Nathan Yashim remembers the smell of burning flesh more vividly than the screams. At dawn on a January morning, gunmen stormed his village in Southern Kaduna, shooting and slashing through homes as families fled into the bush. In two hours, Yashim lost his father, mother, and younger brother. Their bodies were set ablaze with what remained of his home.
“I had over 20 hectares of land,”he said. “Now I have only ashes.”
His village, like dozens across Southern Kaduna, no longer exists. Between 2020 and 2023, the region became a symbol of rural abandonment and state failure—a slow-motion genocide enabled by political indifference, armed militias, and silence from Abuja.
This is not just Nigeria’s tragedy. From Ethiopia’s ethnic wars to Mali’s bandit hinterlands, Southern Kaduna reflects Africa’s broader collapse of rural governance. As farmers flee and fighters thrive, a question lingers: *If states cannot protect their most vulnerable, whose land is safe?
The Killing Years
By 2022, Kaduna was Nigeria’s deadliest state—not by accident, but by neglect. Under Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s second term, villages burned while state forces offered condolences, not protection.
- 2021:1,225 killed.
- 2022:1,074 dead—most in Southern Kaduna, where farmers were hunted in their fields and children butchered beside smoldering homes.
- 2015–2022: Over 3,600 lives lost to armed violence.
The bloodshed peaked in El-Rufai’s twilight years (2020–May 2023), with 3,444 deaths in just 36 months.
In December 2022, gunmen massacred 40 people in Malagum I and Sokong villages overnight. The Catholic Diocese published the names of the dead—many children. Survivors dug shallow graves where maize once grew.
According to the Atyap Community Union, 518 people were killed in Zangon Kataf LGA alone between 2018–2023. Twenty villages vanished. Thousands fled into forests with nothing but trauma.
“For two hours, they killed and burned,” Yashim recalled. “No one came to help us.
A Government of Silence
The state’s response was a ritual: condemnations, empty promises, and silence.
Governor El-Rufai called attacks “barbaric” and dispatched relief trucks. Yet survivors saw no arrests, no justice. Barracks stood idle in Jema’a; checkpoints dotted Kafanchan. But when bullets flew, the state was absent.
Critics accused El-Rufai of complicity. Senator Shehu Sani, a longtime activist, was blunt:
“If troops can guard oil fields, they can protect rural Christians. The government chooses not to.”
Amnesty International’s 2020 report echoed this: “No evidence of meaningful investigations… The state has failed.”
For Southern Kaduna, failure meant orphans, mass graves, and lands stripped of their people. Churches burned. Schools emptied. And no one was punished.
A Fragile Truce
When Uba Sani, El-Rufai’s protégé, took office in May 2023, few expected change. Yet by year’s end, gunfire had dimmed.
– 2023: 259 violent incidents (down from 419 in 2022).
– Deaths fell to 546 half of El-Rufai’s 2021 toll.
Sani’s strategy?
Dialogue, not just force. He met militia leaders, leveraging the Emir of Birnin Gwari as mediator.
“I’d rather negotiate than lose one more life,” he told the BBC.
Bandits who surrendered entered a federal demobilization program. Those who refused faced intensified military strikes. Markets reopened. Patrols increased.
But doubts lingered. Survivors asked: Where is justice for the dead? SOKAPU warned that without accountability, peace was a mirage.
The Unfinished Reckoning
Southern Kaduna’s wounds run deeper than ceasefires can heal.
Uba Sani’s policies brought respite, but El-Rufai’s legacy hangs heavy: 3,444 lives lost on his watch.The state’s indifference normalized impunity.
True peace demands more than quiet guns. It requires:
– Victim-centered justice— truth commissions, reparations.
– Land restitution for displaced farmers.
– Dismantling the militia economy that thrives on chaos.
Southern Kaduna’s story mirrors Africa’s rural crises—where state collapse fuels violence. The lesson is clear: Neglect begets bloodshed. Justice alone breeds lasting peace.
For Nathan Yashim, rebuilding begins with answers:
“Why were we abandoned? Who will speak for the dead?”
Until those questions are answered, the ashes of Southern Kaduna will keep whispering.