Vigilantes or Allies?

Security Professionals Weigh the Risks and Rewards of Partnering with Non-State Security Actors

ADF STAFF

In May 2013, a group of young men in northern Nigeria’s Borno State decided to fight back against Boko Haram. Crudely armed with sticks, machetes and garden implements, they set up roadblocks and fanned out on foot patrol. They inspected cars for bombs or weapons and gathered information from the community to make “citizen’s arrests” of suspected extremists.

Their formation roughly corresponded with the state of emergency declared in three northern states, so they decided to call themselves the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) in hopes that they could align their work with that of the military’s Joint Task Force, which was fighting terrorism in the region.

Over time, the civilians made an impact. Briefly, they were credited with driving Boko Haram out of Maiduguri, the group’s birthplace and the largest city in northeastern Nigeria. They fought hardened Boko Haram militants toe to toe despite being outgunned and outnumbered. They earned so much respect that the Borno State government reached into its threadbare pockets to pay members $100 per month and even gave them pickup trucks for patrolling.

“Everyone trusts the Civilian JTF more than the military,” said Agafi Kunduli, a resident of Maiduguri in an interview with The Daily Beast published in May 2014.

The group also drew criticism. Some CJTF members became frustrated with the slow pace of justice and conducted extrajudicial killings, even burning people alive.

“They take matters into their own hands,” said Valkamiya Ahmadu-Haruna, a senior program officer for the CLEEN Foundation in Nigeria, a group that promotes justice sector reform. “They’re saying [to the police], ‘We handed this suspect over to you, we didn’t get any official word back of what is happening. … We might as well carry out instantaneous justice.’ ”

They also lost some credibility in July 2014 when Nigerian officials arrested Boko Haram leader Babuji Ya’ari, who had infiltrated the CJTF. Some in Maiduguri decided that a vigilante group made up of civilians was giving Boko Haram an opening to attack civilian targets such as schools and hospitals.

“The Civilian Joint Task Force has added a worrisome new dimension to the violence,” wrote Human Rights Watch in a November 2013 report. “CJTF members inform security forces about presumed local Boko Haram activity; the Islamist group then retaliates against both the neighborhood vigilante group and the broader community.”

No Badge, No Uniform, No Problem?

Across the continent, there are numerous examples of positive and negative outcomes when non-state security actors (NSSAs) like the CJTF appoint themselves protectors of the people.

In the most isolated parts of South Sudan, a group calling itself the Arrow Boys took up arms to protect villages against attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army. The members were hailed as saviors and touted as a homegrown solution.

Conversely, another group that emerged in South Sudan tells a much different story about NSSAs. In the early 1990s, young cattle herders called the Nuer White Army, a name taken from the white ash they spread on their faces to keep away insects, armed themselves to protect their cattle and communities. Over the years they have gathered more arms, have grown more aggressive, and have conducted raids on rivals. Today they are viewed as a driving force behind the ethnic conflict that is destabilizing South Sudan’s Jonglei State and pushing the nation to civil war.

What begins as a home-protection group can easily morph into a dangerous organization. “They need to be very careful of creating a monster that they can no longer control,” said Dr. Mathurin Houngnikpo, an expert on civil-military relations. “We, as scholars, need to look at these boys and these militias and ask: ‘Who is controlling them? What politics are involved?’ ”

To evaluate how NSSAs operate and how they are perceived, the CLEEN Foundation launched an innovative research project, taking a census of the groups across eight Nigerian states.

Ahmadu-Haruna said the study found that Nigerian NSSAs fall into three general categories:

Religious or identity-based groups: An example of this is Hisbah, a group in the North formed to enforce Sharia, and the O’odua People’s Congress, a group formed in the Southwest to promote Yoruba nationalism and protect Yoruba traders.

Neighborhood watch/state-funded groups: These include the CJTF and others paid by the state to offer security.

Village or community-based groups: These smaller groups typically are made up of men in the village who volunteer to offer protection and are paid through community donations, if at all.

CLEEN also found that 64 percent of Nigerians see a role for NSSAs to offer protective services. Ahmadu-Haruna said their presence is most appreciated in rural areas where the formal security sector is absent or in poor urban districts where citizens do not feel that security forces respond to their needs.

“The public feels that the formal institutions are not really living up to their responsibilities,” she said.

The justice sector, Ahmadu-Haruna said, is like a tripod with three legs: police/security forces, the prison system and the court system. If any one of these legs is broken, the entire system collapses, and vigilantes sprout up to mete out their own form of justice.

NSSAs are sometimes viewed as more responsive and more in tune with what is going on in the communities. “They live in these communities, they understand the terrain better, since you might have an officer that has been transferred from a different region, who doesn’t speak the language or know anything about that region,” Ahmadu-Haruna said.

But it isn’t all positive. CLEEN also heard horror stories from residents terrorized by vigilante justice. A group operating in southern Nigeria called the Bakassi Boys is known for catching suspected thieves and asking them whether they want to wear “short sleeves or long sleeves.” This is code for whether they want part or all of their arm chopped off.

Military Partnership

Brig. Gen. Anthony Folorunsho of the Nigerian Army said the military is cautious about working with NSSAs. However, he said the dire circumstances in northeastern Nigeria necessitated a unique collaboration. This was especially true because members of the community were the only ones who could provide accurate intelligence about the movements of the extremists there.

“We don’t encourage non-state security actors,” Folorunsho said. “In all the zones that are violent in the nation, we don’t encourage them; we try to discourage them. But we had a peculiar situation in the northeast, and we needed information. It’s a security necessity now that’s making us engage their services.”

A better method of working with the civilian sector, he said, is what the Nigerian Army typically does in communities where it operates. The military holds community security meetings with town leaders, business owners, members of the Armed Forces, police and government. “All of them are fully involved,” he said. “The issues of concern are raised in that meeting. We resolve a lot of human security issues that would [otherwise] cause conflict through this collaboration.”

Folorunsho also touted the civil-military organization at each of the military’s formation headquarters, which works to improve relations with civilians and determines the most pressing community problems that need to be resolved.

For its part, CLEEN came up with a list of recommendations to improve the way NSSAs work and to separate the good actors from the bad. These include:

• Hold capacity-building workshops that emphasize ethical conduct.
• Encourage collaboration and exchanges among NSSAs, the police and military.
• Find a funding source so NSSAs are never financed by corrupt politicians or sectarian forces.
• Provide basic hardware such as walkie-talkies but not firearms.

“There is only one police force in the country; you cannot replace the functions of the police, but you can aid in their work,” Ahmadu-Haruna said. “It can be a symbiotic relationship where both will benefit.”