Kidnap survivor recounts forest torture as bandit groups clash in Niger
A kidnap survivor in Niger State has narrated his forest ordeal amid a turf war between armed bandits and the Lakurawa terrorist group.
A man who escaped from kidnappers in Niger State, Aliyu Alaramma, has narrated his ordeal in the forest amid a turf war between armed bandits and the Lakurawa terrorist group. Mr Alaramma, a resident of Kawon Kontagora in the Kontagora Local Government Area of Niger State, was abducted alongside his elder brother on their farm recently. He escaped five days after his kidnapping.
Speaking in an interview, Mr Alaramma recounted the severe torture he and other captives endured. He narrated how he tried to escape into the volatile Kulho forest in the Mashegu Local Government Area, a remote, densely forested region near the Kainji Forest Reserve and Zugurma, where several armed groups have camps.
“I ran and hid in the thick grass, crawling through it to stay out of sight,” Mr Alaramma recalled. “At one point, I managed to hit one of the bandits with a stone. I kept moving, but as I ran, I struck another one of them. He immediately called his accomplices on his mobile phone, and they all rushed toward my location on motorcycles”.
“When they arrived, one of them drew his sword and ordered me to lie down. I refused,” he said. “He lunged at me with a sword. I struck the hand holding the weapon, but he still managed to slash me. I don’t remember exactly what happened after that. When I regained consciousness, I was covered in blood near a stream in their forest den, having suffered a gunshot wound to the head”.
Mr Alaramma said the kidnappers initially demanded a ₦100 million ransom for his release. “They told me if I didn’t pay, I would never be released,” he stated. “I told them I had never even seen ₦100 million in my entire life”. After the bandits confiscated his phone and discovered photos of military personnel, they accused him of being an undercover soldier. “We were blindfolded and starved for hours and days without food and water”.
The kidnappers later reduced their demand to ₦10 million, threatening that failure to comply would result in the victims being transferred directly to their boss, Mr Gide. According to Mr Alaramma, the bandits’ camps were divided into six distinct operational groups under Mr Gide’s command.
Mr Alaramma revealed that a deadly firefight broke out between Mr Gide’s men and the Lakurawa group, an extremist sect active in North-west and North-central Nigeria.
This echoes the 2021 clash between bandit groups in Zamfara, when rival factions fought for control of territory and resources. The mechanism then was different, but the result was the same: civilians caught in the crossfire, kidnapped for ransom, and a state unable to protect its citizens.
The winners: none. The losers: Mr Alaramma and his brother, who endured torture and starvation; the families of kidnapping victims; and the Nigerian state, which has failed to secure its citizens.
Bottom Line: A man was kidnapped, tortured, shot and escaped. The bandits who held him are fighting each other. The government is nowhere to be found.