The Sokoto State government has established vigilante groups to help in tackling insecurity in the state.
Governor Ahmad Aliyu said those volunteers were meant to support the security agencies in combating the violent attacks and kidnappings that have plagued the state. Policing in Nigeria is run from the centre and some have argued that community policing such as this is necessary to tackle violent crime as locals know the terrain more.
Ahmed Idris from Al Jazeera visited the town of Gwadabawa state to witness one of those groups in training.
The federal government has introduced a National Policing Bill that is “being developed to provide the constitutional and legislative framework for a dual policing structure comprising a Federal Police Service and State Police Services, with appropriate institutional safeguards, accountability mechanisms and oversight arrangements”.
We have argued in the past that state policing, despite the theory, is fraught with risk and could turn into medicine worse than the illness.
The International Crisis Group called using vigilantes to fight crime a “double-edged sword”. But one of the residents interviewed in the Al Jazeera report didn’t seem that concerned. Incidents of attacks were said to be down by 90% since the vigilantes were introduced in the town.
Question marks remain about the effectiveness of this attempt even though the vigilantes are more accessible than the police or military. It is worth noting that terror groups such as the Lakurawa started out as vigilantes to protect farming and herding communities from violent criminal gangs in northwest Nigeria.
