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Members of the banned Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) continued this week to kill suspected robbers in Lagos State. The OPC beheaded four men and then set their bodies on fire on Thursday, ‘The Guardian’ reported. One of the suspects, the Lagos-based daily said, “was nailed on a crucifix-like plank”.
The federal government, security forces and civil society groups oppose the gruesome methods of militia groups such as the OPC, and their practice of taking the law into their own hands.
However, some have the backing of governors and locals who claim that the groups have been effective in fighting crime.
Created in 1995 to defend the interest of the Yorubas, one of Nigeria’s largest ethnic groups, the OPC was banned in 1999 after provoking riots in which hundreds of people died.
In Abia State, the non-governmental Public and Private Rights Watch has called for the scrapping of the Bakassi Boys, a vigilante group that operates there and in other southeastern states. However, the NGO said if the group was allowed to continue, it should operate under the authority of the state police.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
