THEY THINK ALL FULANI ARE BANDITS

We’re facing insecurity from the bandits. They killed our relatives, stole our cattle, and left us with nothing.

There was a time when they invaded our community in the evening, when our husbands were not present. They killed many of my relatives. My father, my elder brother, and his wife were all killed that day.

My elder brother was attacked in his room. They also came into our house, but our husband was absent. They kept beating us; some of them were harassing us, touching our bodies, but God protected us from being raped.

They beat us severely that day and searched everywhere in the house. They left with everything, including our foodstuffs, cattle, and livestock. The community became insecure, as they usually came, searching everywhere and every house.

One day, unknown to us, Yan Sakai (vigilantes) from the neighbouring communities started suspecting us and invaded the community. They set some of our houses and food storage facilities ablaze, suspecting that some of our people were also part of the banditry because our community is a Fulani community. They consider all of us Fulani as bandits.

That very night, we left the community, trekking in the middle of the night until the morning, when we found a community here where we could settle safely. We walked from our community, which is close to Magami, up to Gusau, which is a distance of more than 57 kilometres.

That’s how we arrived at this location (Sunami area in Gusau). Our community has been deserted since last year, when we left it.

We are currently here doing nothing and having nothing. All our husbands’ cattle and livestock are gone. We cannot go back to our community due to fear of attacks either from the bandits or from the Yan Sakai.

Many of us here are begging, especially those who have lost their parents or husbands. To me, here I can even say alhamdulillah because I can manage to see my husband alive and sometimes he works as a labourer on farms somewhere to find what we can eat. As I am talking to you now, he’s at someone’s farm working to get what we will eat.

Many of us have lost parents, children, husbands or relatives, but the most painful part of it is the people we lost from the Yan Sakai who accused us of being part of bandits just because we are Fulani.

The pain will remain in our hearts because we left our community because of the Yan Sakai attack, not banditry. Bandits killed and rustled in our community, but they never tried setting our houses ablaze as Yan Sakai did.

In this place we are currently residing, there is hope because we are regarded and assisted by the community leader and community members also.

The security issues are not as bad as the ones in our community. We managed to come with a few livestock while escaping from our community, but one day, bandits also invaded this area in the night and rustled all of them.

Currently, we can say life is better because there is no threat from bandits like the previous one and here the Yan Sakai know us and trust us. They don’t accuse or intimidate us. We are here all the time seeking help and hoping for someone or any organisation to come and help us, as they have been doing.

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As narrated by: Aisha Muhammad – 26 (Kwakwara, Wanke, Zamfara).

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