Police clamp down on vigilante group

Police in southeastern Nigeria’s Abia State have clamped down on a vigilante group backed by the state government but accused of extra-judicial killings, police officials said on Wednesday. The national police spokesman, Haz Iwendi, told reporters in the capital, Abuja, that five detention centers run by the group, known as Bakassi Boys, in different parts of the state were closed down. He said 46 illegally detained people, including eight women, were set free and 33 members of the group arrested. Iwendi said one person died and 11 policemen were injured in a shootout between policemen and the Bakassi Boys. Also recovered from the group, he said, were 12 locally made single- and double-barrelled shotguns and pistols, one pump-action rifle, 68 rounds of live cartridges, 141 expended cartridges and seven swords. The Bakassi Boys group was formed by traders in Aba, the main trading town in Abia State, in 1999 to combat violent crime that appeared to have gone out of police control. Despite allegations of extra-judicial execution of suspected criminals, they received the support of the state governor, Orji Uzor Kalu. Other states in the region subsequently adopted the services of the Bakassi Boys. In Anambra State, Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju got the legislature to pass a law establishing the Anambra Vigilante Services, the official name by which the group is known in the state. International and local human rights groups, alleging that thousands of people have been killed without trial by the vigilante groups, have called on President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government to end their activities. The latest police action in Abia State may be an indication the federal government has begun moves to rein in the vigilantes. "All such groups parading themselves and arrogating to themselves such unconstitutional powers to perpetrate such illegalities are hereby warned to desist from such ignoble acts in their own interest," Iwendi said. He added that all those arrested for engaging in illegal vigilante activities would be prosecuted.