Fleeing Home to Stay Alive: The Untold Story of a Vigilante Member Escaping Bandits in Zamfara

By Isuhu Dan Mamman

I encountered a heart touching story during my emergency official trip to Abuja.

As early as 7 a.m., I arrived at the Zamfara Mass Transit Park in Gusau, popularly known as Bazamfara Motors, to begin my journey to the Federal Capital Territory.

Like every other passenger, I settled into the vehicle, hoping for a smooth journey. Little did I know that the man seated beside me would share a story that would leave me reflecting deeply on the human cost of insecurity in northwestern Nigeria.

As we approached Funtua, we suddenly heard sporadic gunshots coming from the direction of a mountainous forest where we could see soldiers operating.

We drove past the soldiers, but none of us knew the reason behind the shooting. What we knew was that soldiers do not fire their weapons without a reason.

The incident immediately triggered a conversation among passengers about insecurity and the suffering of communities caught in the cycle of violence.

People shared their thoughts on the persistent attacks, the vulnerability of rural communities and the difficulties residents face in protecting themselves against armed bandits.

At some point, one of the passengers made a remark questioning the effectiveness and courage of Yan Sakai, the local vigilante groups that have played roles in defending communities against bandit attacks.

Until then, the man seated beside me had remained silent throughout the journey.

But that remark appeared to touch a sensitive part of his life. He could no longer keep quiet.

He began to speak.

What followed was not just another contribution to a conversation about insecurity. It was a deeply personal account of a man fleeing his community, leaving behind everything he had spent his life building, simply because he wanted to stay alive.

The man revealed that he was himself a member of a local vigilante group and was travelling to Abuja to escape what he described as persistent threats to his life by armed bandits.

His alleged offence was defending his community.

According to him, his efforts and those of his colleagues had helped residents return to their farms and cultivate their lands successfully during the current farming season.

He believed that his group’s activities had contributed to creating that opportunity for his community.

But the same commitment to protecting his people had, according to his account, made him a target.

He narrated how he had escaped several alleged attempts by bandits to assassinate him.

Each day, the danger became more difficult to ignore. The fear of being hunted, attacked or killed eventually forced him to reconsider his future in the community he had helped defend.

Then came the advice that broke his resolve to remain at home.

His parents, particularly his mother, reportedly urged him to leave the community and seek safety elsewhere.

For a man who had taken up the responsibility of defending his people, abandoning his home was not an easy decision.

Yet, when the people who brought him into the world began pleading with him to save his life, he had to confront a painful reality: he could no longer guarantee his own safety.

The man told me that he was leaving his 11 children, his wives, his mother and his father in the community.

Imagine the burden of travelling to an unfamiliar city, uncertain of what the future holds, while knowing that your children and other loved ones remain thousands of worries away from you.

For him, Abuja was not a destination for business expansion or career advancement. It was a possible refuge from the violence he said had made his continued stay in his community dangerous.

He was travelling to a city where he knew nobody.

He had no established network of friends to rely on, no familiar environment to return to and no certainty about how he would begin again.

He was simply searching for a safe haven.

His story raises a difficult question: What happens to the people who risk their lives defending their communities when the threats against them become too great to bear?

Insecurity is often discussed through figures: the number of people killed, the number of communities attacked, the number of abductees, the amount paid as ransom and the number of people displaced from their homes.

These figures are important. They help policymakers, security agencies and the public understand the scale of the crisis.

But behind every statistic is a human story.

There are farmers who cannot access their lands, traders who have abandoned their businesses, children whose education has been disrupted and families forced to leave their ancestral homes.

There are also local defenders who risk their lives to protect their neighbours, often under extremely difficult circumstances.

The man I met on the bus offered a glimpse into this less-discussed dimension of the crisis.

His account suggests that those who participate in community defence can themselves face serious threats and may require protection, support and a clear pathway to safety.

As a journalist, I have learned that some of the most compelling stories emerge unexpectedly.

Sometimes, they come from an interview with a public official. At other times, they emerge from a remote community, a hospital ward or a roadside conversation.

And sometimes, they come from a man sitting quietly beside you on a public bus.