By Gom Mirian, Abuja 

 
Rural banditry refers to armed violence driven principally by the criminal intent to steal and plunder. It is motivated by the quest for economic accumulation. The victims mostly are individuals and communities with material valuables.

The Examples of rural banditry in Nigeria ranges from Kidnapping, cattle rustling, armed robbery, kidnapping, and village raids.

This, in the recent  past, has been on the increase especially in the Northern part of Nigeria. This is a region with many security challenges, chief among them is the Boko-Haram insurgency. 

While in the North-Central region, Herdsmen militancy has become a key security concern, Northwest of the country, which used to be the bastion of security and stability has been badly hit by the rural banditry in recent times.

 

This has shown in cases where the criminal elements have resorted in kidnapping poor villagers, sometimes kidnapped indiscriminately, a departure from the targeted kidnapping of wealthy people. They struggle to pay ransoms quickly because of their relative poverty, and victims are much more likely to be killed.

Examples of these are the several cases of the Abduction of school students for ransom, raids on villages and abduction of members as well as village head(s) and more worrisome were the abduction of motorists and passengers on the highway, which practically rendered Abuja – Kaduna Expressway a death trap for travelers for some years. 

While in Niger State, which shares boundaries with the Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, farmers were asked by bandits to pay taxes to enable them access their farm lands. 

Many would wonder while these crimes and impunity thrive in a country where security presence seems to be deployed across the country, many blamed the crimes/insecurity on little deterrence, for others, some of these communities are located in remote areas where there is little or no government presence. More importantly, households are in some cases separated by and interspersed with forest areas. This renders them vulnerable to banditry.

According to a recent report by SB Morgen, a Nigerian consulting firm, using data gathered from a variety of open sources, including the council’s Nigeria security Tracker, indicates that, over time, the pool of potential victims has greatly expanded. 

The report also presents a valuable attempt to quantify the costs of kidnapping and to map its spread.
Between 2011 and 2020, it concludes that over $18 million had been paid in ransom. The amount of ransom accelerated in the latter portion of that period: between 2016 and 2020, around $11 million was paid out. It shows that kidnapping is really aiding bandits in carrying out their criminal activities in the country. 

To address this urgly menace, the immediate past Inspector General of Police, Mohamed Abubakar Adamu in April, 2019 announced the commencement of a new operation tagged “Operations Puff Adder’ to check banditry and kidnapping especially in kogi, Kastina, Niger and Zamfara states. 

This operation led to the training of over 4,000 special security squad whom were deployed to the aforementioned states and its environs to tackle violent crimes, especially banditry and kidnapping. 

The deployment of those special Force personnel has no doubt brought peace and normalcy to those areas while making the the states inhabitable by those criminals elements as the gallant police operative has so far arrested not fewer than 3,000 suspects for kidnapping, armed robbery while several caches arms and ammunition were recovered from the suspects. 
However, while maintaining normalcy in the northern region of the country, violence struck out in the Eastern part of the country, a region that has been known for its peaceful path became violence region. 

To maintain the tempo in ensuring that the remnant of bandits, kidnappers among other criminal elements terrorizing the peace of law abiding citizens are completely rooted out of the country, the present administration led by the inspector general of Police, IGP Usman Alkali Baba, on May 18, flagged off a special operational action tagged ‘operation restore peace’ in Enugu and Port Harcourt states for the stabilization of security order in the South – East and South – South geopolitical zones of the country.

 The IGP noted that the special operation has become necessary to engender all-inclusive security actions to roll-back the murderous attacks, violence, proliferation of weapons and other threats to law and order occasioned by the separatist agenda being heightened by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its armed wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN) in the South-East region.

He observed that activities of the group in the region have assumed an armed dimension in which important political and community leaders as well as personnel and assets of the Nigeria Police, Military and other security agencies, critical national infrastructure are being constantly targeted in clearly well-coordinated, premeditated manners. 

He further noted that the “Operation RP” would be replicated in other parts of the country, to address peculiar crimes including banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery, cultism, amongst others.In the aftermath of the launched operation scores of proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its armed wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN) fighters among other criminal elements were neutralized while several others were arrested in the region.