A security expert has called on Northern leaders to save the region’s reputation by preventing women from being used by bandits and terrorists to terrorise Nigerians.
Dr. Abdullahi Muhammed Jabi, who is the director of Media and Publicity, International Institute of professional Security (IIPS), said bandits have taken advantage of the sacred nature and respect bestowed on women to use them as conduit to transport arms and ammunition.
He made the call in an interview with LEADERSHIP while reacting to increased arrest of women bandits, terrorists collaborators and logistics couriers in Northern Nigeria.
LEADERSHIP reports that over six women have been arrested with arms and ammunition meant for terrorists/bandits in the bushes in 2024.
The Defence Headquarters had last week said troops arrested two female terrorists collaborators responsible for negotiations with relatives of victims for ransom.
Troops had on 25 January 2024 arrested a spouse of an infamous bandit leader in Benue while collecting ransom of N1.5m in Taraba.
Again on 8 September 2024 soldiers of Nigerian Army nabbed an informant and girlfriend of a notorious kidnapper terrorising Taraba and Benue States.
Earlier on 24 June 2024, troops in Katsina arrested a woman for allegedly transporting arms and ammunition for bandits/terrorists during a routine search.
Female suicide bombers had killed several persons in an explosion in Gwoza Borno State on 30 July 2024.
Dr Jabi, while reacting to these developments, said the Nigerian society is evolving and the armed forces had to do same to be steps ahead of the criminal gangs.
He said “the Nigerian society is evolving and as crime is concerned they are equally evolving. Having discovered the feat of the armed forces on the enemy of state,their new tactics now in the North East,North west is that it is difficult to suspect a woman to be carrying such harmful items. Also when they put on their hijab clothes pretending to be somebody’s wife you cannot touch them but recent development in the combat against enemies of state by the armed forces is yielding dividends.
“I commend them for uncovering that strategy and this is more so that it is more prominent in the North and it is still the Northern women that bandits are using to commit their nefarious activities.The armed forces are succeeding now in uncovering their tactics. In the battle field there are a lot of discoveries so the terrorists have devised another means of surviving so they have co-opted their female folk to be aiding and abetting crime.
“You know, in Northern Nigeria, women are particularly respected especially when they are in Hijab. Nobody wants to search them and nobody to check them because the assumption is that they are responsible and married but in recent times ,they are violating those rights that Islam gave them because of their involvement in the commission of crime and other vices as agents of enemies of the state by now becoming a conduit pipe in conveying arms and ammunition to their boyfriends/man friends that are into banditry …because nothing justifies women taking weapons and others to bandits in the bushes. They are partners in crime.”
