Tsafe, Nigeria – It was a sunny March afternoon. Abdulrahman Yusuf was quiet as he lit a cigarette and smoked it heavily, puffing twice before passing it on to a colleague. The 17-year-old cop’s stern eyes tell the story of a child who had to become a man sooner than he should have.
In his senior year of high school, Yusuf voluntarily joined a vigilante group to face off against criminal gangs in his hometown of Tsafe, Zamfara, northwestern Nigeria. It’s on a quest for revenge after one of your best friends dies in an attack by one of the gangs, Locally called banditsin a nearby village.
“We used to do things together; eat together, go to school and more,” he said. “I am deeply saddened by his death.”
All over the area, robberies were rampant. What began a decade ago as a tit-for-tat clash between sedentary Hausa farmers and nomadic Fulani herders over access to water and grazing land, has turned into a stress crisis in recent years.
An estimated 12,000 people have died and hundreds of thousands more displaced across the northwestern states of Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Katsina and Kaduna since the conflict escalated in 2011, based on [PDF] Center for Democracy and Development, an advocacy and policy think tank based in Abuja.
In recent months, bandits have attacked a military training school, a trainshoot down an air force jet and kidnap students several times for ransom.
Experts say the main culprits are herders of the Fulani ethnic group, who request was initially taken to the band of robbers to protest the group’s mistreatment and marginalization in the predominantly Hausa area. Some say the bandits are terrorists, while others say they maybe even worsethere is no uniform chain of command.
Criminal gangs have taken advantage of the porous borders for transportation with sophisticated weapons and masterminded a list of crimes that include grazing cattle, looting and extorting money from villages as well as kidnapping to steal money. ransom.
A force of volunteers
Nigeria’s security services, due to a lack of staff due to conflicts elsewhere in the country, are unable to adequately address the insecurity.
For example, the government in Katsina, one of the hardest hit states in the region, said less than 3,000 yen its estimated service police officer 5.8 million residents. This means 52 policemen for every 100,000 residents – four times lower compared to the recommended global average. The stories are more or less the same across the country.
It’s no surprise that many people, including teenagers like Yusuf, have used their own devices to protect themselves and their communities.
As vigilantes (or Yansakai, Hausa for the volunteer force), they carry out strategic missions such as repel attacks, rescue kidnapping victim, arrest crime and sometimes participate in general security operations with the police and the army.
“For me, even if I was about to die, I wouldn’t care much because it was the sacrifice I had to endure,” Yusuf told Al Jazeera. “We are helping people and contributing [our] social quota. ”
The group’s commander, Dayabu Baushe, 52, who leads more than 20 boys in his unit, told Al Jazeera that he holds weekly training sessions where the boys hone their aiming skills, run and hide.
In Zamfara, there are 4,200 community guards, drawn from military veterans, guards and volunteers, funded by the state government with a monthly allowance of 10,000 naira ($24). However, this arrangement does not include all vigilance groups in the state. Most of their activities are funded primarily through public donations.
“We contribute money to buy our weapons. If the government can support us, we know where the robbers are and we can go there without fear. We are ready to lay down our lives in this work and are not afraid to die.”
Death and loss
Before the violence struck, the soft-spoken teenager was cheerful and had dreams about his future, not forgetting the troubles surrounding the present. At school, he played football with his friends in hopes of one day becoming a professional footballer like Ahmed Musa, captain of Nigeria’s senior football team.
But now, he’s patrolling the bush, hoping to kill rather than be killed at home. At night, the boys split into separate groups and patrol their community until dawn. Some hang from tall trees and stone beds, while others have people at checkpoints.
“This is where we rest after patrolling, and cook our spells,” Yusuf told Al Jazeera, pointing to a nearby mud hut with rusted roofs. “Sometimes we get calls from different people telling us where the robbers are, and we go there.”
Inside the hut were rudimentary weapons such as knives, sticks and dane guns used by the boys against bandits, most of whom used sophisticated rifles. This disadvantage is increasingly placing great alarm on young people. risk injured and even died. Yusuf said he lost five of his colleagues because of the unpredictable nature of the conflict.
“Sometimes we go on patrol, or get information that robbers are around, but before we get there, they (the bandits) may have run away,” he said. “Unfortunately, there were times when we were ambushed. They will come unexpectedly; Whoever they meet, they will kill him. We also kill them sometimes, like six to seven [of them]. ”
previous SeptemberBandits attacked Gangara, another community in Zamfara, but the vigilantes, having lost two of their own, repelled the raid.
“This alone gives us the courage to keep fighting them because if we all run away, who will stay to protect our community?” Yusuf adds that their charm makes the robbers fear them more than the security guards.
‘Frankenstein’
There have been many report of several vigilantes involved in extrajudicial killings targeting the Fulanis, the most robbed ethnic group. Many of these incidents sparked retaliatory and counterattack attacks that kept the conflict alive.
Idayat Hassan, director of Abuja-based CDD, called the tenants’ involvement “regrettable” and warned of a lurking danger.
“While engaging in vigilance makes them feel important… that is wrong and should not be encouraged as it creates challenges even after conflict,” she said. “They have guns in their hands, and have experience in power; If we don’t demobilize them properly, we’ll have a Frankenstein monster on our hands.”
But Mohammed Yazid, 18, a colleague of Yusuf’s, defended his colleague on the issue of extrajudicial killing against vigilante groups in the state.
“They kill more of our people than you can imagine,” he said. “They raped and destroyed property. Once we get hold of them, we’ll keep killing them because that’s what they’re doing to us whenever they attack us. They even kill babies.”
Mamman Ibrahim Tsafe, commissioner for security and home affairs in Zamfara, said the state was not aware of the vigilance of teenagers. He emphasized that the community bodyguards being trained and mobilized by the government are all over the age of 18 and work strictly under the supervision of security agencies.
Amidst the chaos and controversy, Yusuf hopes that when normalcy returns, he will be able to pursue a new dream rather than continue with school or the football field. “I want to join the Army and continue to fight against the enemies of peace,” he said.
