A new armed group called Lakurawa is attacking villages in remote corners of northwestern Nigeria and across the border in Niger, posing new threats to two countries that already suffer from protracted conflict involving several other groups, including Boko Haram.
In November, the Nigerian army acknowledged for the first time the existence of Lakurawa and said its members were operating from headquarters in the country’s Sokoto and Kebbi states.
Attacks by the group have killed dozens of people, and at least nine suspected members are known and have been declared wanted by the Nigerian army.
The northern region is one of the hottest beds of violence in Nigeria, with its states experiencing a toxic mix of armed attacks, kidnappings and banditry in recent years. The Nigerian army has also been grappling with a long-running battle with the Boko Haram armed group in the northeast for more than a decade.
Strained relations between Nigeria and Niger, stemming from Niger’s coup d’etat in July 2023, have also affected joint military operations and given the Lakurawa group more room to expand, officials say.
Here’s what to know about the group:
Who is Lakurawa?
According to Nigerian army officials, Lakurawa fighters are believed to originally be from troubled Mali, a Sahelian country that’s currently under fire from a swarm of transnational armed groups seeking territory to govern.
Groups like Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and ISIL affiliate in the Greater Sahara are some of the armed groups destabilising Mali.
Officials in Nigeria say Lakurawa members are affiliated with the Malian groups but have for years settled in communities along the Nigeria-Niger border, marrying local women and recruiting youth.
Researchers tracing the origin of the group, however, note that its members have not just begun operating. Originally, Lakurawa members were herdsmen who would carry rifles for protection.
They formed an organised armed group after local leaders in rural communities of Gudu and Tangaza, in Nigeria’s Sokoto State, invited them to help tackle armed bandits who were then raiding communities for money and cattle, and who helped prompt a kidnapping crisis in Nigeria.
Remote communities in the country are often ungoverned due to the inadequacies of the country’s local and state governments, allowing crime to thrive. The local leaders in Sokoto wanted Lakurawa fighters to battle the bandits and protect the communities.
Lakurawa members were able to dislodge the bandit threat between 2016 and 2017 and were paid for their work. However, the group’s members soon turned on communities, too. They fell out with one of the local leaders who had invited them and murdered him.
Most Lakurawa fighters are believed to be between 18 and 50 and speak Fulfulde, Hausa, and Arabic, according to the think tank, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs. Fulfulde is primarily spoken by the Fulani group whose members are spread across West Africa.
The Nigerian military said it had identified some of the group’s leaders: Abu Khadijah, Abdulrahaman (Idi), Dadi Gumba, Muhammed Abu, Usman Shehu, Abu Yusuf, Musa Walia, Ibrahim Suyaka, Ba Sulhu, and Idris Taklakse.
What do they want?
In its announcement in November, the Nigerian military said Lakurawa’s motivation or ideology is unknown.
However, researchers who’ve spoken to communities affected by the violence say the group promotes its own version of Islam and wants to seek a caliphate.
In areas they govern, the group is believed to have imposed its own version of Islamic law.
What have they done?
Members of Lakurawa have been attacking villages in Nigeria and Niger. They are believed to hold territory in several villages, where they also impose taxes on cattle.
As a tactic to attract more followers and gain local support, the group is said to be distributing money, farm tools, fertiliser, seeds, and water pumping machines to needy locals. Some estimates put monetary compensation for new recruits at 1 million naira ($645), and about 10,000 naira ($6) for local informants.
Villagers who don’t cooperate with the group’s leadership face threats and attacks. Lakurawa-related violence has left dozens dead. In one of the latest attacks on November 9, the group’s raid on the Mera community in Nigeria’s Kebbi State left 15 people dead.
How is Nigeria responding?
Tensions between Nigeria and Niger have hindered a joint and integrated response to Lakurawa and given the group some leeway.
Niger’s military seized power in July 2023, but Nigeria, the current leader of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc, has taken a hard line with the military, asking for it to return the country to civilian rule and free detained former President Mohamed Bazoum.
Before Niger’s 2023 coup, both countries’ armies maintained joint border patrol operations. That action is believed to have helped disperse the group in 2020.
However, amid the tensions that followed the coup, joint operations between the two countries were disrupted. Authorities in Nigeria say that was about the same time the group’s members re-grouped and began attacking communities again, taking advantage of the security vacuum as relations broke down further. Joint border patrols have since resumed.
In late 2024, Nigeria launched operations against the group. The military has conducted air strikes on targets believed to be Lakurawa members in the northern states affected, and ground assaults on the group’s camps.
Nigeria’s military acknowledged in December that it mistakenly killed 10 civilians after an air strike on the group’s munition hideout in the villages of Gidan Bisa and Gidan Runtuwa, Sokoto State, caused secondary explosions. The villages were a high concentration for the group, an army spokesperson said.
What about Niger?
Niger’s government has not revealed whether it has conducted special operations targeting the group, and it’s unclear what parts of Niger are affected.
In an interview with local reporters in December, military leader General Abdourahamane Tchiani blamed the group’s emergence on Nigeria and said Abuja and France were sponsoring the group to attack Niger.
The country, a former colony of France, has fallen out with Paris over the 2023 coup. Similarly, Mali and Burkina Faso, which are also ruled by military governments, have fallen out with their former colonial leader, France.
Since, French President Emmanuel Macron has gotten closer to Nigeria’s leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, leading to the former allies accusing Abuja of colluding with their enemy.
Tchianni, in a December interview, said top Nigerian officials, including President Tinubu’s security adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, were part of a plan to keep armed fighters in border communities in order to attack Niger.
“He knows about this but he has kept silent,” Tchiani said.
The Nigerian government denied the allegations, saying they were “in the realm of imagination”.