The Nature Of Forest Banditry, Solution, By A Victim

“The solution to banditry is not in the rescue. It is in the prevention. If armed bandits know that communities will repel them, they will stop.”

These were the words of Dr. Majeed Dahiru, a victim of both none bandits and bandits that kidnap people to move them to the forests. Dahiru, a media analyst and author was speaking on Nigeria Info Radio Daily Review programme on June 8, 2026 narrating the modus operandi of the bandit kidnappers.

He said banditry is a cultural problem involving bandits, who are skilled people in the enterprise of kidnapping. They come out from the forest, go to the nearest community and forcefully kidnap people. They steal a phone, take the people into the forest and begin to make calls for ransom. As they make calls, they keep moving. They don’t have phones. They either use the stolen one or the phones of victims. When they use one phone, they discard it.

They can walk for 48 hours and even for days, without getting in touch with anybody. “They have the skill of moving in the forest in a place where it is difficult to catch up with them. When you delay and you don’t pay the money, they move again. ”These guys are not hiding what they are doing. They are kingpins and Lords of the forests.”

“These guys can walk for days without even fatigue. Most people they kidnap may not even be able to walk for one kilometer without gasping for breath.” If they use bikes for mass adoption and the bike stops on the way, they continue trekking. If you get tired as a victim, that’s your business.

“I am telling you what I have been through before. If you know the trauma of bandits kidnap, you will not even wish it for your enemy, said Dahiru.

Comparing kidnap inside a city with that of bandits that take people to the forest, he said in other kidnap cases, when they kidnap, they keep the person in a house and if police is motivated, there is no hiding place for the kidnappers. “I have been a victim of both,” he said.

Dahiru said the introduction of state police may not be able to resolve this challenge of bandits that take people to forests. “We need a counter-insurgency army led by the people themselves to stop this menace.” “The easiest way to track these guys is to deploy hunters in your communities, apart from deploying technology. It is the hunters you can use to see if you can move closely to the forests,” he said.

He said a country can deploy drones and helicopters into the forests but that country must have constructed roads into that forest. He described banditry kidnapping as a combination of banditry and terrorism.

However, speaking on a Sunrise Channels TV programme today, June 9, 2026, a former naval officer and Commander of National Maritime Guard, Cmdre Promise Dappa, said there are drone technologies that can cover over 1,000 kilometres view. He emphasized the importance of modern surveillance facilities, lack of which has made it possible for assailants to even travel several kilometers to military bases and overrun them, a situation he described as embarrassing.

“Most state governments don’t even have something as simple as trackers,” he said, berating state governors for neglecting this critical security element because it may not involve physical and noisy commissioning and ceremonies for political gains.

He condemned the neglect of ECOWAS Counter Terrorism Document provision mandating states to install Closed Circuit Television Cameras (CCTVs) across cities in every state.

“”There is a lack of battle space transparency. When this is lacking in security, you will struggle,” said Dappa.

As earlier observed by www.chiedualbinus.com, one notable challenge when the incident occurs is that when kidnappers raid a community, response from security agencies has been slow, sometimes because of the distance from location of security personnel. In many cases, they have arrived after the exit of the criminals. Government should immediately create first responders to such raids of community by kidnappers and bandits.

In every community, a first responder task force, consisting of Nigeria Security & Civil Defence Corps (NSCD) personnel, local vigilante, hunters, the likes of Amotekun (in states where they are available) and indigenous retired active military and police officers. The retired military and police officers will be armed and one of them will lead the task force training, so that when such bandits raids occur, there would be a return of fire power before the police and the military arrives.