By Steven Kefas
KAJURU, Nigeria — When a group of more than 50 heavily armed bandits stormed into the remote farming village of Gefe in the early morning hours of January 3rd, killing no fewer than 8 residents, including 2 local civilian guards, and kidnapping 50 others, the attack seemed like just the latest tragic chapter in Nigeria’s long battle with violent extremist groups. https://punchng.com/just-in-gov-confirms-bandits-attack-on-three-kaduna-communities/
But what happened next signaled a potential breakthrough. Rather than retreating into their ethnic and religious silos, the area’s predominantly Christian farmers joined forces with their Hausa Muslim neighbors and Fulani herders to fight back. Some members of the communities spoke to TruthNigeria exclusively.
“We decided enough is enough,” said Yakubu Bala, a local ricefarmer and vigilante member made up of villagers from Gefe. “The bandits think we are weak because they can divide us along religious lines. But now we have forged an alliance with our Hausa and Fulani brothers against these killers.”
Managed Chaos
Africa’s largest country by population, Nigeria has long struggled to curb sectarian and gang violence within its borders. Kajuru—a remote, semi-arid local government area in the northern state of Kaduna—has been especially hard hit. Since 2015, extremist militias, some purporting to be Fulani herdsmen seeking grazing land for their cattle, have terrorized the ethnically and religiously diverse region.
In brutal raids aimed at Christian farmers they accuse of taking their grazing land, these heavily-armed groups, which include mercenaries from nations in the Sahel, have killed more than 700 people and displaced tens of thousands more across Kajuru local government in 5 years ( 2015-2020) according to local officials.https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/05/adara-people-in-kaduna-count-losses-from-kajuru-crisis/
With farming and herding communities often living side by side, the Kajuru area has literally become a frontline in the battle between extremist militias and government forces trying to contain them.
“It’s managed chaos here,” says Sgt. Nuhu Bappa, a soldier stationed at a small Nigerian army outpost just outside Kasuwan Magani, a large town in Kajuru. “The bandits strike quickly then disappear back into hills and forests.”
When the January 3rd attack came just after dawn, he says, the fighters struck with military precision—capturing and executing 8 male villagers in minutes, while kidnapping others including women and children to hold for ransom.
“They specifically targeted young males and their father figures,” Sgt. Bappa says. “It seems they wanted to deliver a message to intimidate the rest of the villagers against resisting them.”
An Unlikely Alliance Forms
But if that was their aim, it seems to have backfired. Incensed over losing friends and loved ones from their close-knit farming hamlet, Gefe’s residents immediately reached out to their Muslim neighbors from the more predominantly Hausa nearby village of Sako.
After a long meeting over tea, these unlikely allies, joined by local Fulani tribal leaders, forged a pact to fight back against the bandits and protect each other going forward. Men from the area were deputized into joint patrol units, armed with pipe guns, machetes, bows and arrows.
“We decided for now on to trust the good nature of each other,” said Aliyu Ibrahim, an elder from Sako. “These killers come into our home as strangers with guns, speaking languages not our own. But we who live on this land share ties deeper than they can imagine.”
The newly unified local security forces set out in pursuit of the kidnappers soon after they left the ransacked village just after dawn. After tracking them over hilly brushland for nearly 4 miles, a firefight ensued. Though 2 members of the local civilian guard were killed, they succeeded in freeing 20 of the 50 kidnapped villagers, local authorities confirmed.
Unity Over Division
Heartened by this rare instance of communal cooperation against extremist violence, some leaders hope this alliance signals a turning point for the long troubled region.
“When communities stand united, there is power there that guns cannot conquer,” says Rev. Matthew Abu, a pastor who has helped provide relief to displaced victims of past raids. “What divides us only makes us weaker before these killers.”
In recent months, some Christian leaders have accused the area’s Muslim communities, particularly Fulanis, of harboring or actively aiding the bandits carrying out attacks against farming villages. This has aggravated historic tensions stemming from religious differences and resource conflicts between largely Christian farmers and predominantly Muslim Fulani herders.
But Fulani leaders here say they are equally subject to threats from the extremist militias, and hope this show of solidarity opens a more peaceful chapter of coexistence going forward.
“We have suffered their attacks just the same,” says Sani Umar, a member of the local Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, an umbrella Fulani sociocultural group. “Our cattlehave been rustled, our people kidnapped and killed also. So why would we not join with our brother villagers—who we have lived and worked alongside for many years—to stand against these killers?”
Seeking Solutions Beyond Security Crackdowns
With violence by armed militias and gangs escalating across many areas of northwest and north-central Nigeria known as the Middle Belt in recent years, the federal government has come under increasing pressure to curb the lawlessness. But reliance mainly on increased security crackdowns and military intervention has so far yielded little progress. With extremist attacks and ethnic clashes continuing to claim hundreds of lives in Nigeria in the early months of 2024 alone, policy makers concede that solely military solutions remain inadequate.
“We cannot offer sustainable peace through the barrel of a gun, when roots of these troubles lie in underlying grievances between and among communities,” says Abubakar Saleh, a member of a local NGO that mediates between herder and farmer groups in Nigeria “An integrated response addressing security, development, humanitarian needs and local reconciliation is required.”
While applauding cooperation shown recently in Kajuru, preventing future violence requires tackling drivers like poverty, illiteracy, extremism, and climate pressures that enable extremism to thrive in neglected regions like this.
“Until these remote borderland communities are given credible paths out of poverty and young people gain access to education and jobs, groups pedaling extremist ideologies will continue exploiting grievances and gaps in governance,” he warns.
Cautious Hope
In Kajuru, glimmers of hope emerge from tragedy. Though still mourning loved ones lost, inhabitants express cautious optimism that new bonds formed in the wake of recent violence may chart a more peaceful course ahead.
“Before now, fear and suspicion created invisible barriers between Hausas,Fulani and Christians here,” says Rhoda Nuhu, a Gefe villager. “But those walls are coming down because people see cooperation now as central to survival.”
At Sunday church services in recent weeks, Reverend Abu has been preaching messages of loving one’s neighbor and turning the other cheek—a departure from previous sermons laced with anger toward perpetrators of violence.
“Through this trauma, I believe God is speaking to us, telling us to come together as people of one community,” he says.
What happens in this community and others in the coming weeks and months may test whether spiral of revenge violence and extremism devastating communities across Nigeria’s volatile North can be overcome.
“The worst seems to bring out the best in people sometimes,” Philip Onomso, a local teacher says, managing a weary smile as he stares at the grave side where his friend killed during the January 3rd attacks was buried.
“When hatred arrives on your doorstep, maybe loving your neighbor is no longer just an ideal. It becomes the only way.” He said.
—Steven Kefas is a veteran conflict reporter in the Middle Belt reporting for TruthNigeria.
