By Azu Ishiekwene

Zamfara State Governor, Dauda Lawal, is hardly in the news. Lawal has enough on his plate in a region struggling with banditry and insurgency, and in a state whose political heavyweights oppose him over political differences.

He has learned to mind the state’s business, hardly ever throwing stones except when attacked by Abuja politicians who live in glass houses.

It was, therefore, a surprise last week when he released a viral video that made headlines. Following the increase in banditry in the region, especially in Zamfara and neighbouring Katsina State, which left at least 17 dead in two weeks, the governor said that, left to him, he could end the scourge in two months.

The question is, how? “I swear to Almighty Allah,” Lawal said, “Wherever a bandit leader is in Zamfara, I know. And if he goes out, I know. With my mobile phone, I can show you where these bandits are today. But we cannot do anything beyond our powers.” If only he had the power to give direct orders, the governor said, he would end banditry in Zamfara in 60 days.

Complicated reality

The reality is a little more complicated. Depending on your source, an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people have been killed in banditry and insurgency-related fatalities in the North West alone in the last 10 years. This is on the scale of lives lost in the Kosovo War, or 40 percent of the toll in Sierra Leone’s 10-year civil war, even though non-state actors are waging banditry.

The numbers hardly reflect the suffering of thousands of children whose parents have been killed, homes without mothers or loved ones, individuals permanently injured or displaced, sources of livelihood destroyed, futures ruined, and a present lived in fear and uncertainty.

Lawal once told a story of how some bandits, whose plans were intercepted based on intelligence, managed to get away before he could get through the Byzantine chain of military command in Abuja. He is right to be frustrated by a system that reduces governors to figureheads in the face of severe security challenges, because we’re afraid that governors could abuse state police.

Sociology of banditry

Yet, it would take more than technology and decentralised policing to curtail the menace. That is what an August 2025 studyby the Danish Institute of International Studies suggests. The findings, which were just released, are worth considering.

The study by Peer Schouten and Barnett James, the former a senior researcher, and the latter, a PhD student at Oxford University, is entitled “Divided, They Rule?The Emerging Banditry Landscape in Northwest Nigeria.” It examines the sociology of banditry, its roots and evolution, and how it has displaced jihadists who were predominantly a Sahelian franchise in scale and impact.

The usual narrative frames bandits, jihadists, and religious extremists as “criminals and terrorists.” The study, however, takes a nuanced approach that offers an alternative view, distinguishing banditry from jihadism or other criminal franchises mainly based on ideology, geography and modes of operation.

It says, for example, that, “Unlike jihadist groups, bandit networks operate without ideological ambitions, but significantly influence rural governance, challenging state authority through both roving predation and stationary extortion.”

If it smells like banditry….

I often use theterms interchangeably. If they talk like bandits, strike like bandits, and leave behind a trail of sorrow, tears and blood, then, for me, they are bandits, jihadists, criminals and terrorists. The point of the study, however, is that without establishing motive and methodology, response and policy could miss the mark.

To speak Lawalese, the Zamfara State governor or any governor in Nigeria’s North West, who is interested in tackling insecurity, might need more than executive authority to succeed. They would need, in addition to state police (which I support fully), to understand the social psychology of the enemy they’re dealing with. Otherwise, we might be worse off in two times twenty months or whatever time Lawal might need.

This study shares how, through a pattern of “roving predation and stationary extortion,” bandits have, since 2011, created a system of governance “that echoes, in significant ways, precolonial patterns of rule and extraction in the region.”

Echoes of the Caliphate

In plain language, the study says that banditry, which has evolved over the last nearly 15 years, especially, is reproducing a distinct feature of the Caliphate system in Northern Nigeria, which, among other things, depended heavily on “raiding and tribute-taking” for its expansion and sustenance.

“Today’s banditry,” the study says, “reproduces these patterns, with modern motorcycles and mobile phones replacing the horses and single-shot muskets of the 19^th century. While the tools have changed, the underlying dynamics of rule and accumulation remain strikingly familiar to the affected rural communities.”

The research does not assume that the bandits are all Fulanis, as was the case mainly in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Or that they harbour the state-building aspiration or religious zeal of the jihadists of the time. It, however, observes recurrent patterns of authority and legitimacy in these regions similar to the Caliphate model.

Hydra-headed monster

Lawal agonised about missing a prime bandit target because of command bureaucracy. The military, on its part, has also targeted prominent bandit leaders, the most recent successes being Baleri Fakai and Halilu Buzu.

These were significant strides in the battle against banditry. This study, however, likens the bandit network to a hydra-headed monster. It’s a loose confederacy that adapts and replicates itself even after removing the current leader. They are designed to survive the loss of their leaders, whose elimination is sometimes unwelcome by the host community.

Why? Last year, when Halilu Sububu was killed, for example, one source told the researchers that, “It was an error to kill Buzu (Halilu). He started doing good things, telling bandits to stop harassing the Fulani. He had a positive influence in Zamfara, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi and Sokoto.”

In other words, in a strange mutational trajectory, bandits are transforming from “criminals and terrorists” to “carers,” filling the void of absentee governments. Call it the Stockholm Syndrome, if you like, but those who wondered why bandit-in-chief Kachalla Ado Aliero was crowned Sarkin Fulani in Zamfara in 2022 need not wonder anymore.

And those rightly outraged by the foolishness of making peace deals with bandits instead of bombing them to dust might wish to pause.As they say in South West Nigeria, when the leaf has wrapped the soap bar for too long, they become indistinguishable.

Quoting an instance in a pathetic case, the study says, “In 2024, kachallaNajaja’s men (bandits) punished Anka town (in Zamfara) for harbouring vigilantes by preventing its residents from harvesting millet, using starvation as a tool to force submission. Desperate villagers ultimately negotiated ‘peace’ by paying N50 million. One negotiator reflected, ‘Our local ruler forbade us to negotiate, but he could not offer us protection nor guarantee us food.’”

Loot big, die poor

What do the bandits do with the money? They store their “wealth,” mainly from tributes, ransom cash, and rustled cattle, in fungible forms, which they use to purchase more cattle, but especially to buy more arms, a significant status symbol. Like the slave-holding elite of precolonial Africa, the prestige of bandit leaders is sometimes measured in their retinue of fighters, abductees or dependents. They make no pretence to egalitarianism.The leader enjoys a chunk of the loot.

Yet, despite their legendary fame, a Kebbi hunter tells the researchers, “They have few worldly possessions” and die poor.

The study concludes that banditry happens in the absence of sustained commitment to rural development, the creation of economic opportunity, and institutional reform. It’s thought-worthy for any government interested in a long-term solution.

Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the book Writing for Media and Monetising It.

By Ike Abonyi

“ Support free speech. Condemn hate speech. That is not so hard at all.” ― Khayri R.R. Woulfe

The feeling of revulsion towards Igbos by some Yorubas, particularly in Lagos, is growing in bounds, and if those fueling it are not brought down, it can have far-reaching consequences.

Also to be brought down is the impression these bigots are trying to create that they, by their devious acts, are protecting Yoruba interests. It is not true, and also untrue is the image they are building up that Yorubas and Igbos are in some uncanny political competition. No one could claim more Yoruba than late Ayo Adebanjo, who led the Afenifere to support Peter Obi, the Labour Party Presidential candidate in 2023, standing strongly on three variables Yorubas associate with: justice, fairness, and competence. The kind of governance delivered to Nigerians in the last 27 months has virtually proved the late Afenifere leader right.

The brazenly open bias these Igbo haters are creating is already leading to poor decision-making, as they are overlooking important perspectives on issues. They are creating a toxic work environment in Lagos that is decreasing harmonious living among the two ethnic groups.

Ethnic bigotry can create divisions and tensions and hinder national progress and development. Experience has shown that prioritising ethnic interests while holding public office can lead to marginalisation of other groups, exacerbating feelings of exclusion and resentment, and if unchecked, can escalate into conflicts, posing a threat to national stability and security.

What the Igbos have done successfully in handling this needless stigmatisation is to quarantine these hawks into who they really are, power mongers ready to do anything untoward to hang on. They don’t merit being tagged Yoruba irredentist which is the picture they are deviously trying to create. Nobody should be surprised because their godfather is an apostle of grab and run, and they are possibly ready to crush anybody, since in their game, all rules to get to the goal are fair.  Those who easily fit into their vision are, by their antecedents and DNA, Igbo haters like the Chairman of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, whose reposting a message that referred to Igbos in a derogatory manner has sparked outrage and led to calls for her removal.

Abike Dabri has proven to be a square peg in a square hole for anything anti-Igbo. Her unceasing grudge against anything Igbo is becoming fundamental, and only she can explain why. This disposition is particularly fitting for her since this dispensation sees Ndigbo in such a bad light.

Recall that Mrs Dabiri-Erewa had drawn the anger of Igbos in diaspora over her delayed response to comments made by one Kingsley Ugiagbe, who had threatened to kill Nigerians of Igbo extraction in Austria, compared to the hate speech made by Amaka Sonnberger, who advocated for the poisoning of Yorubas and the people of Benin, in Canada. Again, in late April 2023, following the rescue of Nigerians trapped in Sudan at the outbreak of the Sudanese civil war, an Igbo group, Coalition of South East Youth Leaders, (COSEYL), demanded that the chairperson of Nigerians In Diaspora Commission be sacked and prosecuted for displaying wickedness and inhumanity against Igbo population who were among those trapped in the war-torn country.

The group, in a statement by its President Goodluck Ibem said it was “alarmed over the inhuman and wicked treatment meted out to Nigerians of Igbo origin by Dabiri-Erewa wherein she and her team ordered all the Igbos who had entered the rescue bus sent by the Federal government to Sudan to come down while conveying Nigerians who are not of Igbo origin.

For Abike Dabri, Igbos in diaspora are not Nigerians unless they score goals and win laurels in other areas. Once it’s negative, they are from the South East, and they must be properly labelled as Igbos. If the drug cartels recently smashed by the NDLEA in Lagos, involving all Yoruba boys were Igbos, Abike Dabiri would have screamed to high heaven identifying their family roots. If an Igbo traditional ruler was the one jailed in the US for corruption, Abike would have been on air talking about the embarrassment to Nigeria by the ethnic group. On Sunday August 3, 2025, Mrs Dabiri-Erewa, in an interview on Arise TV, said 20 of the 21 citizens on death row in Indonesia were from a State in South-East Nigeria.

Speaking on the interventions of her agency in the recent protests against Igbos in Ghana, Mrs Dabiri-Erewa responded: “The tribe you mention will ask if it’s because of us.

“You know what? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Out of 21 of them, 20 were from one state in the South-East. The other one is from Edo State.

With all these records Abike Dabri continues to keep her position and receives a salary from taxes paid largely by the people she so hates to see. It cannot be overemphasised that leaders at all levels, particularly those holding national positions, should endeavour to promote inclusive and respectful language, fostering a culture of empathy, understanding, and respect for human rights. Ethnic jingoist should not have a place in national positions because of the toxic effect of their bigotry.

The question is, where is all this hate coming from? And why is the hate getting aggravated even when they are holding power?

The growing hate of Ndigbo in Lagos by some Yorubas is concerning because the basis is unclear. Something is fundamentally wrong when you are proverbially holding the knife and the yam, with the final decision on how and where to cut it and you are still fighting the person holding nothing.

Ethnic bigotry by leaders in power remains condemnable because it prioritises ethnic groups’ interests over those of others, and often leads to exclusion, marginalisation, and conflict. This current Igbophobia group is being championed by Governor Babajide Sanwo-olu’s hirelings and Abike Dabiri. They are fueling ethnic tensions for their own selfish gains. For Abike, a journalist we couldn’t find where an Igbo contributed to her challenges to warrant such a bumptious life and hate of an ethnic group. Unless she is reserving her reason for the memoirs she hopes to title ’Why I hate Igbos’

In an ideal environment where decency runs government, Abike Dabiri should have resigned from her position after a recurring hate display against an ethnic group while wearing the garb of a national public officer.

But rather than get a reprimand she is getting a confidential promotion. The origin of all these is not unknown, recall that during the electioneering the wife of the then Presidential candidate of APC now the First Lady said publicly that,’ they’ will deal with the Igbos in Lagos if they don’t behave well electorally, few took it as a mere political talk, but given what has been going on with Igbos in Lagos since they grabbed the power and given the unprecedented weight of the First Lady in power corridor in this dispensation, nobody should be surprised at the harassment of Ndigbo in Lagos. Particularly if you trace Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s journey to Alausa and the First Lady’s huge impact.

The huge electoral embarrassment, the demystification of Jagaban’s electoral prowess in Lagos by Ndigbo votes in 2023 has helped significantly to fuel the anger against them. And added to that is the rampaging image of Peter Obi ahead of 2027.

But should that be, has Ndigbo not made more contributions and sacrifices than any ethnic group in the South in this dispensation?

From 1999 to 2027 will be 28 years of this uninterrupted democratic trajectory, and the Presidential power would have been in the South for 17 years, South West 12 years, South South five years, with the two zones taking eight years and three years respectively of the Vice Presidency, none to the South East.

Yet, politically and idiomatically speaking, Igbos are like the milipede that said that it did not cry when someone stepped on it, but the one who stepped on its foot did the crying. The main motive of all these provocations is to subdue and frustrate Ndigbo out of the polity and send them back to where they were when Obi’s candidacy dragged them out of their cocoon.

But what these Igbophobics need to know, drawing from another African saying still on the milipede, is that Igbos cannot be intimidated in this country because the dance of a milipede can not intimidate he who has seen the dance of a snake. At the risk of sounding arrogant, the sacrifice Ndigbo has made in this country in investment and others is second to none, and they cannot allow anybody, no matter the resources or political power at their disposal, to bully them. Anybody misreading Ndigbo civility to mean weakness should better expand the scope of their study to arrive at an empirical answer. This country belongs to all citizens irrespective of their ethnic or religious background.

The global history is awash with the effect of having hate speech leaders who use discriminatory and pejorative language to target specific groups based on characteristics such as race, religion, gender, or nationality. The goal of such speech is to promote hostility, incite violence, and normalise prejudice.

Historically, hate speech has been a precursor to violence and mass atrocities, including genocide. While the use of social media and digital platforms has amplified its reach, the weaponisation of public discourse for political gain is not a new phenomenon. Therefore, the likes of Abike Dabri and their motivators should do well to study carefully the effects of this ideology in India under Narendra Modi, Yogi Adityanath, Amit Shah, etc, all good purveyors of hate speeches. Hate is not human and to avoid it is to ask yourself before every speech – is it right, is it necessary, is it human!”  God help us.

By Steve Osuji

Though the comment elicited pure, undiluted outrage one dithered in commenting about it initially.

First, Igbo hating seems like a norm for Abike; a trait she cannot help. It seems to have lodge in her DNA like a shrapnel. A number of times,  in her unguarded moments, her true colours would peek from the horizon like the rising sun.

Second, some Yoruba elements have taken Igbo baiting, bashing and hating to a new level in the last decade.

Consider the line up: a paramount monarch of Lagos, the daughter of the sitting president, the current first lady in Aso Rock and the President’s chief spokesman, among others, all have publicly and brazenly made hate remarks against the Igbo people of the southeast of Nigeria.

For instance, the Oba of Lagos threatened to chase Ndigbo into the Lagos lagoon should they vote against his choice in a Lagos guber election! It can’t get worse than this…

ABIKE MUST RENDER APOLOGY OR RESIGN: But what brought on this article is Abike’s recalcitrance. Even though she brazenly committed a hate crime against Igbo and humanity, she remains impudent and remorseless.

But she has crossed the line this time. She must apologise – and profusely too. On the other hand, she must muster the honour to resign (or be forced to do so).

BACKGROUND: A few days ago, Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, who is incumbent Chairman and CEO of the Nigerians in  Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), a federal government agency, allowed her innate bigotry and Igbo hate to get the better of her once again (this is not the first time).

Some faceless X user friend of hers had tweeted about how he hated Igbo people whom he described as “monkeys and baboons”!

Abike had replied to the tweet with numerous ha, ha emojis, suggesting her joy and satisfaction over the slur some supposedly social media miscreant cast on the entire Igbo people.

Of course, the internet has been on fire since then. Many wondered whether it was really Abike Dabiri, or her clone. She was to respond with bluff and  bluster insisting she did  no wrong.

Her remorseless reaction and refusal to render a simple apology have pushed many Nigerians to write her off  and to conclude she’s truly the bigot she had been accused to be.

THE JOKE IS ON ABIKE: How could she find such  deep ethnic hate funny? How could she indeed laugh so heartily at such an actionable and  unwholesome turn of speech, and in public at that? She ought to be upbraiding his friend and making him apologise and take down the tweet.

But no, she encouraged it by being very gay about it.

Considering her age (a senior citizen) her elite education, high office, travels and exposure, the joke is truly on Abike.

Her esteem must have vastly diminished in the estimation of right-thinking people.

The joke is on her, for how would she face her Igbo friends, mates, in-laws, co-workers, going forward.

How would she explain to the numerous, indeed, millions of Igbo Diasporans she must deal with at every level? How can she convince them that she doesn’t see monkeys and baboons in them!

Abike was a star broadcaster, and a member of the House or Representatives; she holds the national honour of Member of the Order of the Nigerian (MON) and she’s been in public office for some long stretch!

Apart from the University of Lagos Mass Communication Department where our paths crossed in 1985 (40 years ago!), Abike has ivy league schools like Harvard attached to her CV (whether real or not), yet all of this couldn’t detox her dark, primordial tendencies.

Further, her role as chairman of NIDCOM places her at direct interface position with Diaspora Nigerians from all States and regions of the country.

If Abike had been humble; if she hadn’t taken a haughty stance, if she hadn’t exhibited much arrogance, what happened could well have passed for  a minor faux pas.

We could hold it to a passing error,  a momentary lapse in concentration or even a mental meltdown. But Abike has been adamant, not even feigning remorse.

WHY ABIKE MUST GO. If this was the UK, US or any such ordered places, Abike would have honourably resigned before the break of dawn the same day! The misdemeanor is that grievous.

But we are in a clime in which anything goes.

Also, she has no honour. She doesn’t understand the magnitude of her position. That’s why she would smear it with much odium.

Her situation seems to reinforced the need for psychiatric checks for Nigeria’s political appointees!

How could a public official view a quarter, if not a third of the citizens of her country as monkeys and baboons?

This is a country that has forever preached that her unity is sacrosanct and indivisible. Who wants to unite with monkeys and baboons?

But such talks have proved to be mere preachments.

Governments, especially the current administration, has no modicum of respect for unity and togetherness in a diverse country.

President Tinubu especially, obeys in the breach,  the federal character stipulations in the constitution.

Abike is actually playing the script of the Bola Tinubu administration which has been viciously discriminative against Igbo in particular and Nigerians (other than Yoruba), generally.

IF ABIKE WAS IGBO, she would have been fired immediately. Or at least publicly reprimanded. But her bad behaviour has been condoned with official silence and immediately swept under the carpet.

BOTTOM LINE: Abike’s official position has become untenable!

EXPRESSO thinks Abike must go. That’s the honourable and right thing to do.

#ABIKEMUSTRESIGN

Osuji was editor at The Guardian, THISDAY, etc.

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