Vigilante groups and crime prevention

There are however three types of vigilante groups. The first one is made up of able bodied young men in the wards or villages who organize themselves to patrol their areas at night in order to protect members of their families and neighbours against thieves and armed robbers. They receive no pay. The second type […]

There are however three types of vigilante groups. The first one is made up of able bodied young men in the wards or villages who organize themselves to patrol their areas at night in order to protect members of their families and neighbours against thieves and armed robbers. They receive no pay. The second type of vigilante group is where a community hires people to guard and patrol the streets at night and the communities contribute money to pay them on a weekly or monthly basis. The third group of vigilante is where Local Government Areas (LGAs) employ people and equip them with uniform, boots, torchlight, and whistles. Their duty is patrol of areas assigned to them to prevent the commission of crimes and arrest offenders.
The vigilante group is necessitated by the increasing wave of armed robberies and insurgency in many parts of the country. The aims and objectives of the vigilante groups are mainly to prevent and detect crimes and also arrest offenders and hand them over to the police together with items recovered as a result of the arrests. The job of vigilante groups has been endangered in recent times in parts of Kaduna, Katsina and Zamfara states where gunmen attack towns and villages almost on a regular basis, killing members of the vigilante groups, residents and destroying or burning properties and livestock. It is important to note that members of vigilante group bear only local or traditional weapons such as bow and arrow, machetes, spears, sticks, etc. they are no match for the insurgents who use weapons such as AK 47, pistols, etc.
This sad situation led to the Governor of Zamfara State Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar to decide to give the vigilante groups in his state firearms, but this was not agreed to by the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Mohammed Abubakar because of the laws guiding granting of personal firearms. May be a special task force (STF) will have to be set up, including use of helicopter, to get rid of the insurgents in these states.
The situation in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and some other states in the North where a group known as Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnah Lid Da’awati wal Jihad (alias Boko Haram) operate for the first three years now is being effectively dealth with by the STF. However, there are still pockets of the insurgents adopting guerilla tactics of attacking targets and running away at night time. It was while this is going on that a Volunteer Vigilante Youth Group (VVYG), otherwise known as civilian JTF emerged in Maiduguri recently, assisting the Joint Task Force in locating and arresting members of Boko Haram. The move by the Borno youths comprising various ethnic groups is bold, courageous and patriotic. “A democratic community by its nature is always at risk from organized violence. If this comes from an external power, it is the task of the Armed Forces to contain and overcome it. If the threat is internal, it is the policemen’s task. If in either case the threat becomes too great for the professional army or professional police, then the community has to mobilize wholly or in part if it is to survive intact” (John Anderson, Policing Freedom. 1979).
It is necessary therefore that the residents of Maiduguri should not leave this patriotic act in the hands of youths alone. They should carefully watch activities in the neighbourhoods and immediately report suspicious characters or movements to the police. Residents in cities and towns that suffer Boko Haram attacks should similarly watch activities of strangers and report suspicious characters to security personnel. The recent arrests in Ogun and Lagos states of strangers who turned out to be members of Boko Haram is relevant to this point. Crime prevention is not the responsibility of Police and Armed Forces alone, various communities and the vigilante groups should join hands and assist in the detection and prevention of crime.
The police all over the country and the JTF in Maiduguri should assume effective control of the vigilante groups and civilian JTF under their jurisdictions. This is necessary in view of what the civilian JTF did in Borno State recently. According to newspaper reports, they attacked and set ablaze the house of a politician for suspicion of being a member of Boko Haram. They also reportedly set ablaze two suspected Boko Haram members on two occasions and burnt them to death (Weekly Trust, July 27, 2013).
In order to avoid civilian JTF and vigilante group members from taking the law into their hands, the police and military authorities should organize lectures and other forms of sensitization for them and stress the need to be civil and merciful in dealing with their victims. They should be made to understand that handing over arrested suspects alive to the police of JTF as the case may be will be more useful because of the information that that may be extracted from them. It is true that vigilante groups and civilian JTF know their localities more than the police and JTF. They patrol the nooks and corners in the areas they operate and this gives some of them an opportunity to attack innocent people in order to settle old scores. They could also be hired by influential people to intimidate their opponents.
In light of the above, it is necessary that members of civilian JTF or vigilante group should be accompanied by armed personnel to back them up while in patrol. Efforts should be made to draw operation order showing areas to be visited and time and the code of conduct read out to them to abide by it.
S.B. Mohammed is a retired commissioner of police.