The villages of Sabon Birni and Isa near the Nigeria-Niger border have been abandoned due to violence. Other nearby villages seek peace agreements with local bandit groups to avoid similar fates. Armed non-state actors have terrorized rural communities in Zamfara, Sokoto, and Katsina, causing abductions and deaths. Agriculture, once thriving, has been severely disrupted, leading to food shortages. Farmers face risks when returning to their fields, including abductions and taxes from violent groups, while analysts cite a failure in the social contract between government and citizens.
Numerous villagers who spoke to DW told of family members being abducted and killed. Their livelihoods, which primarily consist of farming sorghum, millet, and livestock, and then trading their produce in nearby market towns, have been severely disrupted.
We have been pleading for peace. We want to live and farm in peace. We have no access to our farms. We have to beg before we can feed our families," Suraju Mohammed from Sokoto told DW, adding that nothing is more important than peace.
Peacebuilding analyst Dengiyefa Angalapu from the Lagos-based Centre for Democracy and Development describes the hard choices faced by villagers as "the failure of the social contract between the Nigerian government and the Nigerian people."
Seeking a peace deal with violent non-state actors becomes "a rational survival calculus," he told DW. "Communities know these actors. They will tell you: "I know his father, I know his mother. This person grew up with us," Angalapu said.
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