terms meaning bandits in the local Hausa language – were classified as “acts of terrorism”.
“We have called them terrorists (…) we will treat them as such,” President Muhammadu Buhari said on Nigerian television this week.
The 79-year-old former army general is widely criticized for his failure to stem widespread insecurity in the country. In addition to the fight against banditry, the Nigerian army is deployed on multiple fronts, particularly in the northeast, which has been the victim of a jihadist insurgency for more than ten years, and in the southeast, agitated by separatist movements.
Since the end of 2020, criminal gangs have also started targeting schools, kidnapping more than 1,400 students and sparking international outrage. Most have since been released, but hundreds remain in the hands of their captors.
The Nigerian armed forces said this week that they have killed 537 “armed bandits and other criminal elements” and arrested 374 others in the northwest since May 2020, while 452 “abducted civilians have been rescued”.
Kabir Adamu, of Abuja-based security analyst Beacon Consulting Nigeria, said this week’s attacks could be a response to recent military operations to dislodge them from their strongholds in Zamfara state.
“Most of them (the bandits), in revenge, and perhaps because they risked certain death, have decided to move to other areas and it is in this context that they seem carry out these attacks, ”Adamu told AFP.
According to some residents, the raids could also be in retaliation for an attack by local self-defense militias of a convoy of bandits trying to flee the Nigerian army.