‘₦20,000 To Transport AK-47, ₦5,000 For Ammunition In The North West

Murtala Rufa’i, a lecturer on the Usmanu Danfodiyo School, Sokoto, says in accordance with a 10-year analysis he carried out on banditry in Zamfara, individuals earn a dwelling from transporting arms.

In his report titled, ”I’m a Bandit’: A Decade of Analysis on Armed Banditry in Zamfara State’, Rufa’i mentioned evaluation have confirmed that there are over 60,000 weapons in circulation contained in the north-west.

He talked about weapons like anti-aircraft weapons, rocket propelled grenade tubes, major goal machine weapons, AK-47, AK-49, G3 magazines, amongst others, have been discovered all by way of fully fully totally different bandits’ camps contained in the state.

In response to Rufa’i, he carried out interviews with bandits and likewise visited some areas all by way of the state, along with that the gunmen generate earnings by the use of arms purchasing for and selling, whereas a major proportion of such funds are spent on medication, ladies, betting, telephones and fully totally different objects.

“Most arguments on the availability of weapons revolve all through the porous border thesis and the dearth of the safety to man the over 1,950 official borders,” the report, which was delivered at a seminar on September 9, reads .

“There’s absolute scarcity of manpower and officers have to be posted to worthwhile borders. The armed smugglers largely used these minor entries for the supply of arms into the nation.”

He talked about some officers at border posts are alleged to have facilitated the motion of arms into the nation.

In response to him, this may very well be a part of the rationale Muhammed Babandede, former comptroller-general of the
Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), issued an order in 2020 that additional officers be deployed to the borders.

“Thus, the broader assumption is that arms current in Zamfara is majorly from the Nigeria-Niger borders positioned spherical Zamfara, Sokoto and Katsina axis,” the report reads.

“It is a believable assumption as there are some border communities inside these states with substantial variety of particular particular person gunrunners, whose foremost place is to easily change arms all by way of the borders.

“A few of these illicit traffickers are well-known of their communities, whereas others hold unknown. Calamity may befall any neighborhood that expose these suppliers to safety firms.

“Because of the Nigerian safety operatives have complained of grossly insufficient personnel, along with proving incapable of defending the fogeys from the agricultural war-lords, the right problem is to look at ‘conspiracy of silence’ for peace to reign contained in the villages.

“There’s furthermore using ladies and youngsters as couriers of arms alongside the border. It is comparatively troublesome to get a lady arm courier, nonetheless when you might have any, they’re basically essentially the most secure and biggest methods of cross-border arms motion.

“Relying on the home and terrain, an AK47 rifle is transported proper right into a close-by village from the border on the worth of N20,000, whereas a bag containing 100 rounds of ammunition on the worth of N5,000.

“Thus, transporting the ammunition is far easier attributable to its dimension and may very well be divided into fully fully totally different parts, what the locals often called Geron Hajiya.”

He talked about among the many many gunmen have dislodged varied brokers who current arms, and have develop to be every importers or native transporters of arms.

Rufa’i quoted an informant who spent 5 years as a bandit spherical Dan-Sadau home, as saying: “I’ve wasted 5 years for nothing. Had it been I knew, I may have been a gunrunner earlier. There’s additional money, peace and delight to be contained in the arm supplying chain”.

By the years, gunmen have attacked communities in Zamfara, regardless of the state’s choice to grant amnesty to bandits.

Nonetheless, Bello Matawalle, governor of Zamfara, on Friday, launched that his administration will not be going to supply amnesty to bandits since they’ve “refused to embrace peace”.