Peace Deals to War?

Northwest and northcentral Nigeria’s struggle with banditry have become a full-blown combat affair. Katsina state governor, Aminu Masari, had announced that seven states in the affected regions have agreed to recruit 3,000 special vigilantes to assist in combating banditry and kidnapping. 2019 and 2020 were dotted with reports of hasty and uncertain peace deals by state governments in the region to manage escalating threats of banditry. However, the exoneration deals did little to end banditry. Indeed, bandits have moved from attacking rural communities to mass abduction of school students and reported linkages with terrorists in the northeast. The recruitment of special vigilantes by affected states suggests the end of knee-jerk peace initiatives.

Despite the human tragedies and government’s clear stance, a case is still made for bandits. Sheik Ahmad Gumi, a Muslim cleric, has gained prominence for reportedly facilitating the release of abducted school students and speaking in favour of bandits. In January 2021, Sheik Gumi, a former army captain and now an alleged federal government-backed negotiator, secured a deal with over 500 bandits to embrace peace. In February 2021, he reportedly asked the Federal government to give bandits “blanket amnesty” to tackle the security situation in the affected areas. Although the federal government had either kept mum or denied the ransom payment to bandits, it has restated its stick approach to banditry. In March 2021, a presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu said Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, had directed security agencies to shoot anyone seen with an AK-47. While the directive did not significantly lead to a decline in banditry, according to Nextier SPD Violent Conflict Database, the decision to recruit special vigilantes reiterates security commitments to alarming banditry.

Responding to banditry must be tactful. The recruitment and deployment of vigilantes must consider the deep ethnoreligious divide in the northwest and northcentral regions. Policing in divided societies is a bumpy ride. Most local violent conflicts in the regions have ethnoreligious, socioeconomic, communal and political ties. Others are closely-knitted in structural violence, indigene-settler dichotomies, land wars, ancient stereotypes and unresolved disputes. The objective of deploying special vigilantes will be lost if its members assert their affiliations over the business of tackling banditry and other security threats. Moreover, lax regulatory frameworks for the vigilantes can create room for unprofessionalism and complicate security efforts to curb banditry. Lack of professionalism and inefficient accountability mechanisms may result in vigilantes hijacking the state-backed authority to promote group agenda.

State responses to address these local conflicts may, in turn, exacerbate them. Without adequate regulations, recruits of informal security measures are in a position to assert personal affinities in carrying out policing functions. For instance, in July 2020, there was no available explanation for a clash between some pastoralists and vigilantes in Imo state. However, reports suggested that the vigilantes were chasing cattle herders away from the state. The propensity towards group hijack of state-backed authority should be the rationale for a rigorous security template for the potential recruitment of vigilantes in the zones.

States setting up special vigilantes should jointly define the purpose and objective of the movement. It should have precise goals such as supporting security measures against banditry and other inherent threats to public safety. The control and deployment mechanism can cut across states to create room for partnership, sharing intelligence, effective monitoring of inter-state borders, and managing ungoverned spaces. Also, to mitigate human rights abuse that has become synonymous with vigilante groups, the recruits must be restricted to ancillary crime control functions. For example, vigilante groups should not detain or prosecute offenders. Instead, they should report offenders to the police and other agencies with the statutory responsibility for arrest and prosecution. The idea of vigilantes in the conflict zones will be impactful to security measures if evidence-based strategies are adopted for its implementation.