Are Vigilantes The New Boko Haram?

In 2013, thousands of young men formed a rag-tag militia and rounded up Boko Haram members in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria, then handed them over to the military.

The Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), as it later became known, was instrumental in driving the Islamist militants out of the strategic city.

Since then, the ranks of the “vigilantes” have swollen to about 20,000 across the remote region.

Armed with home-made muskets, swords, axes, slingshots and bows and arrows, they man security checkpoints and even accompany the military on operations against the jihadists.

“If it wasn’t for the CJTF (Maiduguri) would have long fallen into the hands of Boko Haram,” said Saad Abubakar, a community leader in the Borno state capital.

“They are a fearless band of committed young men who know Boko Haram members and the terrain very well,” he told AFP.

But with a relative calm returning to the northeast as a result of a sustained counter-insurgency, one question is increasingly being asked: what to do with the vigilantes?

Some have already been implicated in allegations of human rights abuses and there are fears that with no alternative employment, some could turn to a life of crime.

“What next after the war is our concern,” said the Borno state coordinator of the CJTF, Abba Aji Kalli.
“Some vigilantes may decide to become criminals. The government should think twice before it’s too late.”