Women are increasingly involved in banditry-linked arms trafficking in Nigeria’s north-west. Between December 2022 and February 2023, police arrested several female gunrunners in Nigeria’s Zamfara State for allegedly supplying arms and ammunition to bandits.
Banditry – a composite crime that includes armed robbery, kidnapping, murder, rape and the illegal possession of firearms – is Nigeria’s most pressing security challenge.
Several news reports on illegal arms movements and sales in north-west Nigeria over the past three years involve women traffickers. In October 2021, a 30-year-old woman who specialised in supplying guns to bandits in Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Kaduna, Katsina and Niger states was arrested with 991 rounds of AK-47 ammunition. She was trafficking the contraband from Dabagi Village in Sokoto State to a notorious bandit kingpin responsible for terrorising Zamfara and neighbouring states.
In March 2022, Nigerian police arrested a 38-year-old female…