ABUJA, Nigeria – A devastating armed assault on unarmed civilians working their agricultural lands in northwestern Nigeria has left at least 17 farmers dead and 13 others injured, according to local authorities and community witnesses. The deadly incident unfolded Friday in Goron Namaye, a small town located within Nigeria’s violence-plagued Zamfara state’s Maradun local government area.
No armed faction has yet stepped forward to claim responsibility for the attack, but regional security observers note that organized gang violence has surged across northwestern Nigeria in recent months, targeting civilians and local communities regularly. Shehu Musa, a Maradun resident who confirmed the details of the assault to the Associated Press Saturday, described the sudden, unprovoked nature of the attack: “The farmers were working on their lands when the bandits suddenly attacked and killed 17 of them.” The injured survivors have been transported to a nearby medical facility for emergency treatment, Musa added.
Local government leaders have linked the latest killing to the Zamfara state government’s ongoing refusal to enter into negotiations with the armed gangs that control large swathes of rural territory in the region. Sanusi Dosara, chairman of the Maradun local government, stated in an official release that the attack was a direct retaliation for the government’s refusal to negotiate. Dosara issued a formal appeal to Nigerian security forces to launch a targeted operation to dismantle the Bayan-Ruwa militant enclave hidden in Maradun’s extensive forest areas, which he identified as the primary base for the gunmen responsible for the attack.
The Friday assault comes just one day after another high-profile incident in the same local government area, underscoring the rapid escalation of insecurity in the region. On Thursday, gunmen abducted 39 residents of Magamin Diddi community, who had gathered to meet with the family of a suspected bandit leader as part of a local grassroots peace initiative aimed at ending a wave of mass kidnappings for ransom.
For years, overlapping crises of insurgency in northeastern Nigeria and widespread ransom kidnappings and gang violence in the northwestern and central regions have devastated communities across the country. United Nations data estimates that these connected conflicts have killed thousands of civilians and displaced millions more from their homes. The escalating violence comes despite repeated public pledges from Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, who took office last year, that his administration would curb insecurity and resolve the long-running crisis.