Shadow Actors behind Rural Banditry in Zamfara State
2018, Degel Journal
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Abstract
Zamfara state is the major hot spot of rural insecurity in North-Western Nigeria. It has until recently, been at the top of most newspapers on the issue of cattle rustling and rural banditry. Unlike other states in the region, where the bandits operated with less sophistication, in Zamfara it is an organized crime that involved wide range of factors and actors. This made the whole gamut of the conflict more complex, leading to destruction of lives and properties, wanton rape and other related human right abuses. The sinister implication of this was the creation of large army of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and sizeable number widow and widower in an ever increasing rate of desperate and destitute orphans. The preoccupation of this paper is to show the role of the major actors responsible for promoting and instigating rural banditry in the state. The paper does not in any way intend to study the different facets of rural banditry. It is only concerned with how some actors whom the paper considered as ‘shadow ‘served as generators and facilitators of rural insecurity in Zamfara state.
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