In a brave move, residents of Matusgi in Talata Mafara, Zamfara State who came together and stopped the incessant raid of their community by bandits and in the ensuing face-off, overpowered and killed about 37 of the criminals, security experts have said communities mobilizing to confront bandits and terrorists was a positive way to stem the tide of insecurity which has ravaged parts of the country and disrupted the peace of the affected areas.
The villagers in the Zamfara communities before the attack were informed of a possible invasion and they came out en masse armed with local weapons including fabricated guns and waited for the arrival of the bandits. According to a local identified as Abubakar Nura, unlike previous times when everybody toiled to take to heels for safety, this time, the bandits that invaded the Zamfara communities had unexpectedly received firepower by the locals from various angles, the situation which forced them to retreat. “The bandits, while struggling to escape into a nearby bush, returned the fire on the locals during which three people were killed.
Before the bandits retreated, there were already twenty-five corpses of them lying in the blood who had been fatally hit by the unresisting flying locally made ammunition fired by the ambushing locals in defence of the community.
However, while the security experts agreed that community resistance could help in securing the affected areas, they warned against sidelining the main security architecture of the country but advocated for synergy and the refusal of locals to work with the bandits.
The experts were however in agreement that communities and individuals should desist from working with the bandits either as informants or supplying them with weapons and other logistics. MD of Beacon Consulting Limited, Dr Kabir Adamu, however, warned that while this may sound like success, in the long run, it would not be a success, pointing out that the likelihood of reprisal attack was also extremely high, predicting that the bandits may regroup and stage a comeback.
He added that because the bandits have more weapons in their hands, they will most likely attack that community and the community will seek more weapons to protect themselves, therefore, the cycle will just continue like that, sadly. Former DSS Director, Mike Ejiofor opined that the killing of the bandits by the communities in Zamfara State was borne out of frustration and desperation. While calling on the people to continue to mobilize against bandits and terrorists as security cannot be left to the security agencies alone, Ejiofor cautioned against, jungle justice.
He urged the people to volunteer information to the security agencies, stating that they know the bandits who come to the market to buy things and go. Another security expert, Alhaji Zubairu Abubakar said that it is not business as usual stressing the community should collaborate with security agencies to stem the tide of insecurity in their domain. He noted that the residents should desist from being used as informants to the terrorists saying without insiders the terrorists can’t penetrate or operate successfully in any community.
