ZAMFARA RURAL BANDITRY: INTERMINABLE THREAT TO AGRO - PASTORALISM

The study examines the historical farmer/herder confrontation that recently spelt into multi-layered banditry activities that suddenly dotted all around Zamfara rural areas like a wild fire. The explosive growth of this menace had posed a formidable threat to sustainace of agro-pastoral occupations. Forces many farmers to desert their farmlands and made it very difficult task for animals’ husbandry. Although, banditry precedents and other effects of this social conflict were previously informed in various intellectual pieces, but still it seems that, there were dearths of studies on what made Zamfara agro-pastoral conflict to defy solutions. Therefore, this article seeks to deftly explore and expose the remote and immediate factors spining the wheel of this growing circle of killings, which virtually engulfed many Zamfara rural communities. The study highlights the roles played by the perceived drivers of banditry acts, despite the state and central government efforts taken to address the problem. Which include, but not limited to fallout of long-standing frustration with annexation of grazing reserves to farmland, presence of many ungovern spaces, illicit gold mining, circulation of weapons among non-state actors and emergent ethnic fissures between zamfara agro-pastoralists. Through review of the extant literatures, this paper discovered that at the core of the unrest were grievances linked to sustenance of social injustices, accentuated by the roles played by criminal outlaws, which further amplified the wide spread of abject poverty, unemployment and espionage of the locale informants amongst others. The data obtained were thematically analyzed and discussed by adopting historical and analytical research design as methodological components, employed to in-depthly analysed this rural conflict. Also, the study adopted Frustration Aggressions model, as its theoretical framework. Amongst the recommendations proffered to stem the tides of Zamfara banditry includes: all inclusive community engagement; a wholesome / tactical synergy amongst policing agencies, liasing with telecoms providers in tracking criminals and other non-kinetics measures.