‘Prevent women from the North from participating in terrorism’

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 terrorize Nigerians.

Dr. Abdullahi Muhammed Jabi, Director of Media and Publicity, International Institute of Professional Security (IIPS), said bandits have abused the sacred nature and respect accorded to women by using them as a conduit for the transportation of arms and ammunition .

He made the call in an interview with LEADERSHIP, while reacting to the increased arrests of female bandits, terrorist collaborators and logistics couriers in Northern Nigeria.

LEADERSHIP reports that in 2024, more than six women were arrested with weapons and ammunition intended for terrorists/bandits in the bushes.

Defense headquarters had said last week that troops had arrested two female terrorists responsible for negotiating ransom payments with relatives of victims.

Troops had on January 25, 2024, arrested a wife of a notorious bandit leader in Benue while collecting a ransom of N1.5 million in Taraba.

On September 8, 2024, soldiers of the Nigerian Army again arrested an informant and girlfriend of a notorious kidnapper terrorizing Taraba and Benue states.

Earlier on June 24, 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 July 30, 2024.
Dr. Reacting to these developments, Jabi said Nigerian society is evolving and the armed forces must do the same to stay ahead of criminal gangs.

He said that “Nigerian society is evolving and when it comes to crime, they are also evolving. Having discovered the achievement of the armed forces against the enemy of the state, their new tactic now in the North East and North West is that it is difficult to suspect that a woman is carrying such harmful objects. Even if they put on their hijab clothes and pretend to be someone’s wife, you can’t touch them, but the recent development in the fight against state enemies by the armed forces is bearing fruit.

“I commend them for exposing that strategy, and this is especially true because it is more prominent in the North and it is still the Northern women who use bandits to carry out their nefarious activities. The armed forces are now succeeding in exposing their tactics. Many discoveries have been made on the battlefield, so the terrorists have come up with another way to survive, so they have co-opted their women people to aid and abet the crime.

“You know, in Northern Nigeria, women are highly respected, especially when they wear a headscarf. No one wants to search them and no one wants to check them because the assumption is that they are responsible and married, but lately they are violating the rights that Islam gave them because of their involvement in committing crime and other vices as agents of enemies . of the state by now becoming a conduit for transporting arms and ammunition to their boyfriends/friends who are into banditry… because nothing justifies women taking arms and others to bandits in the bushes. They are partners in crime.”