SPECIAL REPORT… TELECOMS BLACKOUT: Nigeria’s latest tactic against banditry grounds businesses, forcing residents beyond borders

The fight against notorious bandits raining terror and kidnapping students in Northwest Nigeria took a new dimension in September as the government explored shutting down telecommunications networks to enhance security operations. Alfred Olufemi reports on how this measure takes a heavy toll on the social and economic activities of millions of residents.

Gun-wielding bandits paid Zamfara state-owned College of Agriculture a dangerous visit on the night of August 16.

On that fateful evening, Yusuf Namadi, 35, was far away in Talata Mafara, a community located 90 kilometres away from Bakura, the location of the institution. Yet, the reports of the incident left the Chemistry tutor devastated.

Two people were reported killed and 19 persons, including 15 students and two of his colleagues, were held hostage for several days before their eventual release.

“It was really a sad one. And sudden too (sic),” Namadi said in a hush tone, struggling to complete the sentence.

Everyone was told to vacate the school after the night attack, he continued after a long pause.

But a few weeks after Namadi had been at home as a result of the closure of the school, the Nigerian government announced a decision that led to the shutdown of one of his lucrative businesses.

Our reporter met him outside his shop in Talata Mafara local government area of Zamfara State, where he sells building materials. Being a multi-business owner, alongside the teaching engagement, Namadi engages in bulk sales of recharge cards and operates a PoS outlet that promotes financial inclusion in the community of over 200,000 people.

But not anymore.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) mandated all telecommunication operators in the country to stop extending services to Zamfara and its environs, effective Friday, September 3.

The move was to stop the bandits who were harnessing the availability of the networks to coordinate their attacks and aid military incursions of their hideouts.

However, the directive that was supposed to last for a fortnight was later extended indefinitely in Zamfara. Some state governments in other Northwest states such as Katsina, Sokoto and Kaduna where banditry is rife, also approached the federal government to shut down services in some local government areas as well.

While top security officials are convinced that the measure is yielding results, Namadi and several others whose survival and businesses depend on mobile telecommunications continue to suffer.

‘Millions in the dark’

Of the six Northwest states in the country, only Kano and Kebbi states were spared from the network restrictrictions as of the time this newspaper Nigeria visited the region. The other four; Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina and Kaduna had either experienced a partial or total shutdown in the past two months, Ripples Nigeria confirmed.

Of course, aside from the prevalence of bandits’ attacks in the Northwest states, the region had the highest number of mass school abductions in the past one year, accounting for five of nine cases recorded between December 2020 and July 2021.

Following the directive from the federal government, the network shutdown was first effected across the fourteen local government areas of Zamfara, denying the population of 9.2 million people mobile and Internet access.

One month later, the ban was lifted in Gusau local government but thirteen areas remain in the dark.

Barely a week after the shutdown in Zamfara commenced, Katsina state followed suit by ordering operators to shut down services in 13 of its 24 local governments — Funtua, Bakori, Jibiya, Malulfashi, Faskari, Batsari and Danmusa, Sabuwa, Kankara, Dutsinma, Kurfi, Safana and Dandume.

In Sokoto state, fourteen areas; Gada, Goronyo, Gudu, Ilela, Isa, Kebbe, Sabon Birni, Shagari, Rabah, Tambuwal, Tangaza, Tureta, Wurno, and Dange Shuni were affected by the shutdown until the Governor intervened, begging the President to lift the ban in some areas.

Kaduna was the fourth Northwest state to adopt the measure. However, Governor Nasir El-Rufai refused to mention the affected local government areas.

But according to a survey conducted by SBMorgen, a Nigerian geopolitical intelligence platform, during the first two weeks of the telecommunications blackout in Zamfara, Katsina and Kaduna states, 66 percent of the respondents had their businesses impacted greatly while 34 percent said the impact was little.

The intelligence platform, in its 17-page report, also stated that impact on the fundamental rights of residents in the affected states “cannot go unmentioned as well as the general public’s right to know what actions were being taken in the name of security.”

It noted that while government authorities had justified the shutdowns on the twin grounds that it was requested by the security agencies and done to enhance national security, it falls short of international practices.

“Under international law and international humanitarian law, military and quasi-military actions undertaken by nation-states should meet the tripartite principles of distinction (which demands that the civilian population and combatants should be clearly distinguished), necessity (that requires only a grave and imminent peril to a country’s essential interest would legally justify a breach of an international obligation) and proportionality (where measures carried out by a nation-state are required to be ‘proportional’ to the armed attack and necessary to respond to it.)”

Meanwhile, a Ripples Nigeria analysis of data from Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), a project of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), showed that an estimated 84 persons were lost to attacks in Zamfara between September 3 and October 28 — a period after the telecoms ban was implemented.

For instance on October 14, bandits killed twelve in Kaura-Namode and on October 28, they killed twenty security operatives in Shinkafi, both areas in Zamfara.

Nevertheless, the spokesperson of the Nigeria Airforce, Gabriel Gabkwet, said the Nigerian troops have recorded huge successes in the past few months.

The successes, Mr Gabkwet attributed to the overpowering of the bandits by the combined efforts of the men of the Nigerian military, comprising the Airforce, Army and other outfits.

“The only way is by working. So, basically it’s been very successful. A lot of fire power. Their hideouts are being penetrated,” the official stated.

Hundreds of thousands lost in two months

Namadi’s shop was not as busy as it would have been two months ago. He was moodily seated on a wooden bench with his back resting on the iron bars that demarcated the shop where he sells building materials from the container that served his now rested telecommunications and PoS businesses.

He could only console himself by spending more time at the shop after closing down the container.

“This container you are seeing, I’m the owner. I’m the overall supplier of recharge cards in this area but due to this shutdown, it is closed,” he retorted.

Namadi said the continued closure of his container has cost him an estimated 200,000 naira (487USD) in profit and the uncertainty of a sooner reversal of the government’s directive makes him sad.

“Even the other businesses, the shortage of network has affected it (sic). If you want to buy anything, you have to either travel to Gusau or Sokoto just make calls,” he said.

Before the network was restored in Gusau, Namadi would travel to parts of Sokoto with unrestricted network access, over 180 kilometers from Talata Mafara, to make phone calls. The restoration in nearby Gusau only helped reduce the journey to 87 kilometers.

Apart from plying deadly routes where bandits operate and risking being kidnapped, Namadi’s profit has waned.

“The travels have reduced my profit”, he said, reminiscing days when only a phone call in the comfort of his stable was what he needed to make orders.

Now, it takes five days to make orders, the businessman stated.

But he claims that despite the increase in logistics costs he hasn’t increased the selling price of paints, tiles and other building materials displayed in the store.

Additional expenses equates price increase

Unlike Namadi, 40-year-old Mansur Maikanti said incurring an additional 50 percent expenses due to the network outage caused an increase in price of the commodities which is not pleasing to his customers.

The wholesale trader who sells rice, noodles, spaghetti and bottled drinks to retailers in Ilela, a border community in Sokoto, had just returned from a business trip when this reporter visited.

Although the network in Ilela was restored six days prior to this newspaper’s visit, Maikanti shared his horrendous experience when the ban was still active.