Borno Government, Civilian JTF and the Need for Caution

As schools reopen in Borno State, the state government is resorting to vigilantism in order to secure the learning environment against attacks by insurgents because it thinks the security services are not providing adequate protection for the students and

After eight months of closure caused by security concerns, primary and junior secondary schools in Borno State resumed on Monday. To secure the public schools against attack by Boko Haram insurgents, which was the reason the institutions had been shut since March 16, the state government has placed the schools under the security watch of the civilian Joint Task Force, a group of natives who have been helping to fight off the Boko Haram threat in the North-east.

The authorities in Borno State are, apparently, feeling that the Civilian JTF is their last resort in the effort to secure the students, teachers, and the learning environment, generally. What with the ignominious tales of soldiers getting cold feet in the battlefield and abandoning communities under Boko Haram fire, the government may have good reasons for the fall back on unorthodox modes of security. But it is doubtful if the Civilian JTF would guarantee the security that the Borno State government craves. In fact, experience has shown that they may even complicate the security nightmare if they are not properly monitored by the security agencies.

The arrest in June of a Civilian JTF member in Borno State, Babuji Ya’ari, who turned out to be a Boko Haram agent, provides a glimpse of the new danger the civil populace may face in the event of an overhasty reliance on vigilantes for security. It may also be a sign of things to come in the schools, which are usually prime targets for the terrorists.

But Borno State is not the only place where citizens are trying to take charge of their own security because they feel the police and other security agencies have failed to defend them.

Worried by the serial occupation of its territory by Boko Haram insurgents, the Adamawa State government last week announced it had decided to engage and train a Civilian JTF force of 10,000 local hunters to protect and liberate villages and towns captured by the insurgents. The government said the group would only be assisting the regular security forces and warned the members against taking laws into their hands. But the fact remains that the Civilian JTF is the product of a rapidly growing feeling among Nigerians that the civil populace must organise to fend off insurgency, defend themselves, and punish criminals because the regular security forces have failed to do this.

Last week, the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi, voiced support for vigilantes in the fight against Boko Haram, saying people should form civilian militias to defend themselves in the face of the military’s increasingly doubtful competence. “People should be sensitised on the importance of being on the alert. And they should prepare, they should acquire what they will defend themselves with,” Sanusi was quoted as saying during penultimate Friday’s prayers at the Central Mosque in Kano.

The former Central Bank of Nigeria governor has been vilified in some quarters for his comments. But he has merely added his voice to the strong preference for vigilantism that is being expressed by many Nigerians. This is a fierce wake-up call for the authorities. There is an urgent need to adequately equip the Nigeria Police, which is the chief internal security organisation, and the other security agencies to really be on top of their job of securing life and property in the land. There is no alternative to the proper equipment and empowerment of the police, the organ saddled with domestic security in all civilised societies.

Definitely, several achievements credited to the Civilian JTF operatives in the collective effort to guar- antee security of lives and property are worth society’s commendation. They have shown impressive battlefield performances that have led to the recapture of some towns and villages in the North-east previously taken by Boko Haram. But the vigilante groups, certainly, do not have the training, discipline, and psychology of an organisation upon which the security of society can be entrusted. Besides, under the unusual brand of politics that is played in the country, the groups can be manipulated for political gain.

Vigilantes should serve as background organisations behind the regular security forces. That is under normal circumstances. But the trouble is that the current wave of vigilante popularity sweeping across the country is driven by an abnormal and unfortunate feeling that they are the structures the people can rely on when every other security arrangement has failed. This is where the danger lies.