ARMED BANDITRY IN ZAMFARA STATE: AN EVALUATION OF MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

After a decade of arms bandits activities in Zamfara State and the choice of military majors as most efficient strategy in addressing the conflict, this study evaluates the effectiveness of military intervention in curbing arms banditry activities in Zamfara State. Primary data in form of perception of 88 respondents that includes member of security personnel, security analysts, academics, government officials and community leaders was sourced with the help of a structured questionnaire. STATA Vision 19.0 was employed for the analysis while Kruskal–Walli’s rank tests, Spearman’s rank-order correlations, chi-square tests of association, descriptive statistics for key Likert-scale items, and one-sample t-tests comparing item means against a neutral benchmark of 3 test were conducted. The study indicates that military intervention in Zamfara State is perceived to have limited positive effect. The intervention was discovered to be challenged by structural, institutional, and socio-political factors. Stakeholders across occupations and education levels congregate in their perception showing strong supportfor a hybrid strategy in curbing arms banditry, integrated approach that combines kinetic operations with non-kinetic measures. The study recommends strong governance reforms, improvement in coordination, enhanced personnels morale and welfare, robust intelligence and border control, and community engagement, in addition to both kinetic and non-kinetic measures rather than reliance on military alone.