IRIN Focus on anti-crime militia in the southeast

For the better part of the last three decades, Nnewi was best known as the hometown of erstwhile secessionist leader Emeka Ojukwu, who headed the short-lived Biafra Republic in southeastern Nigeria in 1967-1970. But in the last decade and a half, the rural town of about 500,000 people that had always lived in the shadow of nearby Onitsha - a famous trading town - began to acquire fame for another reason. After dominating the transport and vehicle spare parts trade in Nigeria since the 1950s, its astute merchants began to set up factories whose products became market leaders, championing Nigeria’s industrial challenge. Business boomed and all banks of some substance established branches there. However, although Nnewi has overcome many challenges in a difficult economic environment, a single factor appeared in recent times to stand between its businesses and continuing success: crime. Hordes of criminals set up shop in the town. Heavily armed bandits raided banks and businesses almost daily, carting away money and valuables. They often brutally killed their victims and operated in a manner that made a mockery of the police force. Not one to give in easily to challenges, the Nnewi community has since adopted drastic medicine for a difficult ailment. Taxing themselves between 300 and 500 naira (US $1 = 102 naira) a month, individuals and businesses in the town have been raising millions since April to maintain a vigilante group, the self-styled Bakassi Boys. The Bakassi Boys first emerged last year in the city of Aba, another southeastern commercial and industrial centre. People in the area are convinced that they use traditional magic to sniff out robbers who are then summarily executed – often by decapitation or burning. “Whenever European medicine fails our people, they resort to traditional medicine, whether the ailment is crime or headache. And quite often it works,” Emmanuel Obiefuna, an Nnewi-based businessman, told IRIN in Lagos in early July. “We now know peace once more in Nnewi and people can now go about their business without fear of robbers and it’s all thanks to the Bakassi Boys. I don’t know how they do it, but it has worked,” he added. Now, in an unprecedented reversal of roles, Onitsha is following Nnewi’s lead. In the first week of July, the governor of Anambra State, Chinwoke Mbadinuju, further confirmed the widespread loss of confidence in the police when he approved the deployment of the Bakassi Boys in Onitsha, after armed robbers killed up to 30 bus passengers in a single incident near the city’s bridge across the River Niger. According to news reports, on the day the vigilante group, whose favourite weapon is the machete, entered Onitsha last week, thousands of residents poured out on the streets to cheer and welcome them. They have since gone to work, arresting dozens of suspected robbers. Human rights groups are alarmed at the development but seem helpless in view of the popularity of the group among the area’s people. They have welcomed the group after enduring the onslaught of violent robberies and looking on powerlessly as crime spiralled out of control, fuelled by the economic ruin brought on by 16 years of corrupt military rule.