African securityNigerian vigilantes join fight against Islamist Boko Haram
In Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State in northeastern Nigeria where the Islamist Boko Haram has emerged, a network of vigilantes, called the Civilian JTF, is fighting the militants to gain back control of the local economy and daily life. Many Nigerians are not persuaded the Nigerian military is doing all it could to defeat the Islamist insurgency.
Nigerian JTF members in formationl // Source: onlinenigeria.com
Boko Haram, Nigeria’s homegrown terror group, continues to attack cities and towns throughout northern Nigeria, setting buildings on fire, looting markets, and shooting civilians.
The recent declaration of Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department has given ammunition for the Nigerian military to advance its assault on the Islamist insurgency. The Leadership reports that just last week the Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Azubuike Ihejirika said the Army had acquired a cargo of new arms to fight terror groups in the country. In Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State in northeastern Nigeria where Boko Haram has emerged, a network of vigilantes, called the Civilian JTF, is fighting the militants to gain back control of the local economy and daily life.
“I’m looking at these people: they collect your money, they kill you — Muslims, Christians,” said the Civilian JTF’s founder, Baba Lawal Ja’faar, a car and sheep salesman by trade. “The Boko Haram are saying, ‘Don’t go to the school; don’t go to the hospital.’ It’s all rubbish.”
Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno state offers training to the Civilian JTF and pays them $100 a month to help patrol the streets and notify the Nigerian military of Boko Haram sightings. The JTF members’ intimate knowledge of the community enables them to identify Boko Haram members who were likely to have grown alongside Civilian JTF members as youths.
The Nigerian military has been unable to defeat Boko Haram despite the funds allocated to fight insurgency. Some activists conclude that the Nigerian military is more committed to preserving Islamist insurgency than eradicating it in order to maintain the government spending that accompanies fighting terrorism. According to activists in northern Nigeria, army soldiers arrived ten hours after the September 2013 massacre whichkilled more than 160 innocent civilians, including women and childrenin Benisheik, a town forty-five miles west of Maiduguri. A senior official in Maiduguri told the New York Times that the army could now crush Boko Haram “in three weeks,” as the insurgents had been “cornered in one axis of the state.” The official expressed puzzlement that the army had not yet defeated Boko Haram, acknowledging that “at the top echelons they might be making money out of the insurgency.”
“The Civilian JTF has driven Boko Haram into the bush,” said Maikaramba Saddiq of the Civil Liberties Organization in Maiduguri, a frequent critic of the military. Governor Shettima considers the Civilian JTF as game-changers. “Now the Boko Haram are seeing the civilian population as their greatest enemy. These are local people who truly know who the Boko Haram are,” he told theTimes.
