- Eye witnesses allege Nigerian soldiers collaborate with ‘Criminal Occupiers’
By Luka Binniyat and Mike Odeh
Buffeted by hunger, humiliation, and brutal beatings by soldiers and criminal gangs alike, members of the Adara tribe tell TruthNigeria they are surviving in a living hell.
No fewer than 30 Christian communities in Kachia county, 80 miles South of Kaduna metropolis, are trapped in a humiliating form of modern serfdom by armed terrorists, according to victims speaking exclusively to TruthNigeria.
The bandit gangs in Kachia extract biannual fees from residents cultivating their own plots in Kaduna’s rich forest-savannah, in parallel to the serfdom widely evident in Europe 1,000 years ago.
Temporary respite from humanitarian aid group
The kidnap-for-ransom gangs originating in Zamfara State began to raid approximately dozens of villages near Kachia town in 2000, local people said. In 2022, the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU) took relief material to thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Kachia county after most of the communities fled their homes to seek refuge in Kachia town, some 40 miles west of the areas displaced by armed bandits.
“We were in Kachia for almost one year with our wives, children and old ones, and no one came with any form of assistance until SOKAPU came in July 2022,” said Solomon Ali, 52, of Gidan Ali, Akwa ward, Kachia county who is also a youth leader in his village.
SOKAPU had in 2022 secured funds from Christians Solidarity International (CSI) to assist IDPs in seven counties of Southern Kaduna.
Starvation and unemployment forced some women to turn to prostitution, according to Ali. “What SOKAPU brought was not enough to feed us sustainably, and that led some of our youths and women into wayward lives just to bring food to the table,” he said in Hausa language, the common language spoken in Northern Nigeria.
We’d rather die in dignity at home
“The humiliation, hunger and hopelessness were too much, so we decided that it was better to return to our ancestral villages and die with dignity than perish in Kachia town like landless wanderers,” he told Truth Nigeria in Kachia, Thursday.
Most of the IDPs returned in October 2022, Ali said.
He gave their numbers as 7,5000 from about 30 Christian communities.
Signing a humiliating agreement
When they returned, armed bandits raided five communities and kidnapped 50 people, mostly women and children in December 2022, Ali said further.
“They said that if we were to report the incident to either the soldiers or police, that we should forget seeing the hostages, their representative spoke to us on phone,” he said.
“All they wanted is that we should allow them to pass through our villages without alerting the military. And that we must not resist when they come to pick anything that they want from us” he said.
Most of the communities are in rugged terrain and hours away from any military base, according to the locals.
The bandits also placed a tax of N100,000 (US$67 dollars) per every male adult before and after each farming season.
“They (villagers) had no option but to agree to the proposal of the terrorists who are Muslims of the Fulani tribe,” Ali said.
“Their kidnapped relations were then released without ransom payments, even though some of the women had been raped by the bandits,” he went on to say.
Soldiers’ brutality adds a new dimension
“I am limping today, not because I had an accident or that I was born like this,” Solomon Ali said in an unsteady voice.
According to him, he was arrested by soldiers in October 2023 in Kachia town after he bought a carton of sachet soda drinks which his wife sells in Gidan Ali, a village of about 80 homes bounded by hills.
He told TruthNigeria that the soldiers accused him of supplying refreshments to kidnappers.
Ali added that he was blind-folded and taken to a detention facility where he was tortured to extract confession.
“As a Christian, I said I would rather die than lie,” he said.
Ali said that he was kept in a horrible condition for a week and never thought he would make it back home alive.
“They eventually collected money from my family members, and collected my motor bikes, and allowed me to go, leaving me limping till today,” he said.
According to him, he didn’t know where to lodge a complaint but was glad that it would get into the press for the army to investigate.
Bandits attack after military ordeal
But Ali’s nightmare was far from over.
Ali, by village standards, was a wealthy man, whose prosperity has been greatly harmed by rampaging terrorists.
He owned a grain-grinding machine, a water pumping machine, a portable gasoline-powered chainsaw, and two motor bikes.
“On the night of 11, July 2024, three hooded men burst into my compound and forced the door of my bedroom open,” he said.
“Two were armed with rifles and one had a club. They demanded that I bring out the money that I kept in the house. They spoke both in Fulani and Hausa language which I understand,” he said.
According to him, they were doing their best not to raise the alarm. When he said that he had no money, the bandit with the club hit him on his head and hit him one more time, prompting him to shout for help before passing out.
He said that his wife, Mary, mother of his 7 children, was able to run out of the compound and shout for help.
“The bandits fled into the night, and I was rushed to Kachia, to Royal Hospital, where I got treatment,” he told TruthNigeria at a home where he was taking refuge in Kachia, Thursday.
Ali said that the police had taken his statement on the incident.
“I shall surely return to my village after I get better,” he said. “I am a leader, and many look up to me for strength,” he said.
Bandits not men of their words
“The terrorists are not men of their words,” said Amos Makeri, 43, who testified that he is a born-again Christian and an Anglican from Gidan Hassan village.
“For no reason, they would invade us, steal food stuff, rape our women and return to their camps across the hills,” he said.
“We see them in their numbers riding past our communities paired on their bikes with guns as they go for operations and cannot report their movement,” he said.
“And the soldiers that are supposed to protect us are not better than the bandits,” he said.
“They (soldiers) would come to a community, select some youths, beat them into a pulp and bundle them away in their trucks, saying they were conniving with the bandits,” alleged John Adamu, 37 from Unguwan Pa village.
He said that the communities had to raise the equivalent of hundreds of dollars to secure their bail from a military detention facility in Kachia.
He said that the military had not pursued the bandits even once.
Still in military Detention for months
Adamu gave the following names as some of their young adults held by soldiers although not charged in court since March 2024:
Joel Okala, 30; Hakuri Okala, 33 and Zonkwa Sani, 31. The rest are Solomon Mairiga, 31; Andrew James, 25 and Timothy Dodo, 23.
“We are poor farmers, and we have no one to assist us. The politicians we voted for don’t want to say anything about our situation, because they are afraid. We are pleading with all men and women of good will to our assistance,” he said.
Military mum over allegations
All attempts to get a response from the military were refused. The Spokesman of 1 division, Nigerian Army, Kaduna, Lt. Col Musa Yahaya, didn’t pick TruthNigeria calls and did not reply to inquiries sent to his phone via text messages.
Luka Binniyat and Mike Odeh James are Conflict Reporters for TruthNigeria