Nigeria’s kidnapping crisis: ‘Too scared to speak’

Many parents are horrified after their children were abducted from a Nigerian boarding school 10 days ago; They do not want to talk to authorities or journalists in case the kidnappers retaliate.

“If they hear you say anything about them, they will come for you before you know it. They will come to your house and take you into the forest,” one of them told the BBC. For his safety, the BBC is not identifying him and calling him Aliyu.

His young son is one of 300 students kidnapped when gunmen raided the grounds of St Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri village in Niger’s central state in the early hours of November 21.

Some of the kidnapped children are only five years old. About 250 people are reported still missing, but state officials say that number is exaggerated.

The incident is part of a recent wave of mass kidnappings in northern and central Nigeria; Some of these are blamed on criminal gangs known locally as “bandits” who view kidnapping for ransom as a quick and easy way to make money.

“Our village is far, we are close to the bandits,” said Aliyu, whose son is still among the missing.

“It’s a three-hour drive to their hideout. We know where they are but we can’t get there on our own, it’s too dangerous.”

He is helpless with anxiety; especially considering that vulnerable captives held in jungle hideouts had died during previous abductions, either from disease or because ransoms were not paid.

“I feel very upset and my wife hasn’t eaten for days… We are not happy at all. We need someone to help us take action.”

A few days before the Papyri kidnapping, 25 girls were abducted from their school in Maga, 200 km (125 miles) north of Kebbi province.

One of the students escaped, while the rest were rescued by security forces last week from what officials said was a “farm settlement.”

Bandits usually live in cattle camps deep in the bush. The gangs are largely made up of ethnic Fulani, traditionally nomadic herders.

No details were released regarding whether a ransom was paid to rescue the girls from Maga.

In fact, paying ransom is illegal in Nigeria. However, hostages can and do be killed if they are not paid.

Relatives tend to crowdfund or, in cases of mass school kidnappings, authorities are sometimes suspected of negotiating their release.

No group has said it was behind the two recent school kidnappings, but the government recently told the BBC it believed jihadists, not bandits, were responsible. Local people in Kebbi and Niger states are likely to be curious about more information on this subject.

Yusuf, who is the legal guardian of some Maga girls and whose name has also been changed to protect his identity, believes that such kidnappings could not have happened without informants in the community.

“All these abductions are not common in Kebbi. These abductions can only happen with the connivance of someone from the community because no outsider can come to a place and achieve such a thing without the help of the local people,” he told the BBC.

“They need help from someone who knows the terrain very well.”

However, there has been a surprising change of approach in some parts of the villages, which have been at the mercy of bandits for the last 10 years and have lost hope of getting help from security forces.

It has led some of these rural communities living in close proximity to kidnapping gangs and the woeful absence of effective policing to find their own solutions.

“Communities in the north-west that have been severely affected by these mass kidnappings have made so-called peace deals with these bandits in exchange for access to the mines,” David Nwaugwe, security analyst at security risk consultancy SBM Intelligence, told the BBC.

Many provinces in the north-west are rich in untapped mineral deposits, especially gold, which is a lucrative opportunity for bandit gangs.

According to Mr Nwaugwe, these agreements have been effective in some areas.

“What we’re seeing over time is that there seems to be some kind of decline in attack rates,” he said.

Katsina state, the northernmost state of Nigeria, is an example of this. It has long been used as a synonym for insecurity, particularly banditry and mass kidnappings. But last year, things began to change, thanks in part to various peace agreements reached between bandit leaders and community leaders.

Sitting on cushions in the shade of large trees, representatives from both sides hammer out their terms and conditions before finally reaching an agreement.

Bandit leaders were willing to negotiate, but they faced criticism for attending peace talks with AK47 guns and other weapons.

Jibia region was one of the first to embrace the peace negotiation process and reached an agreement in March this year.

Community leader and lawyer Ibrahim Sabiu, who represented Jibia in the peace talks, said life had become untenable after enduring insecurity for over 10 years.

“Our homes and livelihoods have been destroyed,” he told the BBC in September.

“Schools and hospitals were all closed. Hundreds of people were killed and hundreds were kidnapped for ransom.”

The main condition of the peace agreement was the reopening of schools. Additionally, the community demanded guarantees that they would not be attacked and that bandits would not enter the community with weapons.

Bandits in Cibia, on the other hand, demanded access to clean drinking water and safe passage for their cattle as they moved to new pastures.

They also demanded that their women be allowed to shop and trade in local markets.

The release of the kidnapped people was high on the agenda of both sides. The BBC does not know how many people were released in Jibia, but in Kurfi, another district of Katsina state, 37 villagers were released in late September, a month after the agreement was reached.

“We had to accept the peace offer because there was no end to the violence in sight,” Mr. Sabiu said.

“This is a crisis that the police should have dealt with, but the security forces stepped in and still couldn’t end it.”

Bandit leader Audu Abdullahi Ofisa, who took part in the Jibia talks, supported the move towards peace as follows: “Life is full of ups and downs, we are happy to move to a new phase.”

Rural communities are expected to gain from a return to peace, but what is less clear is why bandits enter peace processes, especially when gold mines are not part of the agreements.

Access to ransom money has traditionally made banditry a lucrative business, but in Kurfi it was the bandit leaders who demanded peace talks.

They live a relatively nomadic life, which makes access to clean drinking water difficult. This also increases food prices due to their inability to access markets.

Life had become expensive and uncomfortable.

“We are all tired of violence,” Nasiru Bosho, one of the bandit leaders involved in the Kurfi peace talks, told the BBC.

“We were all living together in the same community until the unfortunate violence started. We decided to live and let live. There will be no more harassment or kidnapping on either side.”

There is also a view that such communities have run dry and can no longer pay ransom.

While peace agreements such as those in Kurfi and Cibia in the north have provided temporary security gains, analysts say they have only shifted insecurity.

Some gangs may find it more beneficial to set their sights on areas further south.

“The further south you go, the better off people are economically,” Mr. Nwaugwe said.

“As these gangs move south, they are more likely to find places to attack. Parents in these schools can raise enough money to pay a ransom.

“In many parts of the Northwest, entire rural communities were evacuated. Everyone who could afford to leave the rural areas headed for major urban centers.”

Some have questioned whether the resurgence in attacks in the past few weeks is linked to Donald Trump’s recent threats of military intervention against Nigeria.

The US president criticized the Nigerian government for failing to adequately protect Christians from attacks by Islamist rebels.

A jihadist insurgency broke out in the country’s northeast in 2009, and the abduction of more than 200 girls from Chibok by Boko Haram militants 11 years ago was one of the first mass abductions.

The government and security analysts are at pains to point out that both Muslims and Christians are targets of mass kidnappings. For example, the BBC was told that the schoolgirls recently abducted from Maga were Muslim.

Christian Ani of the Institute for Security Studies told the BBC: “Nigeria’s security situation is very complex at the moment. We don’t know how to draw the line between violent extremist groups or bandits, because they operate in almost the same areas and fluidly.”

He does not believe there will be a resurgence of high-profile mass kidnappings of schoolchildren because of Trump’s comments.

“They may have ideological motivations, but they are more profit-oriented,” he said.

David Nwaugwe agrees that a causal link cannot be established between Trump’s comments and the recent surge in attacks.

“For now, I think they’re going after soft targets like schools because they’re easy to get money from. It’s too early to draw any other conclusions,” he said.

According to him, stopping the violence will require a two-pronged approach; combination of armed conflict and negotiation of amnesty agreements.

“It’s kind of like the stick and carrot approach – show that you can use overwhelming military force against them, then try to persuade the rest to surrender,” he said.

“I don’t think just using military force will work here, you need to complement it with other measures.”

But for Papiri’s parents, the possibility of living in peace with the enemy remains a distant dream as they pray for the safe return of their child.