Over 50 killed in gang clashes in Nigeria

More than 50 people have been killed in clashes between criminal gangs and local vigilantes in northwestern Nigeria’s Zamfara state, residents told AFP on Saturday.

Zamfara is one of several states in northwestern and central Nigeria plagued by kidnapping-for-ransom and cattle-rustling gangs, locally known as bandits. The groups raid villages, kill and abduct residents, loot homes and set them on fire.

According to residents, vigilantes from Zoma village in Bukkuyum district ambushed the bandits on Thursday as they passed through the area after kidnapping several people from nearby Gummi district.

“We were alerted that the bandits were heading our way, so our vigilantes laid in wait for the bandits and engaged them in a fierce gunfight,” a traditional village chief told AFP, requesting anonymity for personal safety.

“Our vigilantes killed 44 of the bandits … we also lost nine vigilantes in the fight,” the chief said, adding that a notorious bandit commander, identified as Jijji, who had led the kidnapping, was also killed.

Residents have called on authorities to provide local vigilantes with firearms and ammunition to fight armed gangs.

News of attacks in remote areas is often slow to emerge due to poor telecommunications and long distances.

A Zamfara state police spokesman contacted by AFP said the force had yet to receive details about the clashes.

Two residents, Kabiru Tafida and Basiru Buhari, also confirmed the same account of the clashes and death toll to AFP.

“We call on the authorities to provide our vigilantes with guns and ammunition to fight these bandits who use sophisticated weapons,” Buhari said.

Banditry in Africa’s most populous country has its roots in conflicts between herders and farmers over access to limited land and water, exacerbated by climate change and population growth.

Powerful criminal gangs emerged from the violence, largely comprising Fulani herders, alongside a kidnapping economy. Some groups have also forged alliances with jihadists.

In neighbouring Katsina state, a bandit leader recently told AFP that “years of injustices” had driven him and other cattle herders into banditry.

He spoke during a rare interview conducted for an article in The New York Review of Books, co-authored by American academic and writer Helen Epstein and an AFP northern Nigeria reporter.

The Nigerian military routinely refers to bandits as “terrorists” and runs a dedicated military campaign in the northwest to combat them.

Worsening insecurity and the rising cost of living have become major issues in the ongoing presidential campaign, as President Bola Tinubu seeks a second term in January polls.