In Katsina, banditry has morphed into some ‘nobler’ goal.
But that change is at the expense of the communities who can only wonder how it progresses, and where it will end.
Bandits who majored in killing and raiding before have since turned to planting grains and tubers—though through land grab and levying of tax for inputs.
Farmers in Batsari and other places told the Daily Trust how they are now losing their farmlands to aggressive green revolution the bandits embark on inside the forest.
Every household in the Batsarin-Alhaji area had to pay N500 to the bandits from the last farming season.
Not that alone.
The bandits demanded that the villagers supply them with fertilisers—anyhow they are going to get the chemical.
Some of the landowners had to abandon the farms deep in the forest, and move closer to home.
Chairman of Batsari Local Development Association Sani Muslim Batsari told the newspaper he stopped cultivating his big farms in the bush in the last two years because of the bandits.
“Bandits have taken over many forests and cleared them for farming. Some of them can harvest 3,000 bags of grains,” he said.
“Some villagers confided in us that these bandits have hijacked their farms without paying a kobo to them.
Muhammed Auwal, at Nahua, said from the last farming season, farmers in his village were asked to pay tax to bandits to access their farms but that didn’t protect them from attacks by the bandits.
“This season, they asked our neighbouring village, Kasai, to contribute money and buy fertilizer for them which the villagers did.
Dahiru Usman Wada, from Kurawa community, said that bandits confiscated his two hectares farm, and planted it.
“They made ridges and planted crops,” he said.
“Their motive is to kidnap me if I went there, so I had to leave the farm to them.”
As harvest approaches, the villagers may find themselves having little to bring home while the bandits who took over their farms reap bountifully.