Now, young men take a stand against crime in Plateau
“Without policemen on guard anywhere around us, our feeling of safety as a community comes only from members of the Neigbourhood Watch group that protect us here,” a resident of Zaramaganda, a community in Jos South LGA of Plateau State, James Izeen, said.Deep down the interior of a section of Zaramaganda, a mass settlement sandwiched […]
“Without policemen on guard anywhere around us, our feeling of safety as a community comes only from members of the Neigbourhood Watch group that protect us here,” a resident of Zaramaganda, a community in Jos South LGA of Plateau State, James Izeen, said.
Deep down the interior of a section of Zaramaganda, a mass settlement sandwiched between Dadin Kowa, Bukuru, and elite Rayfield, is the set of men constituting the Neigbourhood Watch group which Izeen refers to. These men who are not members of the larger Vigilante Group of Nigeria, but operate as a small unit responsible only for the security of the immediate community where they also live, bear no firearms but work effectively to keep hurtful intruders from the community.
“Our cars were being stolen, our houses were being broken into; we were confronted with all sorts of crime, so we as a community held meetings and concluded that we needed to watch our communities by ourselves against criminals coming from outside and the bad ones among us.” Izeen said.
HOW THE GROUPS OPERATE: The Neighbourhood Watch group in Izeen’s part of Zaramaganda works from dusk to dawn. The young men who constitute the group mount their road block on the dirt road that leads from Rayfield road and runs down through the community. Motorists driving in are checked against dangerous objects while those driving out are searched to ensure no stolen valuables are taken out.
A resident new to the community, speaking of how he got to know about the informal security system of his part of Zaramaganda, said: “The first time I encountered the Neighbourhood Watch guards, I did not know what was happening. I was driving back home about 8.15 pm and when I got to these people, I thought there had been a crisis and I was probably in danger because these people were not there when I drove out in the morning.
They placed big stones on the road and were holding sticks and horse whips. But when they gently made me open my booth which they checked and allowed me to pass, I relaxed. A neighbor later explained the set up to me and I came to appreciate them and to feel that in that community, I am safe.”
The fact of inadequate police personnel to offer community policing being a prime reason for the preeminence of home-grown neighbourhood guards in Jos and much of the rest of Plateau State is given by a member of a body of guards operating in the Gura-Loh-Gyang area of Abattoir, a Jos south community named after Plateau State’s biggest abattoir located in the vicinity.
The Neighbourhood Watch member, Pius Gyang, recounting the genesis of the group, said, “The community itself decided we needed vigilante setup because when something happens and you go to the police station, they will have reason why they can’t help you, they will tell you they can’t come because there are no extra hands to man the station if they should leave their station.”
Leader of the Gura-Loh-Gyang group, Philip Pam disclosed that the group is made up of 18 members who exchange duties every other day. He explained: “Nine people work one night and the other nine work the next night; that’s one day work and one day off for the 18.” The Gura-Loh-Gyang community, he added, has three main entrances and each entrance is manned by two guards.
To sustain the guards, each Gura-Loh-Gyang landlord is taxed N500 and each tenant N200 every month. The sums are pooled and disbursed monthly to the guards. “The state government which encouraged the neighbourhood watch idea promised to pay the guards from SURE-P Fund but we are yet to get that, so we rely now on what we get from the landlords and tenants,” Pam disclosed.
MAY BOMB BLASTS IN JOS INCREASED COMMUNAL SECURITY CONSCIOUSENESS, SWELLED VIGILANTE GROUPS: The twin bomb blasts which struck Jos city’s commercial hub, the Terminus area, three months ago, would much likely have spawned heavy after-effect casualty in one or two parts of the Jos metropolis but for effective work of vigilante groups in Rukuba road, Angwan Rukuba and Bauchi Road, three Jos communities that are defined by religion, like most neighborhoods around the state capital. While residents of Rukuba road and Angwan Rukuba are predominantly Christians, those around Bauchi Road are mostly Muslims.
The twin blasts which had killed over a hundred people in Teminus had created in some residents the curious feeling that the blasts were directed at people of a particular religion. Some residents in particularly those thee communities became hostile to people around them who appeared likely to be of an opposite faith.
The disturbing news soon spread that the Terminus blasts had opened old sectarian wounds among residents and everyone needed to be careful which places they would go to. Most residents canceled other plans they had and headed home. Sunday Trust’s reporters in Jos, Lami Sadiq and Hassan Ibrahim, had a taste of the development when a group of men attacked them along Rwang Pam Street, a commercial district at the Jos city centre, as they made to reach home after a fact-finding visit to Plateau Specialist Hospital, one of the three major hospitals where people who sustained injuries and corpses from the Terminus blasts were taken to.
As Lami and Hassan were chased in Rwang Pam Street, scores of other individuals had similar treatment meted to them in other communities across the city, and while reports had it that one or two unlucky residents were actually killed in such circumstances, reports also singled out a vigilante group in Bauchi Road, as having done particularly well at stopping what could have greatly worsened the pain that the Terminus bomb blasts had caused the hundreds of people who lost loved ones, received injuries, or lost properties.
“Members of a vigilante group Tuesday prevented a skirmish around Bauchi road in Jos shortly after the twin bomb explosions at the Terminus main market,” Daily Trust of May 22, 2014 reported. Giving a background to the development, the report stated, “Daily Trust gathered that angry youths had barricaded major roads around Tina junction (in Anguwan Rukuba), Bauchi road and Rukuba road in the city, attacking passersby by from different religions. The intervention of a vigilante group around Bauchi road before the arrival of law enforcement agents who dispersed the youths and controlled traffic was said to have saved many lives.”
Four days after the Terminus twin explosions, a car exploded near a Bauchi Road television viewing centre on May 24. When the car bomb exploded, what would have been a heavy casualty at the targeted viewing centre was prevented when progress and making the bomb go off before it could get to the viewing centre where football enthusiasts, said to be close to a hundred, were watching a foreign league match.
The two men, residents of the area, had accosted the bomber in his Honda car, and because they did not know him, they told him only members of the community were allowed there. It was while this contention was going on that the Oddesy, still far from the viewing centre, blew up.
The explosion sadly shattered the two interveners and of course the bomber, but none of those at the viewing centre had scratch. So what could have been about a hundred deaths were reduced to three, thanks to the brave two who unfortunately paid the supreme price.
The Bauchi Road blast, coming almost immediately after the Terminus disaster, further woke many communities in Jos to a need for self-protection. Around Jos now, about every ward has a neighbourhood watch assemblage, operating much like the vigilante group
Alhaji Ahmad Mudi Adamu, Commander of Vigilante Group of Nigeria in Ibrahim Katsina ward of Jos North Local Government Area, affirmed that security consciousness induced by the Terminus and Bauchi road blasts has given the group more impetus. He said, “Following the bomb blasts, hundreds of youths joined the group. We now have more personnel. Our surveillance capacity as been boosted and intelligence gathering strengthened.”
ACHIEVEMENTS: In Jos, vigilante groups by whatever description do not carry firearms. The nearest they get to firearms are sticks, whips, and in rare cases, knives or swords, more to restrain miscreants than to hurt them. The guards have as firearms their knowledge of the community and the people therein. From the knowledge of their places of operation where they typically also live, they are able to gather security intelligence quite quickly.
Vigilante Group of Nigeria’s Ahmed Adamu put it in these words: “In each of our units, residents of the area are the ones that handle their units because they are more familiar with the community and know the bad eggs in the area and can easily detect strangers. They have the knowledge of every nook and cranny of their area, they are in a better position to know of impending breakdown of law and so are able to prevent or halt it. When there is a breach of peace we have the phone numbers of each other and we release the alert to members immediately.”
Asked to relate the group’s achievements in recent past, Adamu said, “Restraining restive youths who got used to acting as if they were above the law, terrorizing people with impunity, has been a major achievement. In the past in Jos, there were streets you couldn’t pass in the day or at night because of the activities of restive youths. They would stand anywhere, including the doorsteps of people, smoking Indian hemp. You dared not complain because they would attack you. Once they were high on drugs, they would snatch phones and steal other valuables from helpless passers-by, rape girls and commit such crimes that drive fear into people. The level of impunity was high but the coming of vigilante has curbed the menace.”
He added that his group goes as far as resolving family disputes and disagreements among members of the community. He submitted however that in matters which become too much for the group, the group contacts the police. He said, “In our activities, we contact the ward head and elders of the area and engage the youths as we may find such consultations necessary. We also use religious leaders to pass information that members of the community need to have. When we find it necessary, we enlist the intervention of law enforcement agencies to whom we usually hand over suspects that we arrest.”
Like the Vigilante Group of Nigeria which is a national security outfit with its headquarters in Kaduna, the grassroots vigilante groups which are otherwise called Neigbourhood Watch across Plateau State, exist as structurally autonomous units in their separate communities, the operate with the blessings of the Nigeria Police.
Although community guard groups have existed in Plateau State for many years, their numbers increased last year when the Plateau State Police Command formally inaugurated old ones and newly established ones and called them Neigbourhood Watch groups. The Police Command, empowering the vigilante groups to make necessary arrest but to hand all arrested suspects to the nearest police formation, urged them to work closely with the police.
“Your role is to provide useful information to the police, note that you must be diligent in performing your responsibilities,” the state police commissioner that time, Chris Olakpe, told members at the formal inauguration, on March 7, 2013, of the Neighborhood Watch teams in Plateau State . The idea of the Neigbourhood Watch, Olakpe said, is to establish community policing aimed at minimizing crime rate across the state.
He said Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) across the state had been mandated to issue identification badges to vigilante members, monitor their activities, and prevent non-members from hijacking the groups to cause havoc in the state.
Assuring the vigilante groups from the 17 local council areas of the police cooperation in their efforts to rid the state of crime, Olakpe said, “Nothing should deter you from performing your duties, we are behind you.”
Till date, the Neigbourood Watch groups across Plateau State work with the police. “We work under the supervision of the divisional police officer covering our community,” said Philip Pam of the Gura-Loh-Gyang vigilante group who added that the identity cards, customized vests and caps which the guards wear come from the same divisional police officer but paid for by the individual guards who wear them.