The reign of the Bakassi Boys

By: Oge Irene Nwofude

Posted: 9/2/08

The other day I saw on television the news of an armed robber apprehended by the police a few hours after the crime was committed. He was charged, sent to jail, and the police closed the case.

It got me thinking about my home country Nigeria, and how a wave of crime was stemmed in some cities a few years back by a group who took the law into their hands. They hunted down criminals, cutting off their limbs and burning them alive with a tire attached to their necks.

The Bakassi Boys are a group of youths known for their anti-crime vigilantism. They came into being in the late 1990s, and, in addition to being armed with machetes, guns and charms , they were officially supported and financed by the state government.

They operate in the Ibo/Igbo area of eastern Nigeria, in West Africa, and they are sometimes accused of illegal activity and human rights abuses, yet they still enjoy popular support from the government and most of the citizens. This is because the people are tired of the police taking bribes and not fighting the massive crime wave in the area.

The Boys, who probably took their name from the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula, in the Annang/Efik/Ibibio region of coastal southeastern Nigeria, emerged as a force when the crime rate of Abia state increased sharply. Right from the get-go, they enjoyed the support of Governor Orji Uzor Kalu. He recognized the effectiveness of the group in fighting the rise of crime in the state and its environs. However, as the crime rate went down in Aba, it rose in other unlucky eastern Igbo cities like Onitsha, Urualla, Okigwe and Owerri.

Hundreds of residents and traders were being killed by armed robbers in these cities. The police and other law enforcing agencies were regarded as ineffective. The Boys were invited to help stop crime and quickly became the sweethearts of the Igbo working class traders and merchants, who were being subjected to high levels of extortion.

The traders and merchants had their fortunes tied up in their trading goods; others would have their jewelry and phone snatched as they waited in traffic with the car windows open.

When the Boys stepped in, it was obvious they were well aware of the dangerous temptations of their situation. They set strict guidelines for personal conduct. No member could be involved in any kind of criminal activity, no bribes could be expected and anyone who fell short of these guidelines was dealt with, so as to avoid bad karma.

Though they acted ruthlessly with criminals, this group managed to remain apolitical, and set an agenda that only involved ensuring peace and order in the society.

They have been accused of extra-judicial killings by the human rights watch organization, and of being used as weapons of intimidation by political opponents of some of these governors. They in turn deny killing anybody and claim to turn all self-confessed criminals over to the police, yet the police deny this. The government, of course, strongly rejects this view of the police, and the governor claims it is definitely an exaggeration - that there might be occupational hazards to the job, but they are the exceptions to the rule.

Nigeria is certainly not the safest place on earth, nor is it the most unsafe either. I would have to say it is because the Nigerian police are among the most corrupt law enforcement agency in the world. People have little faith in them because of the tradition of taking bribes from armed robbers who want to work their way out of jail.

The police in turn are simply reacting to being ill equipped, ill clad, ill paid and ill trained. So what are they really to do?

Even though I miss my interesting country's weather, lifestyle and its citizens' positive attitudes in the face of adversity, Nigeria is still one of the most corrupt countries in the world today. No one knows who the Boys are or where they come from, and most people are happy to leave it that way.

This is because the Boys have not only succeeded in cleaning the land of its misfits and killjoys, they have also instilled a long-lasting fear of breaking the law in the citizens. Recently, they attempted to rename themselves the "Anambra State Vigilante Services," due to opposition from international human rights organizations and the arrest of prominent Boys by their opponents, the police.

I am not afraid of the Bakassi boys and do not support their use of voodoo/diabolical means of detecting guilty parties, as this goes against my beliefs and values. However, that is the way they decided to carry out their mission to stop crime, which to me is not any different from a condemned prisoner who is executed by lethal injection in the United States.

So who is to say that, if the crime wave goes up again, the Anambra State Vigilante Services/Bakassi Boys will not be called upon again to rescue the people, Nigerian-style?

onwofude@unews.com

Editor's note: this is the second column in a series written by UMKC students about their home countries.