By Valentine Amanze, Online Editor
Awwalun Daudawa, the leader of the bandits, who abducted more than 500 students from Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Zamfara State northwestern Nigeria last December before handing himself in to authorities, has reneged on amnesty deal with the state government.
The bandit chief has returned to crime, according to AFP.
Daudawa’s rejection of the amnesty underscores the complexity of engaging with Nigeria’s criminal gangs, setting back efforts to end attacks and kidnappings plaguing the country’s northwest.
Zanfara State government also confirmed that Daudawa has returned to crime.
“It was only on Monday that we realised Awwalun Daudawa had returned to his old ways when he didn’t return after the expiration of the one-week period,” a Zamfara State official said on Thursday.
“We came to understand that he has joined his comrades in the forest near the border with Katsina State,” he said.
In February Daudawa along with his six comrades surrendered to Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle, in his office where he handed over weapons, saying he had renounced crime, as part of the amnesty to criminal gangs, who are known locally as bandits.
According to the official, Daudawa had called some repentant bandits from his camp in the forest, informing them of his change of mind.
On April 19 Daudawa left his lodging in Zamfara State capital, Gusau, on the pretext of meeting some criminal gangs in the forest to convince them accept an amnesty offer and release some hostages, a Zamfara State government official said.
According to sources with knowledge on activities of bandits, Daudawa never surrendered all his weapons and maintained contact with his gangs in the forest.
“He (Daudawa) is definitely back in control of his gangs in Jaja forest in Zurmi district near the border with Katsina State,” said another source.
The criminal kingpin told Zamfara officials hosting him that he wanted to meet the kidnappers of 39 students abducted from a forestry college in neighbouring Kaduna State in March to persuade them to release the remaining 29 students in their custody, the source said.
“Daudawa was too smart for the Zamfara government.
“He only surrendered one-fifth of his weapons and was using the upkeep payments he was receiving from the government to maintain his men in the forest whom he asked to cease fire,” the source said.
In a telephone recording released on social media, the bandit chief was heard discussing payments with a go-between.
State officials have always denied any ransom was paid.
Security analysts have warned of infiltration of criminal gangs in the region by jihadists who are waging a more than decade-long insurgency in the northeast, a claim the government admitted recently.
Daudawa, 43, was an armed robber and a cattle rustler before he turned to gun-running.
He began bringing in weapons from Libya, where he had received training from jihadists, selling the arms to bandits, security sources told AFP.
He forged an alliance with Boko Haram and became their gunrunner, taking weapons the group seizes from the Nigerian security forces in raids and ambushes and selling them to bandits for a cut.
Northwest and central Nigeria have been terrorised for years by heavily armed criminal gangs, who raid villages, stealing cattle, kidnapping for ransom and burning homes after looting supplies.
But violence has surged as gangs also attack travellers at bogus checkpoints on the highways and more recently have targeted schools and colleges to abduct students.
