Armed Banditry: Is Gov Radda’s Strategy Yielding Results? 

It has been 21 months since Governor Dikko Umar Radda assumed office as governor of Katsina State, with a promise to tackle armed banditry and kidnapping that have crippled agriculture, commerce, social cohabitation and free movement in eighteen local government areas of the state, namely Faskari, Sabuwa, Dandume, Funtua, Kafur, Malumfashi, Kankara and Bakori. 

Others were, Musawa, Matazu, Danmusa, Dutsinma, Kurfi, Batagarawa, Safana, Batsari and Jibia. Tackling the menace in this large geographical area was definitely not going to be an easy task due to the complexity of the situation and the actors involved across national and international borders. 

The crisis was largely fuelled by arms smugglers and drug dealers that operate along the Nigeria-Niger Republic border on one hand, and armed bandits, kidnappers and other dangerous groups that reside in the Rugu Forest, as well as the Zamfara and Birnin Gwari forests which link six states in the Northwest and North-central zones, namely Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna, Niger, Sokoto and Kebbi states. 

When Governor Radda came on board, the crisis had already lingered for seven years, displacing hundreds of communities, thereby creating more unoccupied territories within the forests. This gave the bandits more space to operate despite the presence of military camps and checkpoints within the crisis area. 

Radda, who made security his first, second and third priorities, campaigned on the promise to clear the forests of bandits, resettle displaced communities and restore normalcy in their lives by providing them fresh opportunities in agriculture and commerce. 

Few months into office, he launched the Katsina State Community Watch Corps (CWC) with five hundred young men trained in the art of combat, surveillance and information gathering, and equipped them with motorcycles, Hilux vehicles, guns and surveillance equipment. They were tasked to assist security agencies to curb armed banditry and kidnapping in their communities. 

Meanwhile, the CWC officers were selected from their respective communities, as each ward in the affected local government areas contributed a number of men to be trained and enrolled in the corps. The corps was launched with a first set of 1,500 men in July 2023, while another set of 550 men was recruited, trained and enrolled in November, 2024. 

However, while some have challenged the constitutionality of the Katsina State Community Watch Corps, the state government has maintained that the corps is backed by law and has, since its establishment, liberated dozens of communities from the grip of bandits, aborted many kidnap attempts and rescued abducted persons from the custody of bandits. 

A survey of Charanchi, Kankia and Rimi local government areas revealed that the pockets of kidnapping that were becoming the norm in some communities in those areas is now unheard of, as the CWC members, in collaboration with local vigilante and security agencies, have, to a great extent, flushed bandits and kidnappers from the area. 

Moreover, communities at the outskirts of Batagarawa, Kurfi, Kafur and Funtua which were victims of invading bandits in the last two and a half years, no longer have cases of banditry and abductions. Judging from the progress so far made, the state government has now officially declared these council areas safe from banditry attacks despite their proximity to frontline local government areas. 

As regards Bakori, Malumfashi, Kankara, and Dutsinma, the menace has been observed to have reduced to a great extent, particularly in Bakori where the local council chairman disclosed that banditry has reduced by up to eighty percent. In a recent chat with newsmen, the council chairman, Ali Maman Mai-chitta, disclosed that Bakori is now relatively safe. 

“In the past, we used to witness banditry attacks every single day, but we thank God, now it has been 46 days without any case of banditry attack on any community in this local government area. Our highways are relatively safe, our communities are also relatively safe compared to recent years and months when bandits attacked us everyday and sometimes even blocked the highways and abducted people. 

In Danmusa Local Government Area, the chairman, Alhaji Sunusi Dangi Abbas, noted that insecurity is gradually becoming a thing of the past, as members of the communities now sleep with their two eyes closed, compared to the past years when Danmusa was at the center of banditry attacks. 

“In the recent past, daily banditry attacks were the norm in our communities; no day goes by without reports of banditry attacks in villages and even here in Danmusa Town, we have recorded so many improvements in the combat against banditry and kidnapping. In the recent past, bandits come into this town on bikes, attack people’s houses and abduct them. 

“Danmusa is at the center of the Rugu Forest, the forest is very large, thereby making our people vulnerable to attacks every now and then, but thank God the community watch corps has done a very good job of reducing banditry to the barest minimum in Danmusa, ‘Yantumaki, Dan- Ali, and even in villages that are deep into the forest,” he said. 

Kankara Local Government Area was at a time the most notorious in terms of daily abductions and raids on villages, particularly in western Kankara where its forests intersect with Danmusa, Faskari and Sabuwa. Today the narrative is changing with fewer attacks and many displaced communities now back to their villages. 

The local council chairman, Anas Isa Kankara, said with the intervention of the Katsina State Community Watch Corps, informants had been severely dealt with by cutting off communication between them and bandits, noting that banditry had been blamed on the activities of informants that reside in villages and towns that are at the center of the crisis. 

“One area which I will commend the community watch corps is in tackling informants whose activities have sustained banditry to this level, they provide the bandits with the information they need to carry out attacks and pinpoint targets for the bandits to come and kidnap. 

“Now with the way the community watch corps officers are dealing with informants and their collaborators in the forest, Kankara Local Government Area is now relatively peaceful and safe; farmers have gone back to their farms and commercial activities have picked up even though there are still pockets of attacks in some distant villages within the forest,” he said. 

In Batsari Local Government Area, the first evidence of the return of peace and normalcy is a safe road trip from Katsina to Batsari. In the recent past, this road was a no-go area for travelers, farmers and even residents of villages and towns in the local government area. 

Many communities that were along the road such as Barawa, Kurmiyal and Kan-dawa were attacked once or several times by bandits and members of the communities displaced. They were taking refuge in major towns such as Katsina, Batagarawa and Batsari. Now these communities are back in their villages, farming and engaging in their normal day-to-day activities. 

Other major towns and villages such as Batsari, Wagini and Baure are also inhabited, with residents engaging in farming as well as business and social activities. Between 2020 and 2022, these villages were deserted, with some of them taken over by the bandits who lived in their houses and cultivated their farmlands. 

With the sustained onslaught by members of the community watch corps as well as the police, army, air force, members of the vigilante corps and operatives of the Department of State Services, now kidnappers, armed bandits, gun runners and other criminals in the Rugu Forest are finding it more difficult to operate as they used to do in the recent past.