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VIOLENCE AGAINST THE VIGILANCE GROUP
The brutal killing of nine members of the ‘Yan Ba Beli’ vigilante group in Bauchi points to the perilous nature of their crucial job.
Vigilantes may not have the aura or glamour of security personnel. They lack their support and funding. Yet, they are always brutally efficient, hands-on, and quick to the task.
Nigeria’s mighty struggle to rein in insecurity has come at a staggering cost. Gallant men and women in its security forces have often met their painful end at the hands of criminals and miscreants.
The memory of how about 20 soldiers were killed by criminals in Niger State is still fresh for many Nigerians.
Insecurity in Nigeria has been geographical. Its concentration in the rural areas has shattered their serenity and compounded their poverty and vulnerability.
Where life used to be peaceful and quiet even if poor, it is now full of pain and uncertainty as a result of insecurity.
As violence has mounted, Nigeria has had its hands full.
The critical work they do is highlighted by what could happen if they are absent.
In most parts, they are localized and always available. They take away the long response time to security emergencies in Nigeria’s ponderous ecosystem of protocols and sheer inefficiency.
Vigilantes also provide some measure of employment for youths who would otherwise be left idle with all the harrowing possibilities. Nigeria’s security situation deserves to be studied. The lightning speed with which a country which used to dwell in relative safety made the descent into insecurity deserves to be investigated.
There is hardly a day that goes by in Nigeria without one story or the other about a terrorist attack in one place or the other. Children have been abducted. Women and girls have been taken too. Men have been slaughtered. Entire villages have been sacked and razed.
Rural farmers have been especially terrorized, as much as their farms. They have sown, but often failed to reap. In their place, others have reaped. With this turn of events has come grueling food insecurity and grinding poverty to go with it. Surely, a country of hungry people is as angry as they come.
To say that Nigeria’s security agents are underfunded is to put it mildly. Their lack of professionalism is explained by their poor training.
As insecurity has mounted, they have also had to relearn the art of the body count. Indeed, they have lost count.
Before insecurity became such an existential issue in Nigeria, the country was under secured. A large, populous country policed by so few policemen was always going to struggle.
As many communities have fallen victims to rampaging criminal elements, Nigeria’s security has struggled to string a response. It is where vigilantes have always stepped in. Because they know the terrain and are always available, they have proven their ability to secure vulnerable communities.
They must be supported and protected in the very crucial work they do. It is about legislation first. Vigilantes in Nigeria must see themselves to be backed by statute, so they can work well.
There is a tendency for the so-called proper security agencies to thumb their noses at them. Proper legislation would fix that.
Then there is the need for funding. Adequate funding at that. Since vigilante groups around the country have shown themselves to be extremely capable and available at the grassroots where insecurity is rife, it makes incredible sense to empower them to fight insecurity.
There are legitimate concerns, of course, about how some of these vigilance groups can become too powerful overnight, becoming at once lawless and reckless. But proper legislation and adequate funding can fix that.
The Nigerian experience with insecurity has been a truly sobering one. So much has been sacrificed on the altar of insecurity. So many things have been thrown at it, and somehow they have failed.
At great personal risk, vigilantes offer a viable and sustainable option. Nigeria must know how to harness this resource properly.
Ike Willie-Nwobu,
