Enclaves of Banditry: Ungoverned Forest Spaces and Cattle Rustling in Northern Nigeria

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Parts of northern Nigeria are becoming enclaves of banditry for gangs of cattle rustlers who maraud largely ungoverned forests. Extant studies of banditry shy away from serious interrogation of cattle rustling and ungoverned forest spaces in northern Nigeria. Onwuzuruigbo investigates the connection between cattle rustling and ungoverned forest spaces, highlighting the role of criminal groups in creating their own governance structures. The upswing in cattle rustling may thus be attributed to poor forest governance, which effectively keeps the government and its agents away from forests. Inclusive forest governance is one path toward addressing cattle rustling in northern Nigeria.</jats:p>

Banditry in Nigeria’s Northwest: A Reflective Perspective

“…Notwithstanding the foregoing psychology, it has become crystal clear to most analytical minds that the activities of the bandits in the northwest region of Nigeria is systematically calculated, locations are carefully targeted, and sophisticated arms are employed in the execution of the planned cause of actions. According to Onwuzuruigbo (2020) Cattle rustlers are armed criminals operating in groups for the purpose of thieving cattle. To reinforce this opinion the series of carnage recorded as herdsmen/farmers clashes has left thousands dead and still counting without a conclusive boldness shown by the government to rest the losses of lives, farmlands, displacement of communities and the burning of their villages.…”

“…The menace of crime around the globe has raised the question of what truly underscore security as the number of incidences keeps rising daily. According to Ifeanyi Onwuzuruigbo (2020), Cattle rustling in the northern Nigeria, is carried out with a hybrid and complicated impetus by criminal elements marauding in a somewhat prevalent manner. To him, this is as a result of the government not being able to govern assertively or due to lack of interest to tackle the issue of ungoverned spaces which serve as breeding grounds for these miscreants.…”

‘Crimelordism’: Understanding a New Phenomenon in Armed Banditry in Nigeria

“…While many studies exist on aspects of armed banditry in Nigeria, including its nature, contexts, causes, consequences and implications (Okoli and Okpaleke, 2014; Okoli and Ugwu, 2019; Olaniyan and Yahaya, 2016; Onwuzuruigbo, 2020), little or no any organized research has yet been carried out on its organizational-cum-operational structure and characteristics as a pattern of organized criminality. More importantly, salient contours of its emerging socio-criminal dialectics, such as what is termed here as ‘crimelordism’, have been scarcely explored.…”

Spaces of Conflict and Conflict of Spaces: Territory and Communal Conflicts in Jos, North Central Nigeria

“…Literature on space and communal conflicts tends to agree that territory plays a critical role either in generating violence or in addressing the phenomenon (Moyo & Yeros, 2005; Onwuzuruigbo, 2020; Varshney, 2002; Weidmann, 2009). While emerging research tends to dismiss the geographic explanations to communal conflicts (Krause, 2017), group settlement pattern tends to stimulate land struggles and conflicts.…”

“…In Africa, several scholars have offered different explanations to communal conflicts and why they remain bloody and intractable. Most often, intellectual analysis of these conflicts attributes them to Africa’s greedy elites and their unrestrained lust for resources, culture clash, ethnic competitions, environmental scarcity and ungoverned forest spaces (Nasong’o, 2015; Onwuzuruigbo, 2020; Wai, 2012). Large chunks of these discourses on the conflicts have primarily focused on the value of land.…”