Security agencies in northern Nigeria’s largest city Kano are on high alert over an influx of criminal gangs fleeing military offensives elsewhere, according to a leaked report seen by AFP.
Northwest and central Nigeria have for years been terrorised by gangs of criminals, known as bandits, who raid and loot villages, kill and kidnap residents, and burn homes to the ground.
The gangs maintain camps in a huge forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states, and have become notorious for the mass kidnapping of school pupils.
An intelligence report sent from the Zamfara state governor’s office to Kano police authorities on Monday warned that bandits from Zamfara were turning Kano into “their safe haven”.
The document underlines the growing security threat posed by bandits as they move beyond their usual territory into the cosmopolitan city of around 4.5 million people.
Kano is far from the epicentre of the violence and the spread of banditry into the regional commercial hub appears to have worried the authorities.
The report was signed by Bashir Makama, an assistant superintendent of police attached to the State Intelligence Department (SID) in Zamfara state governor’s office, and shared among other security agencies in Kano.
It said the influx followed “the ongoing military onslaught against armed bandits and their collaborators in states such as Katsina, Sokoto and Zamfara”.
The Nigerian military has in recent weeks launched extensive operations against bandits in Zamfara and Sokoto to crack down on worsening deadly attacks by bandits on remote villages.
The military offensives have led to the killing of several kingpins including Halilu Sububu, considered the main bandit leader in northwestern Nigeria.
– Bandit real estate –
The document said informants working for the bandits have been moving to Kano and reportedly buying houses to use as an “escape route” for themselves as well as bandit leaders and their families.
It did not specify how many bandits had moved to the city but identified six neighbourhoods where they were buying houses and settling with their families.
The report urged police to look into estate agents and profile house buyers from Zamfara and Sokoto to identify the bandits.
“It is true we received this intel from Zamfara. We already know of bandits and terrorists’ infiltration in parts of Kano and we have been working to deal with the threat,” a security source in Kano told AFP.
“We have been working quietly to avoid creating panic in the city,” said the source.
“We have not been resting on our oars since 2009 when Boko Haram terrorists thronged Kano from Maiduguri.
“This intel from Zamfara is only a reminder for us not to be complacent,” a second security source said.
Both asked not to be identified as they were not authorised to speak on the issue.
Kano attracts people from all over the region and neighbouring countries. It paid a high price when Boko Haram jihadists relocated from Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria after a military crackdown on the group’s 2009 insurrection.
The jihadists began buying houses on the outskirts of the city, and between 2012 and 2014, Kano was rocked by targeted killings, suicide and explosives attacks on schools, mosques, churches, bars and security formations, which killed and injured hundreds of residents.
The attacks crippled trade in the commercial city, but residents fought back by giving information to security personnel about suspicious new residents from the northeast, Boko Haram’s birthplace.
The information was used to carry out security raids and arrests that ended the attacks.
