THIS WILL END BANDITRY IN NIGERIA

By Akin Ojumu

I stumbled on this interesting story today. It’s a news report of the extraordinary steps a community in Katsina State took to rescue their people from the hands of kidnappers who had invaded and terrorized the village and abducted a number of their people. 

Here’s how Google AI reported the story.

In a highly unusual event in late 2023 or early 2024, villagers and local vigilantes in the Babban Duhu community (also referred to as Sabun Binin, Babanlu village) in Katsina state reportedly kidnapped the family members of bandits in retaliation for the bandits abducting their own people. 

The incident unfolded as follows:

Initial Abduction: 

Bandits kidnapped several villagers and demanded a large ransom (reportedly ₦100 million per hostage).

Retaliation: 

The villagers, who reportedly recognized the attackers, decided to launch a counter-kidnapping operation, targeting the bandits’ parents and brothers.

Negotiation and Exchange: 

When the bandits called to negotiate, the villagers refused to discuss ransom until their own people were safely returned.

Resolution: 

The bandits backed down first and released the abducted villagers. In an unexpected twist, the bandits even gave each freed villager ₦30,000 for transport fare back home before the villagers released the bandits' relatives. 

This incident has been widely circulated on social media and local news platforms as an example of a community taking drastic measures to secure the release of their loved ones in the face of persistent banditry in the region.

What the people of Babban Duhu community have shown Nigerians is an innovative community approach with the potential to drastically curtail or even put an end to banditry in Nigeria. The unusual step they took to get their kidnapped people back from their abductors is a framework or strategy that can be adopted and replicated in many of the terrorized communities in Northern Nigeria and elsewhere in the country. 

Bandits and kidnappers are not aliens from outer space. Many of them are well known to the security agencies as well as the people of the community they terrorize. You don’t have to wait for the military forces of foreign nations to come and stop terrorism in Nigeria. Next time bandits invade a community and succeed in kidnapping people, those who live in the community should do as the Babban Duhu people did with or without strategic and tactical support from Nigerian security agencies.

Not only should they retaliate by taking hostage the kidnappers’ parents and brothers, but they should also add to hoard the grandparents, great-grandparents, wives, children, sisters, uncles, aunties, nephews, nieces, and anyone related to the kidnappers. 

Additionally, the affected community should put a huge ransom demand on every family member of the kidnappers they take. And the amount should be ten times the kidnappers’ ransom demand.

Do that and let’s see who will be the first to blink.