Who are the Lakurawas?

Already overburdened by the war against terrorists on several fronts, Nigeria is again being confronted with the emergence of another deadly armed terrorist group, Lakurawa, who  is said to have actually been around for a number of years, contrary to the assertion that they are a new organisation, or have just arrived in Nigeria. While the nation’s Armed Forces have their hands full battling the Boko Haram terrorists in the North East, unknown gunmen in the South East, insurgency in the North Central, now Lakurawa has taken position in the North West of Nigeria, particularly Sooto and Kebbi State. Former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Dr Olisa Agbakoba, SAN once told THISDAY LAWYER in an exclusive interview that ‘Nigeria is in a low-grade war’, and with these various attacks on the different Nigerian fronts, this assertion appears to be true. Major Ben Aburime (Rtd) gives an insight into the coming of the Lakurawas to Nigeria, as well as dissecting the matters arising in the war against terrorists in Nigeria, proffering solutions on how the war can be won

Nigeria’s Unending War Against Insurgency and the Emergence of the Lakurawa Group: Implications for Security Forces and Way Forward

Major Ben Aburime (Rtd)

Introduction

It is common knowledge that Nigeria has been grappling with security challenges of different dimensions, in nearly every geo-political zone of its entire landscape. From the Boko Haram insurgents and Jihadists in the North Eastern parts of Borno and Adamawa States, to the armed Bandits in the North West areas of Sokoto, Katsina and Kebbi, to the Armed Fulani Herdsmen running riots in the Kaduna, Plateau and Benue areas of the country, to the volatile Niger Delta areas where cultism, militancy and agitation for resource control, to the activities of the Unknown Gunmen (UGM) and the agitations for self-determination in the South East, the separatist agitations, kidnappings, ritual murders, alleged political assassinations and booming organ-harvesting especially in the Ogun and Oyo States of the South West, to the now common denomination of the lucrative industry of kidnapping for ransom nationwide, every region has an unenviable desire to outdo and outshine the other regions in terms of sheer audacity, brutality and horror. Such is the sad commentary of the stark reality of the pitiable story, that has become the lot of a once glorious and prosperous country that was the pride of every Blackman all over the world.

The alleged emergence of organ harvesting by both some private citizens and some security forces in their establishments, adds an odious coloration to the spectacle of insecurity. As if not to be outdone by these ungodly activities, the political class through reckless, ostentatious and extravagant living, completes the marginalisation and nightmare of the common man. That is not to forget the unenviable new name that an ostensibly compromised Judiciary has earned for itself, from being called the Last Hope of the common man, to the LOST Hope of the common man. It has become a common joke, to hear Nigerians taunting their victims to go to court. Recently, this writer saw a car sticker that read: If you Hire a Lawyer, I’ll Buy a Judge. A comedian was asked what he’ll eat and said rice; his crew asked what they’ll eat, they said rice and beans. Asked what the Judge in their skit will eat, someone said Bribe, with a little sprinkle or spice of Corruption. This is what the Judiciary has regrettably reduced itself to, and Professor Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, a Law Teacher and Rights Activist, couldn’t agree less by his bold articles.

It is against this background, that a bewildered nation heard from no less an authority than a serving General from the Defence Head-Quarters (DHQ), that a new terror group, the Lakurawa, has emerged in the Sokoto and Kebbi axis of Nigeria. Whether this is true or not that there is a new terror group in Nigeria, there will definitely be implications for the security operatives and the war against terrorism and insecurity. It is for this reason, that this work has become imperative. To do justice to the question of the alleged new group, one has to first demystify them, the said group.

Lakurawa: Origin and Operations

The military has alleged the Lakurawa is a new insurgent or terror group, that has just emerged in parts of Sokoto and Kebbi States. If this is true, it poses both a strategic and logistic challenge, because it will have the connotation of extending and expanding the military’s frontier in the war against terrorism, a war the military has said it was winning, though some dispute this based on the facts on ground, thereby, suggesting otherwise. Yet, one has to recognise and appreciate the supreme sacrifice that some of our brave sons and daughters in uniform have paid, for our general protection. To all grieving families who’ve lost someone either in battle or as a victim of the acts of terrorism, I convey the appreciation of the entire nation, while asking for God’s grace to bear the irreparable loss; may God comfort you all. Having said this, let’s examine the DHQ’s claims about the group. Who are the Lakurawas? How did they evolve and how and when did they come into Nigeria, especially in the Sokoto and Kebbi areas of their operation? This is what this piece will next interrogate.

The name, Lakurawa, simply means ‘Recruit’ in Hausa language. Contrary to claims by the DHQ, that the group is new and came into being after the recent military coup in Niger Republic, strong evidence abounds that the group was formed in Mali sometime in 2017 and originally preferred to be called Mujahideen and Ansaru respectively, and they were a known affiliate of al-Qaeda, making them a Jihadist group. Originally, the group focused on offering and providing protection to the local populace in areas within the stronghold of areas of their influence or control, and attacking military installations, units and high profile facilities in Mali and Burkina Faso.  Small as a small body of about 50 young boys and men, they soon expanded and grew in strength soon after the merging of the four prominent and once rival groups of Ansar al-Din, al-Murabitun, the Macina Liberation Front (MLF) and the al-Qaeda in the lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), all unifying to form the now notorious Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). How did they come into Nigeria?

According to the 2021 work and their later work of 2022 titled ‘North Western Nigeria: A Jihadization of Banditry, or a ‘Bandization’ of Jihad?’, the historians, Murtala Ahmed Rufa’I, James Barnett and Abdulaziz Abdulaziz in their exposé, revealed that the Lakurawa group was originally invited by two District Heads in Gudu and Tangaza Local Government Areas of Sokoto State in 2017, to help them contain the banditry activities of the Zamfarawa, a bandit group based in Zamfara State, and making incursions into some local government areas of Sokoto State. The then head of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) supported the invitation and the hosts contributed. When the Lakurawas originally came in, they were assisted by their local and hosts who contributed cows, arms and cash to enable the body grow. The group soon began to enlist local youths, into their body. Their activities were restricted to providing security for their hosts, and subtly preaching their brand of Islam. Soon after, they began to impose levies, demanding alms, imposing a way of life that prohibited dancing, music and merriments, impounding phones, imposing dress regulations and robbing the locals, thereby, bringing them into direct confrontation with their once friendly hosts. When the complains of the locals grew louder, the military combatted them since way back 2018/2019, making the group to mellow down on their activities until their killing of three military men in August 2024, followed by the massacre of fifteen people on 8 November, 2024. Given these facts, how then could the military claim the Lakurawas are a new terror group, and what implications does it hold for the nation’s war against insecurity?

Implication of the Emergence of Lakurawa on the War Against Insecurity 

As has been shown by various informed opinions, the Lakurawa group are not only a jihadist group formed by Malians who spoke both the Arabic language and Fulfulde, the ethnic Fulani dialect, and formally invited into Nigeria to provide security for the locals in parts of Sokoto and Kebbi States. They were well-known to be a jihadist group with links to al-Qaeda and ISWAP, the Islamic State of West African Province. People spoke about their presence in the early days, but, the Nigeria Police downplayed the threat. If the military and other security agencies claim not to know of their presence in Nigeria, then it will imply that:

a. Nigeria’s intelligence apparatus, inclusive of the military intelligence is grossly faulty; or,

b. The security and intelligence agencies are grossly incompetent; or,

c. The military was merely engaging in deliberate falsehood, especially to cover the claims of great successes in the war against insecurity.

If the first two or either of them is correct, then it will be scary and implying we do not even know what we’re battling against or dealing with. Where however, the third option is correct, it will have no connotation of overstretching the nation’s security apparatus and logistics.

Causes of Insecurity and Possible Remedies

Since the return to civil rule in 1999, there’s no gainsaying the fact that every successive elected President has had a fair share of his own security challenges. Each of them also has a score card of his success or failure, in tackling his peculiar problems. 

President Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) had the militants, especially of the Niger Delta areas to contend with. He employed gunboat diplomacy or strong-arm-tactics to contain them, leading to the Odi misadventure. 

President Umaru Musa Yar’adua had militants and Boko Haram to deal with. He succeeded in his general amnesty plan to curb the militants and was about moving to the Boko Haram, before the cruel hands of death took away a national idol. 

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan battled Boko Haram plus deliberate sabotage, even from his Cabinet, on account of his minority status and persistent organised confrontations to derail him happily, he had a wife whose name must have been symbolic: he patiently sat out his tenure with ‘patience’ while being lucky to leave Aso Rock with his head still on his shoulders. 

Then came President Buhari, a General, whose challenges were Fulani Herdsmen, Bandits, illegal miners, IPOB, kidnapping and site settlements. Many have accused him of being a General that fought the war of insecurities, like a professional clown or jester, comparing him with his Ukrainian counterpart, a professional comedian, who was fighting his Russian war as a professional soldier or General. 

Then, came President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) who has to battle Boko Haram, bandits, and now Lakurawa. Aside from being young in office, I had my fears owing to his age and lack of military experience. Surprisingly, he has already done more to decimate the once audacious Boko Haram and reduce kidnapping, but I do not share Nuhu Ribadu’s enthusiasm that the BAT gains has suddenly cured all our headaches and toothaches. We are however, agreed that the mopping up operation is round the corner, but, that will only be if and where the promoters of the insecurities are fished out and dealt with, to reduce their material gains from the evil promotions.

Having stated this, one will now gloss over some of the causes of the insecurities we deal with. These can be summarised as:

a. Curious economic policies that tend unto poverty and hunger, making it possible to recruit people into these anti-social bodies.

b. The insincerity and dubious use of religion to divide the people.

c. Emergence of cultism and its unbridled spread.

d. Increasing use and dependence on hard drugs by youths.

e. Dysfunctional family up-brings and peer effects.

f. Lack of gainful employment and inability to move with evolving technologies.

g. Lack of infrastructures. 

h. Defective educational systems.

i. Deliberate political apparatus to weaponise poverty for selfish gains.

j. Leadership challenges.

k. Lack of patriotism, etc.

l. Use of political power and State apparatuses to victimise non-party members 

m. Loss of direction, lack of professionalism and lack of integrity by a complicit Judiciary.

n. Land-grabbing tendencies from ancestral owners.

o. The illegal mining activities by the rich and powerful.  

p. The place of international sponsorship of acts of terrorism, which brings to mind the role of countries like Iran in mentoring terrorist. I shall address this in passing.

This last point needs emphasising. On the occasion of his presentation at the one-year anniversary of the Hamas massacre of Israelis on 7th October, 2023, the Israeli Ambassador to Nigeria, His Excellency, Michael Freeman, warned of Iran’s plot to destabilise the West African sub-region, especially Nigeria. The general reaction, without proof, was to lambast the Ambassador, telling him not to drag Nigeria into the Israeli-Iranian conflict. My reaction to this spate of ignorance was to ask some pertinent questions, and the answers to them will inform us properly. 

For those condemning Freeman’s revelations and reading sinister motives into it, I’d like to ask a few questions.

1. How much of the strength of Israel’s Mossad, the Israeli Intelligence outfit, do we know?

2. Aside the US (on account of its technological advantage), and China on account of its spread (owing to its success in making every citizen a part of their intelligence outfit), which other country competes with Israel’s efficiency in terms of intelligence?

3. Of all the countries of the world, which national intelligence agency is more protective of its citizens and even more ruthless in execution of its missions?

4. Why is Saudi Arabia, the homeland of orthodox Muslims worldwide at daggers-drawn with Iran?

5. Which brand of Islam does Sheik El Zakzaky of Kaduna State propagate, if not the Iranian version or Shiites? Or, why else was Mallam Nasr El Rufai continually battling him with Saudi Arabia and Sokoto Caliphate ominously keeping quiet?

6. Who’s behind Lebanon’s Hezbolla, the Hamas at Gaza, the Syrian Isis, Yemen’s militia, fighting both Israel and Saudi Arabia as insurgents?

7. Who is behind ISWAP in West Africa, and has ISWAP any connections with Boko Haram in Nigeria, Chad, the Cameroons and Mali?

8. What does Israel stand to benefit or lose with Nigeria either against or in support of Israel?

9. Even when Nigeria and Israel had no diplomatic relations owing to Nigeria severing ties with her in 1973, following the Yum Kippur six-day Arab-Israeli war, Israel was still magnanimous to tip off Nigeria through other diplomatic sources, over both the coup that toppled General Gowon’s regime in 1975, and the follow-up or subsequent coup of February 1976. That’s the country we want to underrate its intelligence.

I have incorporated my WhatsApp argument to enable us see the dangers of improperly identifying our problems, either because we love playing the ostrich, or because we see rational issues through the prism of religion and ethnicity.

Conclusion

Of course, the solutions lie squarely in redressing all the perceived ills and short-comings fuelling the insecurities. We are yet lucky, that the Bandits and Jihadists have not yet been able to forge a common front, or this country would have been history. The jihadists haven’t been able to fully recruit the bandits for three major reasons: there are too many factions of them, each with its own warlords, making coordination and control difficult; the bandits majorly lack political objectives; they are too powerful to be easily controlled; and their methods of operation differ substantially from that of the jihadists. Herein lies our luck so far.

The errors herein are mine, while I acknowledge the contributions of MA Rufa’I and my good old friend, Professor Sylvester Udemezue, a Nigerian Law School  Lecturer.

Major Ben Aburime (Rtd), FICMC, FCMC, MCMC; Legal Practitioner; Mediator; Programmer; AI & Robotics Software Designer