Kaduna may not be the commercial nerve centre of Northern region but being the defunct capital of the region before the creation of states by the Gowon military regime in 1967, the crocodile city still occupies a central position and had remained attractive to many notable personalities, groups and corporate organizations who have over the years enjoyed a flourishing business climate in the state.
At a point Kaduna was like a mini Manchester where textile and other agro allied industries held sway. It was a city that hardly sleeps because the textiles were working on shifts all through the days and nights. Together with the automobile assembly plant, furniture and beverage making industries, the oil refining and petrochemical plant which came up in the late 1970s and many other cottage industries within and outside the state capital, this sector complemented the government in providing employment to hundreds, thus making the local economy so viable and life was good to many families .
Although banditry is not a new event in Kaduna State, it was previously restricted to robbery and cattle rustling in rural communities in Birnin-Gwari, Chikun, Giwa and Igabi local government areas. Kaduna then was only witnessing a spillover of the crime in the Kamuku, Kuyanbana and Falgore, a large forest spanning Niger, Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Zamfara and Sokoto states.
On the Kaduna side of the forest, which envelopes Birnin-Gwari Local Government Area, the bandits were as far back as 15 years ago known for their trademark highway robbery and cattle rustling. They used to block the Buruku, Birnin-Gwari axis of the Kaduna-Lagos Road, rob travellers of their hard-earned possessions but rarely killed.
The group became more dreaded when they began mass rustling of cattle around 2001. Communities had to form vigilante groups against the robbers and cattle thieves. The measure did not however yield much result. Instead, it aggravated and toughened the bandits, as they became more audacious and even followed members of the vigilante groups to their communities to kill them in their numbers.
The climax of such attack was in 2013 when the bandits rounded up vigilante and other community members at the mosque and killed 33 during the dawn prayer in Dogon Dawa, Birnin-Gwari Local Government Area.
The bandits became untamed after the Dogon Dawa killings and the Kamuku Forest where they operated became dreaded and home only to the criminal gangs, who established link with their likes in Niger, Zamfara and Katsina ends of the forests. The alliance made it easy for them to strike in one state and hibernate in another.
Governor El-Rufai has consistently blamed the return of the bandits on the failure of lasting cooperation amongst the affected states, believing that the hitherto simultaneous security operations would have ended banditry in the region if sustained. But the famous Kaduna based Islamic Scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, who is well known for his peace mission to the bandits’ forests, holds a contrary view. To Gumi, the use of force created the current challenge in the first place.
Succeeding administrations however, were not able to sustain the tempo as many of these industries are either nonexistent currently, dysfunctional or grossly underutilized .This has in no small measure, affected the economy as many were thrown out of jobs which further compounded the socioeconomic problems of the local fledgling economy.
Souhir Mzali of the Oxford Business Group had said Kaduna’s performance in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index has been instrumental in attracting investors.
According to her, Since 2015 Kaduna has secured investments in excess of $180m. Singaporean agri-business firm Olam International has invested $150m in poultry facilities, while the African Industries Group is investing $600m to build a steel plant that is currently under construction. She explained that Kaduna has attracted many other small and domestic investments in the tens of millions of dollars.
Finally there should be reconcilation between the governments and the bandits, there’s no more effective solution than forceful inland and frontier policing. Such policing must deal with the region’s peculiar circumstances of diverse borderlines, forestlands and hinterlands. This requires a tactical synergy between grassroots vigilantes and the state security operatives.
By hauwa an intern at PR Nigeria kano state.
