Forest Governance and Rural Banditry in Nigeria’s Northwest Region Interrogating the Implication for National Security

Abstract

 Since the past few years, rural armed banditry in the North-western Nigeria has come to take the centre stage in the theatre of the country’s national security discourse. The reason is not far-fetched as the upsurge in armed banditry and kidnapping in the rural communities and villages within the region has become a common phenomenon. On a daily basis people are brutally murdered or kidnapped for ransom, and farmlands and homes destroyed. Besides, the humanitarian challenge has been astronomically devastating as many of the residents have been made homeless, women widowed and many of the children orphaned, to the extent that many residents of the affected communities or villages now take refuge in neighbouring Niger republic; thus, constituting a national security threat. With the use of content analysis of secondary data, from national and international assessment reports, individual studies, other security briefs from relevant government agencies and media reports, the study found that majority of these attacks and kidnappings are planned and launched from forests within the affected communities. It also discovered that most of the affected communities and the areas that have witnessed these attacks lack security presence. Thus, making it easy for the bandits to operate without being intercepted by security forces. The study argues that the high incidences of armed banditry in the region is connected to the near absence of effective governance structures in the rural areas. The study therefore recommends amongst others the presence of governance and effective security structures in the rural communities and the forested areas, and enhanced military and other security agencies capacities to flush-out the bandits and criminal gangs from the forests.