Renting Peace in the North: Why new deals with killers in Katsina may fail again

By Ogalah Ibrahim

The Sunday market in Jibia, a border town in Nigeria’s Katsina State, has roared back to life. Motorbikes clatter under heavy loads, traders haggle over sacks of millet, and children weave between stalls in a scene of renewed normalcy.

For years, this market was silent. Bandit gangs, mostly armed Fulani men who once roamed the surrounding forests, had shattered the fragile coexistence between Hausa farmers and Fulani pastoralists. Villagers were robbed, abducted, or killed. Farmers abandoned their fields, traders shunned the roads, and markets stood deserted.

Now, nomadic Fulani mingle again with Hausa farmers, and merchants from the neighbouring Niger Republic have returned. Even the bandits themselves, who once terrorised the town, now openly patronise the market, selling cattle and grain.

The reason, whispered in every corner, is the same: a deal has been struck with the killers.

Sitting With the Enemy

In Jibia, the turning point came in February 2025, when elders under the banner of the Jibia People’s Forum, gathered in Kwari village. Desperation had forced their hand. With violence unbearable, traders’ representatives, business chiefs and respected clerics sat face-to-face with bandit leaders.

“We had no choice,” one elder told this reporter. “Either we talk, or we bury more of our children.”

The talks produced a ceasefire of sorts. Kidnappings and killings fell sharply. “Since January 2025, we have not received a report of anyone abducted or killed,” said Abdullahi Lawal, spokesperson for Jibia Local Government, crediting the dialogue for easing tensions.

“You will see them with their guns protecting us in the forest,” Malam Abubakar Mohammed of Magama village told journalists. The irony stung: the same men who once robbed villagers now posed as their protectors.

A trader stacking his goods put it more bluntly: “We are free to sell today. But who knows! if they come back, we will pay again with our lives and our hard-earned resources.”

The fragility of this arrangement was underlined again on Sunday, September 14, 2025, when a fresh round of negotiations was staged in Faskari Local Government Area — one of Katsina’s bloodiest frontlines.

At Hayin Gada community, notorious warlords including Adamu Alero, Babaro, and Kwashé Garwa, arrived as guests of honour. Videos circulating on local media showed Garwa with ammunition strapped around his waist railing against the “stereotyping” of Fulani herders as criminals.

“In Nigeria, whenever there is a discussion, they call Fulani herders bandits and terrorists. But tell me, which tribe in the world does not have criminals among them?” he asked in Hausa, earning murmurs of approval from some of those present.

The absurdity was plain: only few weeks after Babaro was accused of leading the Mantau mosque massacre in Malumfashi, where more than 30 worshippers were shot dead during dawn prayers — he and other wanted kingpins were being welcomed as peace partners.

Even more jarring, the Faskari dialogue unfolded on the same day that bandit attacks struck parts of Katsina and Zamfara, killing dozens. For many residents, the timing reinforced a bitter suspicion: negotiations are less a path to peace than a stage performance, where killers alternate between war crimes and peace pledges, depending on what brings them leverage.

The Theatre of Peace

This uneasy bargain captures the paradox of peace in northwest Nigeria. Communities regain their markets, farms and schools — but at the mercy of the very gangs that displaced them.

Governors, desperate for quick wins, have embraced such deals. Katsina’s governor, Dikko Umaru Radda, initially sceptical, has since admitted his administration is negotiating in several frontline councils.

“With all our strength, we fought the bandits,” Radda said earlier this month, while unveiling an 18-month “Conflict Prevention, Crisis Response and Resilience” programme. “Now they want a peace deal. We will negotiate, but it must be a sincere one.”

The governor pointed to “locally made community initiatives” that had eased crises. But the rhetoric points to a familiar script: peace as theatre, not transformation.

Civil society leaders in Katsina argue that such negotiations are less about choice than survival.

“This issue is very complicated,” said AbdulRahman Abdullahi, chairman of the Coalition of Civil Society Organisations in Katsina, in a phone interview with Vanguard. “Looking at the trend of this conflict, there are things community members can do and there are things that the local, state and federal governments can do. But both the local and state government efforts put together – are defensive efforts. The highest security architecture controlled by the state is the Katsina Security Watch Corps, and their gun is pump action. You cannot use pump action to fight someone (bandits) holding an AK-47.”

For the Katsina CSOs, the imbalance of firepower makes dialogue almost inevitable. “The Air Force has the planes, the Army has the ground forces. If they worked together in sustained operations, this fight could have ended. But unfortunately, the federal government is not doing the needful, and the state government, which is expected to give complementary service, is the one leading the fight. There’s a limit to what the state, the local government and the communities can do.”

The result, he said, is war fatigue. “People are not sleeping at night, standing guard over their villages. So when the state and local governments say there is nothing left but to talk, we understand. Dialogue is not the best thing to do, but if it is the only option left, we have no objection.”

Abdullahi’s words echo a broader reality in frontline villages: after years of violence, communities will accept even fragile truces if it means the chance to live another day.

Negotiating With Shadows

Nigeria’s security forces are overstretched and often absent from rural outposts. Villages wait hours, sometimes days, for help that never comes. With official protection unreliable, politicians turn to negotiation.

Bandits are offered cash, motorcycles, and even amnesty in exchange for laying down arms. Traditional rulers and clerics serve as intermediaries. In theory, this path offers respite. In practice, it resembles a protection racket.

The case of notorious warlord Bello Turji in Sokoto State illustrates the danger. In 2022, Turji declared a unilateral ceasefire, claiming he wanted peace. State officials seized the opportunity to praise him. Markets reopened, kidnappings slowed, and displaced families returned. But within months, his fighters resumed attacks.

A Business of Ransoms

Between 2011 and 2020, Nigerians paid an estimated $18.34 million (N28.2 billion) in ransoms, according to Lagos-based consultancy SBM Intelligence. Analysts believe the true figure is far higher, as many families never report payments.

The sums are staggering. In Katsina, a community leader described how his community raised ¦ 30 million to free abducted children. “We sold everything — cows, goats, even our wives’ jewellery,” he said. “If we did not pay, the children would be killed.”

Cross – Border Dimensions Across a Porous Border

Jibia’s market sits along Nigeria’s frontier with Niger Republic — a border more porous than real. Weapons flow freely across the Sahel, smugglers operate with ease, and fighters retreat to Niger when under pressure, only to return later.

In Maradi, the Nigerien town adjacent to Jibia, traders privately admit they pay protection levies to armed groups to avoid attacks on their cattle convoys. Banditry, in this sense, is regional.

Security experts warn that without cross-border patrols and intelligence-sharing between Nigeria and Nigeria Republic, local truces in Katsina or Zamfara cannot hold. “The border is a lifeline for these groups,” one analyst said. “You can’t cut one end of the rope and expect it to hold.”

Why Talks Always Fail

Analysts and conflict researchers highlight three flaws that doom Nigeria’s negotiations:

Fragmentation. Unlike Boko Haram in the northeast, northwest bandits are not one insurgency but dozens of rival factions. A truce with one group leaves others untouched.

Profit motive. Violence is driven by ransom, extortion, and control of resources such as gold mining. Talks inflate profits instead of addressing the root economy.

Weak governance. In rural areas, the state is barely present. Schools are abandoned, roads impassable, and police absent. Bandits fill the vacuum, offering a brutal form of order.

The Human Toll

Behind every statistic are broken lives.

In Zamfara, farmers pay levies before planting. In Sokoto, displaced villagers sleep in makeshift camps, waiting for protection that rarely comes. In Katsina, parents walk their children to school with fear in their throats.

One mother in Malumfashi described raising ransom for her abducted daughter: “We begged, we borrowed, we sold. When she came home, she could not speak for weeks. Now she says she will never go to school again.”

Women and girls carry a particular burden. Many abducted teenagers are forced into marriages or sexual slavery. Widows shoulder debts from ransom payments. Yet their voices are largely absent from negotiations dominated by male elders and politicians.

What Must Change

If there is one lesson from the Northwest’s cycle of failed negotiations, it is this: appeasement is not peace. The jamboree of deals has bought governors time and bandits leverage, but it has delivered nothing to the villagers who remain trapped between bullets and bargains.

Experts and community leaders say Nigeria’s cycle of bloodshed will continue unless peace efforts adopt these five principles:

First, transparency. Peace talks must include affected communities, not just governors and warlords.

They must involve the communities — the farmers, traders, women, and youth who pay with their lives and livelihoods. Without their voice, any deal lacks legitimacy.

Second, accountability. Bandit leaders implicated in mass killings and kidnappings cannot simply be rewarded with cash or political recognition. Justice — whether through Nigerian courts or hybrid mechanisms — must accompany reconciliation.

Third, structured reintegration. For the rank-and-file bandits, many of whom are teenage herders displaced by climate change or poverty, there must be a pathway back into society. This means genuine disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) — not the shallow amnesties that hand out motorcycles. Vocational training, education, and land access must replace the allure of ransom economies.

Fourth, governance reform. Rural communities will remain vulnerable so long as they lack functioning schools, health centres, roads, and security patrols. Development is not a post-conflict luxury — it is the foundation of peace. If a bandit can guarantee that a farmer will reach his field safely, while the government cannot, then the bandit becomes the government.

Finally, security pressure. Negotiations without credible force are empty. The Nigerian state must demonstrate that violence carries a cost, even as it opens pathways for reconciliation. This balance — deterrence paired with reintegration — is what has worked in Sierra Leone, Colombia, and elsewhere.

The challenge is enormous. But so too is the cost of inaction. Already, the Northwest risks sliding into a permanent war economy, where banditry is not an aberration but a way of life. Without these reforms, every deal risks becoming another jamboree of peace — a celebrated pause before the next round of killings.

Rented Peace

By the state government’s admission, at least seven Katsina councils — Danmusa, Jibia, Batsari, Kankara, Kurfi, Musawa, and now Faskari — are covered by such local arrangements. Commissioner for Internal Security Nasiru Mu’azu insists they are “community-driven” and not state-led, describing them as pragmatic attempts to save lives.

Back in Jibia, the market thrives. Traders count profits, children chase each other through stalls, and cattle change hands under the watchful eyes of men with guns.

But everyone knows the calm could collapse with a single gunshot.

Obviously, the peace is rented, not won. Until the Nigerian state reclaims its duty to protect, communities across Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto remain trapped between bullets and bargains — condemned to live under a cruel equation where safety depends not on law, but on the whims of armed gangs.

And so, the jamboree of peace goes on.

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