As I sat with the person I had come to see, two Lakurawa fighters approached us. They questioned my identification, and the person shortly launched me as his brother, a dealer from Sokoto.
One of many fighters switched to Arabic, demanding my identify and testing me with fast exchanges. My responses eased his suspicion; he shook my hand, praised my fluency, and even touched my beard, saying it mirrored spiritual devotion.
He then seized my telephone, ordered me to unlock it, and condemned the music he discovered as ‘unholy.’ I defined that the telephone was newly bought, however he nonetheless instructed me to take away the reminiscence card, which he destroyed, warning that he would have whipped me had he thought I deliberately saved such gadgets.
Noticing my cufflinks, he accused my companion of beforehand shopping for him a pretend pair and, with out hesitation, lashed him with a whip, calling him ‘dan rainin wayo’ (somebody insolent sufficient to fake to be intelligent).”
This firsthand account from a GGA Nigeria native fixer in Magoho group in Tangaza native authorities space of Sokoto state just isn’t merely a narrative of a slender escape. It presents a stark window into the suffocating actuality of life below Lakurawa’s rule – an setting outlined by coercion, suspicion, and unrestrained violence.
In a single encounter, one sees the group’s authoritarian strategies: relentless monitoring, ideological probing, enforcement of an excessive ethical code, and sudden punitive actions that depart residents perpetually terrified.
A easy reminiscence card will be branded “unholy,” and a cufflink can set off a whipping. That is the grim actuality of Lakurawa’s harsh administration throughout a number of communities in Sokoto and Kebbi States – an order constructed on intimidation, spiritual manipulation, and the unchallenged energy of armed males.
For the previous yr, GGA Nigeria has been gathering knowledge on Lakurawa, reportedly an offshoot of al-Qaeda working primarily in northwest Nigeria, with reported footprints within the Northeast, Northcentral areas, and components of Niger Republic.
Between October and November 2025, GGA Nigeria undertook discipline missions to Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, and Zamfara States. Throughout this era, GGA Nigeria’s researcher interviewed a mid-ranking member of the group, whereas the organisation’s native fixer had a number of encounters and interactions with fighters within the Mastigi and Magoho areas of Sokoto State.
Following a year-long effort to construct rapport with components of the group, the fixer gained unique entry to Lakurawa’s 2025 Maulid celebration in a forested space of Kebbi State in November.
Over 4 days, he carried out a number of interviews with a senior commander, had discussions with the group’s most senior member in Nigeria, was launched to the group’s founder, interacted with quite a few fighters, and noticed their routine actions. These insights type a part of GGA Nigeria’s forthcoming report on the group.
For a number of years, residents of border communities in Kebbi and Sokoto States have endured a violent system of management disguised because the enforcement of Sharia.
Many villagers now specific deep remorse over ever accommodating the group. But, on the time of Lakurawa’s arrival, resistance was unattainable: the group portrayed itself as an ethical drive, and state safety actors had been conspicuously absent.
Faith as political know-how: how Lakurawa captures communities.
A number of communities initially accepted the group as a result of Lakurawa portrayed itself each as a defence in opposition to bandits and as an enforcer of Islamic morality.
To additional win native belief, the fighters engaged in actions introduced as charitable or reformative – mediating disputes, providing small financial help, and raiding outlets to destroy cigarettes and alcohol, which they labelled un-Islamic. Store house owners whose items had been destroyed acquired stipends starting from ₦10,000 to ₦100,000 as compensation.
Members additionally engaged in Islamic proselytising, inspired piety, urged younger males to develop their beards, and discouraged the carrying of t-shirts and denims. Native clerics had been changed on the grounds that they lacked enough spiritual authority, with beardless clerics deemed unfit to steer worship.
“After they first got here to our village, three months ago (July 2025), we acquired them with open arms due to how they introduced themselves. They weren’t violent and stated they had been there to make sure that Islam was practised.
We might sit with them, and they might gist us about their intentions, saying they’d be going from village to village to destroy any un-Islamic practices or methods of life,” a resident of Sitti group in Tangaza native authorities space recounted.
When Lakurawa imposed zakat, many complied as a result of zakat is a recognised spiritual obligation, particularly because the group initially demanded solely ten per cent. However shortly after, the group altered the foundations – first dictating the portions to be paid, then progressively seizing total livestock herds.
Those that resisted had been subjected to punishments starting from execution to kidnapping. Hostages had been taken to forest camps and launched solely after ransom funds or surrendering their cattle.
As a part of its interpretation of ‘Sharia,’ Lakurawa routinely inspected folks’s telephones for ‘unholy’ content material. SIM playing cards and reminiscence playing cards had been destroyed on the spot, whereas Mohawk haircut and music triggered beatings.
The severity of punishment for music relied on the kind of songs discovered: Hausa songs attracted 50 lashes per music, whereas international or Afrobeat songs resulted in 100.
“They opened my telephone and located many songs. So, I used to be going to be whipped for every music. Just a few of them pleaded on my behalf as a result of, in line with them, I used to be good to them and at all times provided them water and fura da nono (millet porridge combined with milk). So, their chief stated they’d be lenient and stated I needs to be lashed 150 instances for all of the songs mixed,” one other Sitti resident defined.
Communities now brazenly say that Lakurawa is extra oppressive and harmful than the bandits they declare to guard them from, whose reign of terror throughout northern Nigeria is related to killings, kidnapping, rape, armed theft, and the destruction of livelihoods.
A resident of Magoho said, “When bandits assault, they solely kidnap folks and launch them after ransom is paid. They haven’t any enterprise going by way of your telephone, whipping you for having music in your telephone and even imposing costume code.”
A risk consolidating in silence
Lakurawa continues to develop with minimal resistance. The group at present maintains a nominal or everlasting presence in not less than 19 native authorities areas and 82 villages throughout Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara States, with most of its footprint in Kebbi.
The group repeatedly asserted, in interviews carried out by GGA Nigeria, each immediately and thru its fixer, that its sole goal is the entrenchment of Sharia as practised by Sheikh Usman dan Fodio, founding father of the Sokoto Caliphate.
It insists that it doesn’t goal civilians and solely confiscates property from those that refuse to pay zakat.
In line with the group, those that refuse are first admonished with Qur’anic directions, however drive is utilized if they continue to be defiant. But, the sharp distinction between these claims and the group’s conduct exposes Lakurawa’s technique of exploiting faith as a smokescreen for predatory violence.
For example, in addition they forcibly seize folks’s oxen, together with once they encounter farmers actively utilizing them to plough their fields. This follow has severely undermined agricultural output for 2025 and poses a major risk to meals safety in 2026, significantly in Kebbi State, because the lack of oxen leaves many households capable of domesticate solely minimal parts of their farmland.
The Nigerian authorities’s lack of ability to guard rural communities has created fertile floor for the group to deeply entrench itself, recruit followers, and extract assets – capability that finally fuels additional confrontation with the state.
The nation’s porous borders, the absence of safety oversight throughout huge forested zones of the northwest, and strained relations between ECOWAS and the Alliance of Sahel States have additional undermined cross-border cooperation.
These tensions have weakened intelligence sharing, joint operations, and the suitable of sizzling pursuit between Nigeria and Niger, giving Lakurawa room to develop.
Lakurawa has remained largely below the radar as a result of, not like Boko Haram factions within the Northeast, it has not carried out main assaults on safety forces or precipitated mass civilian casualties that might draw nationwide headlines.
Nonetheless, the group has been steadily increasing its arsenal, elevating income and absorbing recruits – together with some former bandits and people from Mali – creating situations for a harmful escalation.
The latest abduction of the Deputy Speaker of the Kebbi State Home of Meeting – who regained his freedom solely after a ransom of N200 million was paid, together with a portion delivered in CFA francs – underscores the Lakurawa’s capability to focus on high-profile people and their increasing operational attain.
The risk is energetic, rising, and ready for the second when it may possibly totally erupt, until Nigeria actively and urgently works to make sure that the risk by no means materialises.
Malik Samuel is a senior researcher at Good Governance Africa-Nigeria. Earlier than becoming a member of GGA, he was a researcher with the Institute for Safety Research, specialising within the Boko Haram battle within the Lake Chad Basin Area.
Malik additionally labored as a battle researcher with Amnesty Worldwide Nigeria. He was additionally a Médecins Sans Frontières/Medical doctors With out Borders discipline communications supervisor in Northeast Nigeria.
Earlier than that, he was an investigative journalist on the Abuja-based Worldwide Centre for Investigative Reporting.
Malik holds a Grasp’s diploma in Battle, Peace, and Safety from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and the United Nations Institute for Coaching and Analysis (UNITAR).
