The Nation
Asabe Mathew, a middle-aged woman sat in a pensive mood in front of a classroom at the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp at Central Primary School, Sarkin Pawa, Munya Local Government Area, Niger State gazing intensely at something that only her own eyes could see. She was brooding over the horror she had passed through since the bandits that hold a significant part of Niger State to ransom abducted her daughter and son, forcing her to sell everything she owned to pay for their release.
“They have finished me, as I am now,” she said as her eyes glistened with tears. “I have sold all my farm produce and I have loans to pay because I had to borrow money to pay the ransom for my children abducted by bandits. Now I have absolutely nothing left.”
Recalling how her two children were kidnapped by bandits and how she had to raise money as ransom to redeem them, she said: “My son was kidnapped when he was returning from school, and we were asked to pay one million naira to rescue him. What can I do? I had to pay because if I didn’t, they would kill him. I sold my farm produce, added my salary to the proceeds and also obtain a loan to raise the sum demanded as ransom.
“My daughter was also kidnapped. But that happened before they kidnapped my son. We also had to pay a ransom to rescue her. Right now, I don’t have anything left. It has not been easy for us in Munya.”
But Asabe was not alone in her plight. Mohammed Isah currently has two of his sons in the den of the bandits while he currently stays at the IDP camp at the Central Primary School, Sarkin Pawa. His two sons were taken in a recent attack on his Dangunu community in Munya Local Government Area.
He said: “Yesterday, before I ran to this camp, two of my sons were taken on motorcycles when the thieves came to our village. They have not been released because we do not have money to pay for their release. What they asked for is in millions. Where will I get it from? I cannot go back to the village to take my farm produce and sell because that will be equal to dying.”
The Vice-Chairman of Munya Local Government Council, Hon. Luka Garba, is not left out of the ordeal. Two months ago, he lost his younger brother to the bandits. According to him, his younger brother was a member of the local vigilantes in Kachu village and was killed during an ambush.
Rising spate of insecurity in Munya LG
Munya is a local government area on the border between Niger and Kaduna states. Because it shares border with Kaduna State, many inhabitants of the local government area believe that most of the bandits come from Kaduna to carry out their attacks.
Banditry attacks in Munya Local Government Area began about six years ago and have literally turned the area into a terror zone everyone avoids like leprosy. The bandits make sporadic attacks in villages, maiming, killing and abducting people with reckless abandon.
The situation has crippled socio-economic activities in the local government as the farmers can no longer go to their farms for fear of being attacked. Traders who used to go to the local government area to buy farm produce are no longer turning up, causing revenue generation in the local government to reduce drastically.
On April 21, bandits invaded a military camp in Zazzaga community in the local government area barely two weeks after they attacked the military base in Allawa, Shiroro Local Government Area, killing five soldiers and a mobile policeman and burning down the base before they moved into the communities where they also killed seven people and abducted several others.
The majority of bandit attacks occurring in Munya Local Government Area go unreported because much of the focus is on Shiroro Local Government Area of the state probably because of the latter’s economic importance as the host of one of the country’s major power stations.
The attacks are usually carried out with the aid of motorcycles.
When the reporter visited Munya Local Government’s headquarters two days after the attack in the military camp in Zazzaga community, some women were seen running back from their farms. Asked what the matter was, they said some bandits had invaded their farms and they had to run for dear lives.
One of the women, who identified herself as Louis, said: “We were working on the farm when we saw them coming. We had no option but to run. We had harvested some of the crops, but we could not carry them because we had to run.”
Other Munya residents who spoke with the reporter said that is the way they live now because they can no longer farm in peace in an area where the majority of the people are farmers.
A youth leader, who asked not to be named for security reasons, said that the invaders move like breeze and usually carry out their attacks on new motorcycles.
He said: “They all ride on new motorcycles. That is why before you have the time to react to their invasion, they are by your side. They move like breeze.”
The Vice-Chairman of Munya Local Government Council, Hon. Luka Garba, said that the people in the communities are currently running away from their homes and they are either entering Sarkin Pawa, Gwada and Kuta or running to Minna, Niger State capital, for safety.
“At Kuchi two weeks ago, bandits killed three mobile policemen. They slaughtered one of them with a knife. That is why security has moved from Kuchi to Sarkin Pawa. Even yesterday, they killed one man called Jacob in Zazzagi, then they went to the military camp and burnt the army vehicles and properties,” Garba said.
‘Does government still care about us?’
One question that is constant on the lips of Munya Local Government residents is whether the government is unaware of what is happening to them or simply does not care since there has been no visible effort made by the government to safeguard their lives and properties.
Garba said whenever the chairman of the council takes their complaint to the government they pay deaf ears, adding that the council was overwhelmed with the spate of insecurity.
He asked: “What is the government waiting for? We don’t know what is happening. Does that mean that there is no government or what? As a local government, we are trying our best. As the vice-chairman, I sleep here with my people to know what they are facing. This is more than us. The governments at state and federal levels need to look into this issue.
“Another question we are asking is where are they getting the weapons they use from? Who is providing these guns for them? Is it that the government cannot retrieve these weapons and give them to the security people?”
Asabe Mathew noted that since the insecurity problems began in the council, the people had not felt the presence of government in any way, adding that the government seemed to have abandoned them to their fate.
She said: “Government should look into this security challenge for us. We are suffering and they are supposed to be there for us. Why can’t they help us? If the bandits kill us all, who will they govern? We are the ones who elected them, why are they treating us like this? Why have they abandoned us?
“People are no longer coming here to trade. Government is not helping us to solve this insecurity problem. Are we not human beings? Can’t the government do something to help us?”
Ransom payments have rendered us bankrupt, say residents
Many families in the Munya Local Government Area are currently bankrupt as they have had to sell their farm produce, lands and other forms of property and even obtain loans to pay the ransom for kidnapped loved ones.
Kidnapping incidents in the area have become so rampant that the people no longer ask when the next kidnapping will occur but whose family would be affected. It was learnt that the residents have now hit on the idea of contributing money for anyone whose family member is kidnapped.
The youth leader said: “If they kidnap anyone, we contribute money for those that are kidnapped to enable their families pay for their ransoms and secure the release. If I don’t do it, when it is my turn, no one will join hands to help me. I must help others so that when it is my turn, they will help me.
“You don’t usually hear about small amounts but large ones between one and five million naira. Just one family cannot pay it. A lot of people don’t have any farm produce anymore because they sold them to raise ransoms.”
Garba said that there were currently about 20 women with the bandits and they were asking for N20 million as ransom.
“Presently, we have about 20 women with the bandits and they are asking for N20 million for their release. We are trying our best to raise money for their release,” he said.
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