MY WIVES AND DAUGHTER CAN USE GUNS

I’ve spent seven years doing this volunteer work.

Since day one, doing this work for me has been voluntary and Fisabillilla. No single kobo is paid to me for this work. I have been doing it to protect my family and communities. As you can see, I just finished labour work, and it’s the money earned here that I will be using to feed my family and also fuel my bike if anything arises, and to quickly move for either an operation or the repelling of attacks. It’s completely a sacrifice for us.

I have two wives, one living here and one in the community. The owner of this filling station gave me a monthly token, which I also use for my day-to-day activities.

In the community, we have been facing security issues, especially in the neighbourhood; it has become a death zone for bandits. Bandits in this Northern part of Katsina are afraid of our community. As soon as you mention Tantagarya, they feel scared and not at ease in their minds because we stood against them, against all odds. With prayers and actions, our community became inaccessible to any bandits; both old and young men in our community are fully ready and prepared all the time to face any bandits with no fear.

We usually go to bandits’ camps and locations for operations, and we often succeed in killing many of them. There was a time we went for an operation, and we lost about eleven men in our group. But usually, when we go or if they come to our community, we hardly record any casualties on our side, but they often lose many of their colleagues to us.

They attacked our community once, which led to the setting of a house and two food storage facilities ablaze, but even that very day we spent about four to five hours fighting them until they ceased fire and left.

Even some of the foodstuffs they stole from other communities, they left it there in our community because of the tense fighting.

Our community became a topic of discussion in their camps because many people, including those in Zamfara, are saying that those bandits usually talk about how our community has warriors and they are hoping they will have the chance to overpower us, but God will never let it happen. I am telling you they don’t even want to hear the name of Tantagarya Community; in short, if they are going for an operation anywhere and someone mistakenly mentions Tantagarya’s name, that very day they will not succeed in that operation.

Tantagarya Community has become famous in all parts of Katsina and Zamfara. Even people in Maiduguri have heard about Tantagarya in terms of our preparedness in fighting bandits at all costs. We are not making mouth to say we have enough weapons, but we also prioritise prayers and charity. After each week, we usually gather for prayers and recite the complete Quran, and at the same time contribute money and give out charity.

They usually come to attack us, but they have no chance of succeeding. The first attack was around four years ago, around 12 a.m. We fought with them till 4 am and none of the government forces came to our aid. They set fire to a house and two food storage facilities. Since then, none of the bandits can even come near us.

We were attacked only once in the entire period since banditry started, and because of that attack, we spent almost a month going for reprisals in their camp on a daily basis, and each day we killed their men and came back. As a result of that attack, we killed almost a hundred of their men when we went for reprisals.

It was during that period that one day we had very bad luck, when eleven of our men were killed. I remember that, before the incident, our commander said we should rest for two days, but the young men among us insisted we go back again. Unknown to us, the guy giving us intel about them betrayed us and gave us false information.

While going back, they lay down in the bush and ambushed many of our men. They kept shooting, but the guns could not kill us, and they succeeded in arresting eleven of our men. They used motorcycle accelerators to apply heat to their heads and necks until it killed them. Our colleagues died miserably in their hands, and that was the worst and most unfortunate thing that ever happened to us and our community.

During that attack, my elder brother’s son was held captive, but before he died, he managed to shoot Audu Lankai in the leg. Lankai is the kingpin controlling Jibia and Batsari bandits and he spent a long time recovering, and I think he was taken to the Niger Republic then for his treatment.

Almost all those killed were killed using that method because they can neither be shot with a gun nor can any metal be used to kill them. That’s how we managed to escape and come back home with the grief of losing those young men. Many of those killed were my relatives.

Among them are Ibrahim, who I earlier said was the son of my elder brother and married to my daughter; Sani Shakaka was my younger brother; Yusuf and his brother were both married to my stepdaughters; and there is also my elder brother, Abdullahi Fiya Fiya. And all these people had children and the children are currently here with me. It’s truly a loss I will never forget.

After three days, we still went back and recorded a major success where we recovered over 150 cattle and other livestock, and we killed over 80 bandits. Actually, that was the most difficult operation for us because most of us failed to even reach home on foot. Some had to take them on their back because of the level of tiredness. We walked a long distance; I can recall we left home around 6 pm and walked to reach their location around 3 am, and it was the same distance we covered on our way back using our legs.

In most of those kinds of operations, we don’t go on bikes, and some people get extremely tired. That operation made me happy because it was a reprisal and we succeeded without recording any injury among us.

Even recently, they attacked Babban Gida community close to us and we responded and killed five of them.

The secret behind all this success and protection is prayers, mostly. From the beginning, our great-grandparents were hunters and they prepared us very well with protection from any metal or gun. Most of the youth and elders in our community are very addicted to guns; I can say we have approximately over 200 locally made guns and 20 fabricated guns in our community.

Look at this girl; she is my daughter, but I taught her how to shoot in case she suspects an attack. I have two wives and they can both use guns if I give them, and I also have them in both their rooms in case of emergency.

We prepare our children and family very well in case of any bandit attack.

In all these operations and this work, God has protected me from any injury. I have personally killed over 20 bandits. Sometimes we arrest them, tie them up, and ask one Malam or young boys to slaughter them. We have killed more than 50 bandits like this.

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As narrated by: Muhammadu Bishir – 50 (Jibia, Katsina).

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This snippet is published as part of the series, What We Lost to the Bandits.