The Transformation of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante Group among the Igbo Ethnic Group of Nigeria into a Community Police Force

1
Nnaemeka Uwakwe Itiri,* Onele Jacob**
*Examination Officer, National Examinations Council, Minna.
**Nigerian Customs Service, Rivers State Command
Cite this work as: Nnaemeka U. Itiri & Onele Jacob, (2014). “The Transformation of the
Bakassi Boys Vigilante Group among the Igbo Ethnic Group into a Community Police
Force,” VUNA Journal of History and International Relations, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 276 – 287.
Abstract
Vigilantism refers to any form of non-state policing activity that aims at solving security
related issues that affect the quality of life and increase citizens fear of crime. This paper
discusses the emergence and transformation of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante group among the
Igbo ethnic group of south-eastern Nigeria into a community police force. In doing so, the
paper appreciates the ineffectiveness of state security agencies in security provision to its
emergence. However, the paper is an attempt to demonstrate that the support given to the
Bakassi Boys by the populace as information providers led to their ‘successes’ and further
spread to other south-eastern cities from Aba where the group originated. The paper
emphasises on the role of the community as ‘partners’ in community policing and the need to
foster cooperation among vigilante group(s) and the community in community policing,
especially for gathering and sharing intelligence.
The methodology adopted in this paper is the thematic approach. Such method can impose
order on the varied and complex issues that led to the emergence and the eventual
transformation of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante group into a community police force.
Keywords: Bakassi Boys, community policing, Mafians, jungle justice
Introduction
The late 1990’s was a period of high incidences of security in the commercial cities of Southeastern Nigeria like Aba, Onitsha, Owerri and Enugu among others. The reason is attributed
to the inadequacy of the police force to police these areas which led to ever increasing crime
rate.
To address these inadequacies in crime prevention and/or control, the people of these cities
embraced community policing to supplement the work of official security agents. This
community police was independent of the conventional police whom they saw as ineffective
in fighting crime. The idea of community policing in Igbo land dates back to ages when
indigenous institutions like cults, secrete societies, palace guards and messengers were
responsible for crime fighting in the absence of codified laws. Governor Mbadinuju of
Anambra State once claimed that the Bakassi Boys as a community police or civil defence
2
force was reviving traditional forms of justice. He opined, ‘what we are doing… is an agelong system of our people taking care of their defences – from village level to town level.’1
As a community-based security outfit however, the Bakassi Boys established active
partnership between the communities and themselves in crime fighting and crime control.
Through this approach, the populace understood that they had a role in ensuring its safety and
that of property. As a result, they became available and readily information providers to the
Bakassi Boys regarding crime. This goes a long way in validating the statement that
community policing entails community partnership in creating a safe and secure environment
for all.2
Thus, in community policing, people take part in their own security affairs, not
seeing the police as threat to their existence but as partners in the provision of security.
Community policing ensures that the community does not only feel secure but take active
part in bringing this feeling to fruition. This is possible because the use of community
members in fighting crime can be effective as the members understand the local crime maps
and can easily identify criminals and crime spots in the community. It entails community
ownership of the process of crime fighting and hence upholds its local legitimacy.
Among the Igbo ethnic group of South-eastern Nigeria, the Bakassi Boys –a non-state, but
with quasi-official system of justice- provided a form of community policing between the eve
of the Fourth Republic and the period leading to the run up to 2003 elections when the group
was disbanded by President Olusegun Obasanjo.3

At its introduction, the Bakassi Boys entirely concentrated in eliminating crime and to some
extent, it succeeded in this endeavour. Many criminals were either killed by the group
members or forced to flee from the South-eastern Nigerian States where they operated for
fear of their lives. Their method of administering justice popularly known as ‘jungle justice’,
endeared them to the populace who perceived them as incorruptible and invincible.
The paper is divided into two main parts. Part one provides background information on Aba
before the emergence of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante group while the Part two discusses the
processes involved in the emergence and the eventual transformation of the Bakassi Boys
Vigilante group into a community police force.
The Emergence of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante Group: A Historical Background
The Bakassi Boys vigilante group originated in Aba, a city made up of different autonomous
communities. The major being Abayi Umuocha, Ndiego and Ogwo which are the
autonomous communities4
that make up the two major local governments areas of Aba North
and Aba South today located in the Southern Senatorial district of Abia State. The National
Census of Nigeria carried out in 1991 put the provisional population of Aba at 494,152. Out
of this figure, 255,325 are males and 238,827 are females.5
One of the events that shot Aba into prominence was the Aba Women’s Riot of 1929, caused
by the rumour that the British colonial government would impose the burden of taxpaying on
the women. The women on the other hand blatantly resisted the attempt through an organised
protest and demonstration to show how unacceptable the issue was to them. One striking
3
feature which Aba, known as the Enyimba City, possesses is its enterprising nature which is
an identity that the Igbo generally exhibit even outside their homeland. Industrial analysts
have observed that of all the commercial centres in Nigeria where conscious efforts to restrict
business activities to a designated area have succeeded Aba has remained exceptional. This is
because every part of the city allows for economic activity of one form or the other.6
Hence,
Aba which is also called ‘home of hustlers’ boasts of various economic centres that have
continued to attract buyers, sellers, artisans and other skilled and unskilled residents.
Politically, with the creation of Abia State in 1991, Aba became the commercial capital of the
state owing to significant development of commercial activities in the area while Umuahia
became the administrative headquarters of the state. Aba is made up of two local
governments –Aba North and Aba South. Aba South is the main city centre and the heart beat
of Abia state, south-east Nigeria. It is located on the west bank of the Aba River, and is at the
intersection of roads leading to Port Harcourt, Owerri, Umuahia, Ikot Ekpene and Ikot
Abasi.7
The industrial nature of Aba had by the close of 1998 led to an upsurge in the
population of Aba as people from different places migrated to the area.
However, due to its enterprising nature, Aba has been fondly referred to as the ‘Japan of
Africa’, while the term ‘Aba made’ has become a popular Nigerian expression for cheap local
manufactures.8
The foundation of the industrial capacity of Aba people was laid over the
years starting with the politics that surrounded the “no victor, no vanquished slogan” that
ended the Nigerian Civil War. The war, as observed by Tom Forrest, precipitated a sudden
shift toward the repatriation of capital to Igbo areas for investment at home9
which was a
radical departure from what obtained in the pre-civil war years when the Igbo preferred to
invest outside the borders of their land. The major economic contributions of Aba are textiles,
pharmaceuticals, plastics, cement and cosmetics. There is also a brewery and distillery within
the city and the city is famous for its handicrafts.10 Perhaps, these features led to the
establishment of cottage industries littered all over Aba which ensured the fabrication of
different products that were used as supplements to imported products during the period
under study.
Having established a booming industry which centred largely on shoe and garment
manufacturing among other products, the manufacturers needed external markets and
patronage for their products. In no distant time, people began to trickle into Aba from far and
near to patronise the local industries. Kate Meagher buttressed this point when she observed
that
by the mid-1990s, traders from as far as Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Zaire
frequented the Aba shoe and garment clusters to purchase large consignments
of goods. In the shoe cluster, francophone traders, known locally as ‘Ca va’,
were prized customers owing to their tendency to purchase large orders, …11
4
With the above developments, the population of Aba swelled that artisans and expatriates of
non-Igbo origins settled temporarily, if not permanently in Aba. The natives and people of
other tribes like Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba, Efik, Ibibio, Kalabari, Opobo, Beni, Tiv, Idoma and
foreign nationals from Africa and other continents12 constituted part of the population of Aba
during the period under discussion. With the rise and comingling of people in the population
coupled with the attendant consequences of the Structural Adjustment Programme
(unemployment and economic difficulties), Aba gradually became a ‘harbour’ of unemployed
youths who took to robbery and thuggery as survival options in the face of hardship during
the era of the military.
By the late 1990s, the livelihoods of Igbo small-scale manufacturers were inextricably
intertwined with the activities of non-Igbo traders and labour. As a result, a serious escalation
of organised crime featured in the area.13 These organised crimes were carried out by a group
of armed gangs who believed that through unholy activities they could make life better in the
face of economic difficulties. A chunk of Mafians- abbreviated as ‘Mafs’ through immoral
activities terrorised Aba and traders whose livelihoods depended on trade with traders from
outside Aba. Thus, lives and property became unsafe and non-indigenes and traders were
forced out of Aba in their numbers in search of safer places for their various economic
activities.
Moreover, the level of crime in Aba on the eve of the Fourth Republic can be likened to that
of Onitsha where it was reported that criminals moved about the area with such confidence
that on occasion they would tell people the exact date on which they would be robbed. On the
appointed day, they would force their way into the houses they had earmarked, regardless of
whether the occupants had fled or not.14 Thus, by the close of the military era, Aba could be
said to have beaten the book “One week, one trouble” as no day could pass by without
shootouts, killings, rapes and robbery incidents. These crimes happened in seconds and
minutes, and people lived in fear -the fear of armed robbers and Mafs, who had killed about
two hundred people in the city between 1997 and 1999.15 Ordinarily, the police should
provide security to residents but the police had so much compromised their commissions that
Aba residents lost confidence in their abilities. Chukwu Idam disclosed that giving
information to the police about a crime at that time was asking for trouble as the police were
believed to be working hand-in-hand with the robbers.16 Harry Nwanna corroborated this
information when he opined that police collaboration was part of the strength17 of the robbers
and Mafs. This act predicates a negative collaboration and partnership in crime by the police
who were supposed to fight crime. Moreover, in most cases, [the police] would run away
whenever and wherever they sighted the armed robbers.18

As a measure of self defence, people became their own security forces, taking up the security
role of the police which the later had abandoned. Among the self defence security measures
were the purchase of fire arms and other weapons, and the erection of high walls around
residences. Tunde Agbola noted that
the general trend towards the construction of high walls around
5
residential units… sometimes concealing them altogether, …
intricately shielded with burglary proofing: construction of
lighting facilities at every corner of the residential environment;
and a host of other protective devices…19
This situation however, brought a slow pace in the wealth making of the shoe and garment
manufacturers in particular and the public at large, who were faced with the challenge of
curbing armed robbery activities perpetrated by gangs of armed robbers popularly referred to
as Mafs. It appears that the challenge was not only to put a stop to robbery activities but also
to lead the revolt against the excessive harassment and extortion by the hoodlums in the town.
The leadership however came from the shoe makers of the Bakassi area of Ariaria market as
the next session will show.
Emergence of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante
It has been established above that Aba on the eve of the Fourth Republic was a land where
organised criminal activities had taken over the economic fortunes of the people and led to a
decline in the economic success of their economic conditions. Economic success had
depended largely on trade in different products produced by the ‘Japanese of Africa’ as Aba
was fondly referred to. This development made life brutish, nasty and short as Mafs and
armed robbers were intimidating traders in markets and streets, extorting money from them in
the name of ‘taxation’, ‘settlement’ or protection tribute. At a point they gained so much
confidence that it became normal for people to ‘settle’ the Mafians even against their will.
In 1998, Aba was filled with ‘Mafians’ who had formed the habit of sending their errand
‘boys’ to extort money in the name of ‘title’ from people whom they referred to as ‘mugus’.
The Mafians had splinter groups led by two aboriginal families of Aba –the Iheasimuo and
Emejiaka.20 These ‘original owners’ of Aba town gave themselves to all kinds of vices and
got consumed in them that it was a normal life to them as nobody dared challenge them, not
even the police. They often engaged in rapes, torture, extortion, robbery, killing and lynching
with nobody, not even the law enforcement agents, challenging them. By this time, people
were fed up with the activities of these Mafs and were determined to find a permanent answer
to their onslaught. Coupled with Mafian activities was an upsurge in criminal activities
carried out by staunch armed robbers who lived and operated freely as a result of the
ineffectiveness of the police who had been accused to be collaborators in the crimes. What is
clear is that these robbers took advantage of the Maf’s activities and launched their own
onslaught either in collaboration with the Mafs or on their own. Since the activities of the
Mafs were ‘locally legalised’, every act of terror was thus, seen as the act of the Mafs. The
state of the police in combating crime was also captured by Major General David Jemibewon,
former Minister of Police Affairs, when he stated that “…the Nigerian Police Force tha

The Transformation of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante Group among the Igbo Ethnic Group of Nigeria into a Community Police Force

Nnaemeka Uwakwe Itiri,* Onele Jacob**

*Examination Officer, National Examinations Council, Minna.

**Nigerian Customs Service, Rivers State Command

Cite this work as: Nnaemeka U. Itiri & Onele Jacob, (2014). “The Transformation of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante Group among the Igbo Ethnic Group into a Community Police Force,”  VUNA Journal of History and International Relations, Vol. 2, No. 1,  pp. 276 – 287.

Abstract

Vigilantism refers to any form of non-state policing activity that aims at solving security related issues that affect the quality of life and increase citizens fear of crime. This paper discusses the emergence and transformation of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante group among the Igbo ethnic group of south-eastern Nigeria into a community police force. In doing so, the paper appreciates the ineffectiveness of state security agencies in security provision to its emergence. However, the paper is an attempt to demonstrate that the support given to the Bakassi Boys by the populace as information providers led to their ‘successes’ and further spread to other south-eastern cities from Aba where the group originated. The paper emphasises on the role of the community as ‘partners’ in community policing and the need to foster cooperation among vigilante group(s) and the community in community policing, especially for gathering and sharing intelligence.

The methodology adopted in this paper is the thematic approach. Such method can impose order on the varied and complex issues that led to the emergence and the eventual transformation of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante group into a community police force.

Keywords: Bakassi Boys, community policing, Mafians, jungle justice Introduction

The late 1990’s was a period of high incidences of security in the commercial cities of South-eastern Nigeria like Aba, Onitsha, Owerri and Enugu among others. The reason is attributed to the inadequacy of the police force to police these areas which led to ever increasing crime rate.

To address these inadequacies in crime prevention and/or control, the people of these cities embraced community policing to supplement the work of official security agents. This community police was independent of the conventional police whom they saw as ineffective in fighting crime. The idea of community policing in Igbo land dates back to ages when indigenous institutions like cults, secrete societies, palace guards and messengers were responsible for crime fighting in the absence of codified laws. Governor Mbadinuju of Anambra State once claimed that the Bakassi Boys as a community police or civil defence 1

 

force was reviving traditional forms of justice. He opined, ‘what we are doing… is an age-long system of our people taking care of their defences – from village level to town level.’1

As a community-based security outfit however, the Bakassi Boys established active partnership between the communities and themselves in crime fighting and crime control.

Through this approach, the populace understood that they had a role in ensuring its safety and that of property. As a result, they became available and readily information providers to the Bakassi Boys regarding crime. This goes a long way in validating the statement that community policing entails community partnership in creating a safe and secure environment for all.2 Thus, in community policing, people take part in their own security affairs, not seeing the police as threat to their existence but as partners in the provision of security.

Community policing ensures that the community does not only feel secure but take active part in bringing this feeling to fruition. This is possible because the use of community members in fighting crime can be effective as the members understand the local crime maps and can easily identify criminals and crime spots in the community. It entails community ownership of the process of crime fighting and hence upholds its local legitimacy.

Among the Igbo ethnic group of South-eastern Nigeria, the Bakassi Boys –a non-state, but with quasi-official system of justice- provided a form of community policing between the eve of the Fourth Republic and the period leading to the run up to 2003 elections when the group was disbanded by President Olusegun Obasanjo.3

At its introduction, the Bakassi Boys entirely concentrated in eliminating crime and to some extent, it succeeded in this endeavour. Many criminals were either killed by the group members or forced to flee from the South-eastern Nigerian States where they operated for fear of their lives. Their method of administering justice popularly known as ‘jungle justice’, endeared them to the populace who perceived them as incorruptible and invincible.

The paper is divided into two main parts. Part one provides background information on Aba before the emergence of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante group while the Part two discusses the processes involved in the emergence and the eventual transformation of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante group into a community police force.

The Emergence of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante Group: A Historical Background The Bakassi Boys vigilante group originated in Aba, a city made up of different autonomous communities. The major being Abayi Umuocha, Ndiego and Ogwo which are the autonomous communities4 that make up the two major local governments areas of Aba North and Aba South today located in the Southern Senatorial district of Abia State. The National Census of Nigeria carried out in 1991 put the provisional population of Aba at 494,152. Out of this figure, 255,325 are males and 238,827 are females.5

One of the events that shot Aba into prominence was the Aba Women’s Riot of 1929, caused by the rumour that the British colonial government would impose the burden of taxpaying on the women. The women on the other hand blatantly resisted the attempt through an organised protest and demonstration to show how unacceptable the issue was to them. One striking 2

 

feature which Aba, known as the Enyimba City, possesses is its enterprising nature which is an identity that the Igbo generally exhibit even outside their homeland. Industrial analysts have observed that of all the commercial centres in Nigeria where conscious efforts to restrict business activities to a designated area have succeeded Aba has remained exceptional. This is because every part of the city allows for economic activity of one form or the other.6 Hence, Aba which is also called ‘home of hustlers’ boasts of various economic centres that have continued to attract buyers, sellers, artisans and other skilled and unskilled residents.

Politically, with the creation of Abia State in 1991, Aba became the commercial capital of the state owing to significant development of commercial activities in the area while Umuahia became the administrative headquarters of the state. Aba is made up of two local governments –Aba North and Aba South. Aba South is the main city centre and the heart beat of Abia state, south-east Nigeria. It is located on the west bank of the Aba River, and is at the intersection of roads leading to Port Harcourt, Owerri, Umuahia, Ikot Ekpene and Ikot Abasi.7 The industrial nature of Aba had by the close of 1998 led to an upsurge in the population of Aba as people from different places migrated to the area.

However, due to its enterprising nature, Aba has been fondly referred to as the ‘Japan of Africa’, while the term ‘Aba made’ has become a popular Nigerian expression for cheap local manufactures.8 The foundation of the industrial capacity of Aba people was laid over the years starting with the politics that surrounded the “no victor, no vanquished slogan” that ended the Nigerian Civil War. The war, as observed by Tom Forrest, precipitated a sudden shift toward the repatriation of capital to Igbo areas for investment at home9 which was a radical departure from what obtained in the pre-civil war years when the Igbo preferred to invest outside the borders of their land. The major economic contributions of Aba are textiles, pharmaceuticals, plastics, cement and cosmetics. There is also a brewery and distillery within the city and the city is famous for its handicrafts.10 Perhaps, these features led to the establishment of cottage industries littered all over Aba which ensured the fabrication of different products that were used as supplements to imported products during the period under study.

Having established a booming industry which centred largely on shoe and garment manufacturing among other products, the manufacturers needed external markets and patronage for their products. In no distant time, people began to trickle into Aba from far and near to patronise the local industries. Kate Meagher buttressed this point when she observed that

by the mid-1990s, traders from as far as Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Zaire frequented the Aba shoe and garment clusters to purchase large consignments of goods. In the shoe cluster, francophone traders, known locally as ‘Ca va’, were prized customers owing to their tendency to purchase large orders, …11

 

3

 

With the above developments, the population of Aba swelled that artisans and expatriates of non-Igbo origins settled temporarily, if not permanently in Aba. The natives and people of other tribes like Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba, Efik, Ibibio, Kalabari, Opobo, Beni, Tiv, Idoma and foreign nationals from Africa and other continents12 constituted part of the population of Aba during the period under discussion. With the rise and comingling of people in the population coupled with the attendant consequences of the Structural Adjustment Programme (unemployment and economic difficulties), Aba gradually became a ‘harbour’ of unemployed youths who took to robbery and thuggery as survival options in the face of hardship during the era of the military.

By the late 1990s, the livelihoods of Igbo small-scale manufacturers were inextricably intertwined with the activities of non-Igbo traders and labour. As a result, a serious escalation of organised crime featured in the area.13 These organised crimes were carried out by a group of armed gangs who believed that through unholy activities they could make life better in the face of economic difficulties. A chunk of Mafians- abbreviated as ‘Mafs’ through immoral activities terrorised Aba and traders whose livelihoods depended on trade with traders from outside Aba. Thus, lives and property became unsafe and non-indigenes and traders were forced out of Aba in their numbers in search of safer places for their various economic activities.

Moreover, the level of crime in Aba on the eve of the Fourth Republic can be likened to that of Onitsha where it was reported that criminals moved about the area with such confidence that on occasion they would tell people the exact date on which they would be robbed. On the appointed day, they would force their way into the houses they had earmarked, regardless of whether the occupants had fled or not.14 Thus, by the close of the military era, Aba could be said to have beaten the book “One week, one trouble” as no day could pass by without shootouts, killings, rapes and robbery incidents. These crimes happened in seconds and minutes, and people lived in fear -the fear of armed robbers and Mafs, who had killed about two hundred people in the city between 1997 and 1999.15 Ordinarily, the police should provide security to residents but the police had so much compromised their commissions that Aba residents lost confidence in their abilities. Chukwu Idam disclosed that giving information to the police about a crime at that time was asking for trouble as the police were believed to be working hand-in-hand with the robbers.16 Harry Nwanna corroborated this information when he opined that police collaboration was part of the strength17 of the robbers and Mafs. This act predicates a negative collaboration and partnership in crime by the police who were supposed to fight crime. Moreover, in most cases, [the police] would run away whenever and wherever they sighted the armed robbers.18

As a measure of self defence, people became their own security forces, taking up the security role of the police which the later had abandoned. Among the self defence security measures were the purchase of fire arms and other weapons, and the erection of high walls around residences. Tunde Agbola noted that

 

 

the general trend towards the construction of high walls around

4

 

residential units… sometimes concealing them altogether, …

intricately shielded with burglary proofing: construction of

lighting facilities at every corner of the residential environment;

 

 

and a host of other protective devices…19

 

This situation however, brought a slow pace in the wealth making of the shoe and garment manufacturers in particular and the public at large, who were faced with the challenge of curbing armed robbery activities perpetrated by gangs of armed robbers popularly referred to as Mafs. It appears that the challenge was not only to put a stop to robbery activities but also to lead the revolt against the excessive harassment and extortion by the hoodlums in the town.

The leadership however came from the shoe makers of the Bakassi area of Ariaria market as the next session will show.

Emergence of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante

It has been established above that Aba on the eve of the Fourth Republic was a land where organised criminal activities had taken over the economic fortunes of the people and led to a decline in the economic success of their economic conditions. Economic success had depended largely on trade in different products produced by the ‘Japanese of Africa’ as Aba was fondly referred to. This development made life brutish, nasty and short as Mafs and armed robbers were intimidating traders in markets and streets, extorting money from them in the name of ‘taxation’, ‘settlement’ or protection tribute. At a point they gained so much confidence that it became normal for people to ‘settle’ the Mafians even against their will.

In 1998, Aba was filled with ‘Mafians’ who had formed the habit of sending their errand

‘boys’ to extort money in the name of ‘title’ from people whom they referred to as ‘mugus’.

The Mafians had splinter groups led by two aboriginal families of Aba –the Iheasimuo and Emejiaka.20 These ‘original owners’ of Aba town gave themselves to all kinds of vices and got consumed in them that it was a normal life to them as nobody dared challenge them, not even the police. They often engaged in rapes, torture, extortion, robbery, killing and lynching with nobody, not even the law enforcement agents, challenging them. By this time, people were fed up with the activities of these Mafs and were determined to find a permanent answer to their onslaught. Coupled with Mafian activities was an upsurge in criminal activities carried out by staunch armed robbers who lived and operated freely as a result of the ineffectiveness of the police who had been accused to be collaborators in the crimes. What is clear is that these robbers took advantage of the Maf’s activities and launched their own onslaught either in collaboration with the Mafs or on their own. Since the activities of the Mafs were ‘locally legalised’, every act of terror was thus, seen as the act of the Mafs. The state of the police in combating crime was also captured by Major General David Jemibewon, former Minister of Police Affairs, when he stated that “…the Nigerian Police Force that we inherited could be said to have suffered gravely from lack of regulatory institutions and lack of focus… The past one year under this administration has therefore seen an increase in crime 5

 

waves…21 Thus, Aba at this period was in the hands of merciless armed robbers and Mafians who not only relieved residents and traders of their hard earned money and property but often murdered many of them.

The incidence of robbery, rape, extortion, lynching and unwarranted killings continued unabated until a day came in late October 1998, when the traders decided to take up arms against their enemies.22 This decision was borne out of a clash that took place between traders at the Power Line Area of Aba and a Maf who had failed in an attempt to collect ‘settlement’

from his victim. The Power Line traders caught the Maf, beat him up to death and burnt him.

Now, the battle line was drawn between the Mafians and the traders. The Ama Ajas Mafs (as one of the Mafian groups was called) ran away from their base and regrouped for a fight.23

Thus, the fight was taken to the streets by the Ariaria traders and was led principally by shoe makers from the Bakassi area of the market against the Ama Ajas Mafs in conjuction with the Ajagba Boys and the Black Kingdom Boys.

The Ariaria traders converged at Shoe Plaza and pursued the Mafs out of Power Line. After this encounter, the traders engaged in hunting the Mafs from house to house operation depending on information from the ‘streets’ regarding the whereabouts of suspected Mafs.

The Mafs regrouped at Ngwa Road and unleashed terror of the highest order on the traders who immediately called on other traders for help against the Mafs. This led to a call for a meeting at Ariaria, where it was decided that a day be set aside for a show down between the Ngwa Road Mafs and the traders. This campaign to Ngwa Road ended in a fiasco as the traders lost one boy to the Mafs and several people wounded at Aba Mosque.24

The humiliating defeat experienced in this campaign against the Mafs was due in part to the fact that the campaign was not properly organised as there were orders and counter-orders coming from the influential traders who probably ‘sponsored’ the campaign. Secondly, there were no means of identification between the traders and the Mafs. This caused confusion and having failed in the campaign, the traders were forced to retreat and perhaps reorganise. The planning of the ‘assault’ was done by the executives of Ariaria Traders Association who were responsible for the maintenance of law and order in Ariaria market.

The last campaign was accompanied with support from the ‘entire’ Aba. All shops were closed in Ariaria market and most people donated gifts and made financial supports.25 The traders converged at Power Line by Faulks Road and fashioned the modalities of the campaign. Firstly, for easy identification, the traders agreed that they should fold one leg of their trousers. Secondly, nobody should use car or motorcycle in the campaign. Thirdly, artisans should bring out their traditional implements which were automatically turned into weapons. These ‘weapons’ included swords of different kinds and sizes, bows, arrows and battle axes among other weapons. In addition, improvised explosives were made and these explosives aided in setting ablaze the Emejiaka’s house which the Mafs used as their sanctuary at Ngwa Road. Fourthly, they appointed an Ogoni boy called Monday to lead the campaign.26 With these preparations, it was certain that the traders were determined to break at least for once the reign of terror imposed for years by gangs of criminals.

6

 

The battle line was drawn on November 6, 1998,27 as the traders set out to confront the Mafs.

When the traders got to Aba Mosque, a serious fight had developed. They were sporadic shootings from the two camps. The traders kept pressing on until they over ran the Mosque area which forced the Mafs to leave Emejiaka’s house which they used as their sanctuary (camp).28 With the destruction of the camp of the Mafs, the traders continued their hunting of the Mafs and their accomplices. In the course of this effort, some notorious criminals like Jango and Goc were brutally killed and burnt in broad day light while others like Aradite went into exile.29 In no distant time, Aba fell into the hands of the traders as the face off resulted in deaths of many of their mafia groups.

That it took some days for the traders to take over Aba from the hands of Mafs was due partly to the fact that the traders were tenacious with the purpose for which they set out for –to end the terror unleashed on the populace by the Mafs. Moreover, the central goal of the Ngwa Road campaign was to destroy the Mafs by depriving them of their sanctuary. The ‘mission’

however, did not ensure complete annihilation of the Mafs but rather it succeeded in the destruction of their safe havens. The traders never relaxed, they engaged in constant fight with the Mafs until Aba became a safe place for human activities as against what it used to be (a den of robbers).

At this juncture, the traders thought it wise to establish a ‘self-help’ security outfit to keep the Mafs permanently out of Aba as they promised to deal with armed criminals ruthlessly and decisiively.30 Rebecca Jones observed this, saying that the traders embarked on an operation of seizing and executing suspected armed robbers until nearly all suspected criminals had been executed or had fled the state.31 This could not have been possible if not for the support given to the Boys by the populace who always provided them with information concerning criminal and criminal activities.

At the root of its formation is the high level of crime against humanity which was prevalent in Aba at the ‘close’ of military administration in Nigeria. Its root can also be traced to the village or community guards that have existed in Igbo communities for many years even before the advent of colonialism in the form of ‘ndi nche obodo’. Thus, it can be technically said that the inability of law enforcement agents to put a stop to the menace of crime led to a situation whereby the civil society in their attempt to supplement the efforts of law enforcement agents, contested crime control with the latter by re-invoking the traditional means of ensuring security.

However, the factors advanced as the cause or catalyst to the formation of the Bakassi Boys in Aba are many and varied. But out of these factors, the following seem to stand out: the killing of a pregnant woman,32 the killing of a Calabar woman33 and the inefficiency and widespread corruption of the police force34 which led to mounting frustration with a steady increase in violent crime. While the importance of these events cannot be denied, they may be regarded as the remote factors in the emergence of the Bakassi Boys. The Power Line contest between the traders and the Mafs that eventually saw to ‘eclipse’ of the later, was the immediate cause of the rise of the formation of the Bakassi Boys. In appreciation of the efforts of the shoe makers from the Bakassi area in the campaign against the Mafs, the traders decided to honour the outfit with the name, the ‘Bakassi Boys’.

7

 

The Bakassi Boys as an informal security outfit originated from the civil society who saw the need to establish a ‘community police’ to guard lives and property in a community where the security agents -the Police- were unable to live up to their expectations. The Boys emerged as a result of lack of trust of the Aba populace in the existing formal criminal justice system and the lack of confidence in the Police as security providers. Thus, it can be rightly summarised that, threatened with criminal activities and the minimal provision of security by the Police or better still deprivation of security which the populace were entitled to, the Ariaria traders with the majority of them coming from among shoe makers banded together in a collective action to wage a war against organised crimes perpetrated by a group of armed gang called Mafs in Aba. Like-minded citizens from Ariaria market and later other markets in Aba came together and formed the Bakassi Boys – a vigilante group which had the objective of fighting crime in Aba. It can also be said that the Bakassi Boys as a ‘self-help’ security outfit developed amongst the Aba populace, against armed civilians (armed robbers) in the interest of the populace.

This paper on the emergence of the Bakassi Boys has given the step-by-step processes that were involved in the establishment of the Boys which have been so much neglected by earlier writers. It has shown that the group emerged out of a flurry of meetings that followed the Ngwa Road armed confrontation between those who wanted law and order to prevail in Aba and those who wanted to perpetrate insecurity. From this account, it is obvious that the Boys were an outright vigilante group as opposed to the identity of a militia group which earlier writers had given them. However, by November 1998, the vigilante group -the Bakassi Boys-had been formed with the primary objective of combating the menace of armed robbery and gangsterism of the notorious Umu-Emejiaka and Umu-Asimuo(both of which were at Ngwa Road), Down-Below Boys(at Water Side), etc, all in Aba.35 With time, the Boys became an alternative security outfit in Nigeria’s South-East zone , where law enforcement agents were performing below the expectations of the society. The activities of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante were extended to Anambra and Imo States on on July 12, 200036 and 22 December 200037 respectively. The activities of the Boys which centred largely on jungle justice with tips of information provided by the populace about criminals and their activities ensured that between 1998 and 2002, armed robbery activities to a greater extent, ended with the violent death, exile or detention of the perpetrators and their accomplices.

The Bakassi Boys for their own safety had to operate in a “military context” – carrying small arms and light weapons as if they were a conventional and institutionalised security outfit.

They started with nothing but a ‘cause’ and quickly grew to become something – a “Special Security Force” that scratched the itches inflicted on the civil population by Mafians through organised criminal activities. They were thus a ‘special security force’ that dealt with Mafians. They possessed the qualities and skills required to rid the civil society of organised armed robbery activities and related crimes.

However, the Bakassi Boys typically employed four basic strategies in the course of their crime fighting activities. These were – provocation, intimidation, charm and dismembering-which they used to confront real or perceived suspects. They provoked, intimidated or used their lie detector apparatus in the form of a machete to identify criminals and used their 8

 

charm-imbued necklace to which made it difficult for a suspect to lie.38 The administration of justice at the discovery of truth entailed torture and summary execution of a victim. The execution normally started with what the local people referred to as ‘long sleeve’ or ‘short sleeve’.39 Ubani suggests that these terminologies (long sleeve and short sleeve) must have been learnt from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels against whom ECOMOG fight in Sierra Leone.40 This entailed the amputation of the wrist or the elbow, respectively with the use of their akparaja (machete) and subsequently, chopping off of other parts of the body which leaves the suspect/victim to die slowly. Probably, this strategy could have been adopted to serve as a deterrent to other would be offenders among the crowd that normally watched the execution. The Bakassi Boys jungle justice strategy in fighting crime can therefore be seen as a synthesis of traditional practices and modernity. It is this strategy that helped them in overthrowing the reign of terror carried out by notorious armed robbers like Jango, GOC, Prophet Eddie, Derico and others whose ‘protective charms’ bowed to the

‘protective and revelatory charms’ of the Boys.

In conclusion, it is clear from this paper that understanding the emergence of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante group among the Igbo ethnic group of south-eastern Nigeria cannot be done in a vacuum. Instead, the ineffectiveness of state security agencies to prevent/or control crime can be argued to be the genesis of the Bakassi Boys, however, the jungle justice method of justice of the Boys laid fertile ground for their blossoming during the period they existed.

 

Endnotes

1. Tell (Lagos), 28 August, 2000, p. 28.
2. Lanre Ikuteyijo and Kemi Rotimi, “Community Partnership in Policing: The Nigerian Experience”, available at http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/Copp?Community-Partnership-

Nigeria.pdf, (accessed on March 4, 2014).

3. “Nigeria: Obasanjo Proposes Law to Ban Ethnic Militias”, IRIN, (United Nations Integrated Regional Information Networks), 11 April, 2002, available at

http://www.irinnews.org/report/31092/nigeria-obasanjo-prposes-law-to-ban-ethnic-

militias, (accessed on 20 February, 2014).

4. Maxwell Elemuo, Chinedu Obike and Enyinnaya Solomon, “Aba – the Enyimba City”, a Documentary Release by NTA, 2008.
5. Abia State 1993 Population Census distribution by Local Government Areas, available

at

www.abiastate.gov.ng/state-profile/history-of-abia-state

(accessed

February 15, 2014).

6. Maxwell Elemuo, Chinedu Obike and Enyinnaya Solomon, “Aba – the Enyimba City”,.. .
7. Hoiberg, Dale H. (ed.), “Aba”. Encyclopedia Britannica. I: A-Ak-Bayes (15th ed.), Chicago, Il: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2010, p. 6.

9

 

8. Kate Meagher, “The Informalization of Belonging: Igbo Informal Enterprise and National Cohesion from Below”, Africa Development, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, 2009, p.41.
9. Forest, T., The Advance of African Capital: The Growth of Nigerian Private Enterprise, Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press for the International African Institute, 1994, p. 196.
10. Hoiberg, Dale H. (ed.), “Aba”. Encyclopedia Britannica. …, p. 6.
11. Kate Meagher, “The Informalization of Belonging:…, p. 41.
12. Uche Nwosu, “Aba, Gov. Orji and the Rest of Us”, Daily Independent, 23 December, 2013, available at www.dailyindependentnig.com/2013/08/aba-gov-orji-and-the-rest-

of-us (accessed December 24, 2013).

13. Kate Meagher, “The Informalization of Belonging:…, p. 42.
14. Guardian Newspaper, 18 September, 2000, p. 12.
15. Tell Magazine, 4 February, 2002.
16. Nwosu Okezienta, 53 years, Civil Servant, interviewed at Aba, on August 26, 2013.
17. Harry Nwanna, “Who are Bakassi Boys?”, Vanguard Newspaper, Thursday 28th December,

2000

available

at

www.waado.org/NigerDelta/Documents/…/BakassiBoys-Nwanna.html (accessed on July 13, 2013).

18. Tell Magazine, 26 March, 2001, p. 42.
19. Tunde Agbola, Architecture of Fear, Ibadan: African Book Publishers, 1997, p. 5.
20. Evan Ekeh, 36 years, Trader, interviewed at Aba, on December 2, 2013.
21. Jemibewom, D., “The Nigerian Experience”, Crime and Policing in Traditional Societies, (Seminar Report), Johannesburg, RSA: Konrad Adenauer, 2001, p. 31.
22. Interview with Chigozie Uzoma, 45 years, Shoe producer and former member, Bakassi Boys, interviewed at Bakassi Line, Aba, August 19, 2013.
23. Agwu Eleanya, 42 years, Trader, interviewed at Power Line, Ariaria Market, Aba on August 19, 1013.
24. Uzoigwe Ezema, 41years, Trader, interviewed at Aba, on December 5, 2013.
25. Ibe Ama, 44 years, Okada Rider, interviewed at Cemetery Market, Aba, on December 4, 2013.
26. Interview with Chigozie Uzoma, 45 years, Shoe producer and former member, Bakassi Boys, interviewed at Bakassi Line, Aba, August 19, 2013.
27. Interview with Chigozie Uzoma, 45 years, Shoe producer and former member, Bakassi Boys, interviewed at Bakassi Line, Aba, August 19, 2013.
28. Emeka Alloy, 49years, Shoe maker, interviewed at Shoe Plaza, Aba, on December 4, 2013.
29. Orjinta Chikere, 46 years, Trader, interviwed at Ngwa Road, Aba, on December 2, 2013.
30. Human Rights Watch/CLEEN Foundation, “The Bakassi Boys: …, p. 8.
31. Rebecca Jones, “State Failure and Extra-Legal Justice: Vigilante Groups, Civil Militias and the Rule of Law in West Africa”, New Issues in Refugee Research, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, Policy Development and Evaluation Service, Research Paper No. 166, October, 2008, p. 2.

10

 

32. Human Rights Watch/CLEEN Foundation, “The Bakassi Boys:…, p. 9.
33. Kate Meagher, “The Informalization of Belonging: …, p. 42.
34. Human Rights Watch/CLEEN Foundation, “The Bakassi Boys:…, p. 8.
35. Report of the Human Rights, Justice and Peace Foundation on the Aba Deaths,

www.elendureports.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf (accessed on July 22, 2013).

36. Human Rights Watch/CLEEN Foundation, “The Bakassi Boys:…, p. 10.
37. Amnesty International, Nigeria: Vigilante Violence in the South and South-East, November, 2002, p. 13, http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engafr440142002

(accessed 12 November, 2013).

38. Tell, 18 December, 2000, p. 34.
39. “Three Hours in the Lions’ Den”, Post Express, Saturday, 29 September, 2001.
40. Ubani Mike, “Bakassi Boys”, Tempo, 3 August, 2000, p. 10.

 

 

 

11

 

 

t we
inherited could be said to have suffered gravely from lack of regulatory institutions and lack
of focus… The past one year under this administration has therefore seen an increase in crime
6
waves…
21 Thus, Aba at this period was in the hands of merciless armed robbers and Mafians
who not only relieved residents and traders of their hard earned money and property but often
murdered many of them.
The incidence of robbery, rape, extortion, lynching and unwarranted killings continued
unabated until a day came in late October 1998, when the traders decided to take up arms
against their enemies.22 This decision was borne out of a clash that took place between traders
at the Power Line Area of Aba and a Maf who had failed in an attempt to collect ‘settlement’
from his victim. The Power Line traders caught the Maf, beat him up to death and burnt him.
Now, the battle line was drawn between the Mafians and the traders. The Ama Ajas Mafs (as
one of the Mafian groups was called) ran away from their base and regrouped for a fight.23
Thus, the fight was taken to the streets by the Ariaria traders and was led principally by shoe
makers from the Bakassi area of the market against the Ama Ajas Mafs in conjuction with the
Ajagba Boys and the Black Kingdom Boys.
The Ariaria traders converged at Shoe Plaza and pursued the Mafs out of Power Line. After
this encounter, the traders engaged in hunting the Mafs from house to house operation
depending on information from the ‘streets’ regarding the whereabouts of suspected Mafs.
The Mafs regrouped at Ngwa Road and unleashed terror of the highest order on the traders
who immediately called on other traders for help against the Mafs. This led to a call for a
meeting at Ariaria, where it was decided that a day be set aside for a show down between the
Ngwa Road Mafs and the traders. This campaign to Ngwa Road ended in a fiasco as the
traders lost one boy to the Mafs and several people wounded at Aba Mosque.24

The humiliating defeat experienced in this campaign against the Mafs was due in part to the
fact that the campaign was not properly organised as there were orders and counter-orders
coming from the influential traders who probably ‘sponsored’ the campaign. Secondly, there
were no means of identification between the traders and the Mafs. This caused confusion and
having failed in the campaign, the traders were forced to retreat and perhaps reorganise. The
planning of the ‘assault’ was done by the executives of Ariaria Traders Association who were
responsible for the maintenance of law and order in Ariaria market.
The last campaign was accompanied with support from the ‘entire’ Aba. All shops were
closed in Ariaria market and most people donated gifts and made financial supports.25 The
traders converged at Power Line by Faulks Road and fashioned the modalities of the
campaign. Firstly, for easy identification, the traders agreed that they should fold one leg of
their trousers. Secondly, nobody should use car or motorcycle in the campaign. Thirdly,
artisans should bring out their traditional implements which were automatically turned into
weapons. These ‘weapons’ included swords of different kinds and sizes, bows, arrows and
battle axes among other weapons. In addition, improvised explosives were made and these
explosives aided in setting ablaze the Emejiaka’s house which the Mafs used as their
sanctuary at Ngwa Road. Fourthly, they appointed an Ogoni boy called Monday to lead the
campaign.26 With these preparations, it was certain that the traders were determined to break
at least for once the reign of terror imposed for years by gangs of criminals.
7
The battle line was drawn on November 6, 1998,27 as the traders set out to confront the Mafs.
When the traders got to Aba Mosque, a serious fight had developed. They were sporadic
shootings from the two camps. The traders kept pressing on until they over ran the Mosque
area which forced the Mafs to leave Emejiaka’s house which they used as their sanctuary
(camp).28 With the destruction of the camp of the Mafs, the traders continued their hunting of
the Mafs and their accomplices. In the course of this effort, some notorious criminals like
Jango and Goc were brutally killed and burnt in broad day light while others like Aradite
went into exile.29 In no distant time, Aba fell into the hands of the traders as the face off
resulted in deaths of many of their mafia groups.
That it took some days for the traders to take over Aba from the hands of Mafs was due partly
to the fact that the traders were tenacious with the purpose for which they set out for –to end
the terror unleashed on the populace by the Mafs. Moreover, the central goal of the Ngwa
Road campaign was to destroy the Mafs by depriving them of their sanctuary. The ‘mission’
however, did not ensure complete annihilation of the Mafs but rather it succeeded in the
destruction of their safe havens. The traders never relaxed, they engaged in constant fight
with the Mafs until Aba became a safe place for human activities as against what it used to be
(a den of robbers).
At this juncture, the traders thought it wise to establish a ‘self-help’ security outfit to keep the
Mafs permanently out of Aba as they promised to deal with armed criminals ruthlessly and
decisiively.
30 Rebecca Jones observed this, saying that the traders embarked on an operation
of seizing and executing suspected armed robbers until nearly all suspected criminals had
been executed or had fled the state.31 This could not have been possible if not for the support
given to the Boys by the populace who always provided them with information concerning
criminal and criminal activities.
At the root of its formation is the high level of crime against humanity which was prevalent
in Aba at the ‘close’ of military administration in Nigeria. Its root can also be traced to the
village or community guards that have existed in Igbo communities for many years even before
the advent of colonialism in the form of ‘ndi nche obodo’. Thus, it can be technically said that the
inability of law enforcement agents to put a stop to the menace of crime led to a situation
whereby the civil society in their attempt to supplement the efforts of law enforcement agents,
contested crime control with the latter by re-invoking the traditional means of ensuring security.
However, the factors advanced as the cause or catalyst to the formation of the Bakassi Boys
in Aba are many and varied. But out of these factors, the following seem to stand out: the
killing of a pregnant woman,32 the killing of a Calabar woman33 and the inefficiency and
widespread corruption of the police force34 which led to mounting frustration with a steady
increase in violent crime. While the importance of these events cannot be denied, they may be
regarded as the remote factors in the emergence of the Bakassi Boys. The Power Line contest
between the traders and the Mafs that eventually saw to ‘eclipse’ of the later, was the
immediate cause of the rise of the formation of the Bakassi Boys. In appreciation of the
efforts of the shoe makers from the Bakassi area in the campaign against the Mafs, the traders
decided to honour the outfit with the name, the ‘Bakassi Boys’.
8
The Bakassi Boys as an informal security outfit originated from the civil society who saw the
need to establish a ‘community police’ to guard lives and property in a community where the
security agents -the Police- were unable to live up to their expectations. The Boys emerged as
a result of lack of trust of the Aba populace in the existing formal criminal justice system and
the lack of confidence in the Police as security providers. Thus, it can be rightly summarised
that, threatened with criminal activities and the minimal provision of security by the Police or
better still deprivation of security which the populace were entitled to, the Ariaria traders
with the majority of them coming from among shoe makers banded together in a collective
action to wage a war against organised crimes perpetrated by a group of armed gang called
Mafs in Aba. Like-minded citizens from Ariaria market and later other markets in Aba came
together and formed the Bakassi Boys – a vigilante group which had the objective of fighting
crime in Aba. It can also be said that the Bakassi Boys as a ‘self-help’ security outfit
developed amongst the Aba populace, against armed civilians (armed robbers) in the interest
of the populace.
This paper on the emergence of the Bakassi Boys has given the step-by-step processes that
were involved in the establishment of the Boys which have been so much neglected by earlier
writers. It has shown that the group emerged out of a flurry of meetings that followed the
Ngwa Road armed confrontation between those who wanted law and order to prevail in Aba
and those who wanted to perpetrate insecurity. From this account, it is obvious that the Boys
were an outright vigilante group as opposed to the identity of a militia group which earlier
writers had given them. However, by November 1998, the vigilante group -the Bakassi Boyshad been formed with the primary objective of combating the menace of armed robbery and
gangsterism of the notorious Umu-Emejiaka and Umu-Asimuo(both of which were at Ngwa
Road), Down-Below Boys(at Water Side), etc, all in Aba.35 With time, the Boys became an
alternative security outfit in Nigeria’s South-East zone , where law enforcement agents were
performing below the expectations of the society. The activities of the Bakassi Boys
Vigilante were extended to Anambra and Imo States on on July 12, 200036 and 22 December
200037 respectively. The activities of the Boys which centred largely on jungle justice with
tips of information provided by the populace about criminals and their activities ensured that
between 1998 and 2002, armed robbery activities to a greater extent, ended with the violent
death, exile or detention of the perpetrators and their accomplices.
The Bakassi Boys for their own safety had to operate in a “military context” – carrying small
arms and light weapons as if they were a conventional and institutionalised security outfit.
They started with nothing but a ‘cause’ and quickly grew to become something – a “Special
Security Force” that scratched the itches inflicted on the civil population by Mafians through
organised criminal activities. They were thus a ‘special security force’ that dealt with
Mafians. They possessed the qualities and skills required to rid the civil society of organised
armed robbery activities and related crimes.
However, the Bakassi Boys typically employed four basic strategies in the course of their
crime fighting activities. These were – provocation, intimidation, charm and dismemberingwhich they used to confront real or perceived suspects. They provoked, intimidated or used
their lie detector apparatus in the form of a machete to identify criminals and used their
9
charm-imbued necklace to which made it difficult for a suspect to lie.38 The administration of
justice at the discovery of truth entailed torture and summary execution of a victim. The
execution normally started with what the local people referred to as ‘long sleeve’ or ‘short
sleeve’.39 Ubani suggests that these terminologies (long sleeve and short sleeve) must have
been learnt from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels against whom ECOMOG fight
in Sierra Leone.40 This entailed the amputation of the wrist or the elbow, respectively with
the use of their akparaja (machete) and subsequently, chopping off of other parts of the body
which leaves the suspect/victim to die slowly. Probably, this strategy could have been
adopted to serve as a deterrent to other would be offenders among the crowd that normally
watched the execution. The Bakassi Boys jungle justice strategy in fighting crime can
therefore be seen as a synthesis of traditional practices and modernity. It is this strategy that
helped them in overthrowing the reign of terror carried out by notorious armed robbers like
Jango, GOC, Prophet Eddie, Derico and others whose ‘protective charms’ bowed to the
‘protective and revelatory charms’ of the Boys.
In conclusion, it is clear from this paper that understanding the emergence of the Bakassi
Boys Vigilante group among the Igbo ethnic group of south-eastern Nigeria cannot be done
in a vacuum. Instead, the ineffectiveness of state security agencies to prevent/or control crime
can be argued to be the genesis of the Bakassi Boys, however, the jungle justice method of
justice of the Boys laid fertile ground for their blossoming during the period they existed.
Endnotes
1. Tell (Lagos), 28 August, 2000, p. 28.
2. Lanre Ikuteyijo and Kemi Rotimi, “Community Partnership in Policing: The Nigerian
Experience”, available at http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/Copp?Community-PartnershipNigeria.pdf, (accessed on March 4, 2014).
3. “Nigeria: Obasanjo Proposes Law to Ban Ethnic Militias”, IRIN, (United Nations
Integrated Regional Information Networks), 11 April, 2002, available at
http://www.irinnews.org/report/31092/nigeria-obasanjo-prposes-law-to-ban-ethnicmilitias, (accessed on 20 February, 2014).
4. Maxwell Elemuo, Chinedu Obike and Enyinnaya Solomon, “Aba – the Enyimba
City”, a Documentary Release by NTA, 2008.
5. Abia State 1993 Population Census distribution by Local Government Areas,
available at www.abiastate.gov.ng/state-profile/history-of-abia-state (accessed
February 15, 2014).
6. Maxwell Elemuo, Chinedu Obike and Enyinnaya Solomon, “Aba – the Enyimba
City”,…
7. Hoiberg, Dale H. (ed.), “Aba”. Encyclopedia Britannica. I: A-Ak-Bayes (15th ed.),
Chicago, Il: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2010, p. 6.
10
8. Kate Meagher, “The Informalization of Belonging: Igbo Informal Enterprise and
National Cohesion from Below”, Africa Development, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, 2009,
p.41.
9. Forest, T., The Advance of African Capital: The Growth of Nigerian Private
Enterprise, Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press for the International African Institute,
1994, p. 196.
10. Hoiberg, Dale H. (ed.), “Aba”. Encyclopedia Britannica…., p. 6.
11. Kate Meagher, “The Informalization of Belonging:…, p. 41.
12. Uche Nwosu, “Aba, Gov. Orji and the Rest of Us”, Daily Independent, 23 December,
2013, available at www.dailyindependentnig.com/2013/08/aba-gov-orji-and-the-restof-us (accessed December 24, 2013).
13. Kate Meagher, “The Informalization of Belonging:…, p. 42.
14. Guardian Newspaper, 18 September, 2000, p. 12.
15. Tell Magazine, 4 February, 2002.
16. Nwosu Okezienta, 53 years, Civil Servant, interviewed at Aba, on August 26, 2013.
17. Harry Nwanna, “Who are Bakassi Boys?”, Vanguard Newspaper, Thursday 28th
December, 2000 available at
www.waado.org/NigerDelta/Documents/…/BakassiBoys-Nwanna.html (accessed on
July 13, 2013).
18. Tell Magazine, 26 March, 2001, p. 42.
19. Tunde Agbola, Architecture of Fear, Ibadan: African Book Publishers, 1997, p. 5.
20. Evan Ekeh, 36 years, Trader, interviewed at Aba, on December 2, 2013.
21. Jemibewom, D., “The Nigerian Experience”, Crime and Policing in Traditional
Societies, (Seminar Report), Johannesburg, RSA: Konrad Adenauer, 2001, p. 31.
22. Interview with Chigozie Uzoma, 45 years, Shoe producer and former member,
Bakassi Boys, interviewed at Bakassi Line, Aba, August 19, 2013.
23. Agwu Eleanya, 42 years, Trader, interviewed at Power Line, Ariaria Market, Aba on
August 19, 1013.
24. Uzoigwe Ezema, 41years, Trader, interviewed at Aba, on December 5, 2013.
25. Ibe Ama, 44 years, Okada Rider, interviewed at Cemetery Market, Aba, on December
4, 2013.
26. Interview with Chigozie Uzoma, 45 years, Shoe producer and former member,
Bakassi Boys, interviewed at Bakassi Line, Aba, August 19, 2013.
27. Interview with Chigozie Uzoma, 45 years, Shoe producer and former member,
Bakassi Boys, interviewed at Bakassi Line, Aba, August 19, 2013.
28. Emeka Alloy, 49years, Shoe maker, interviewed at Shoe Plaza, Aba, on December 4,
2013.
29. Orjinta Chikere, 46 years, Trader, interviwed at Ngwa Road, Aba, on December 2,
2013.
30. Human Rights Watch/CLEEN Foundation, “The Bakassi Boys: …, p. 8.
31. Rebecca Jones, “State Failure and Extra-Legal Justice: Vigilante Groups, Civil
Militias and the Rule of Law in West Africa”, New Issues in Refugee Research,
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, Policy Development and Evaluation Service,
Research Paper No. 166, October, 2008, p. 2.
11
32. Human Rights Watch/CLEEN Foundation, “The Bakassi Boys:…, p. 9.
33. Kate Meagher, “The Informalization of Belonging: …, p. 42.
34. Human Rights Watch/CLEEN Foundation, “The Bakassi Boys:…, p. 8.
35. Report of the Human Rights, Justice and Peace Foundation on the Aba Deaths,
www.elendureports.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf (accessed on July
22, 2013).
36. Human Rights Watch/CLEEN Foundation, “The Bakassi Boys:…, p. 10.
37. Amnesty International, Nigeria: Vigilante Violence in the South and South-East,
November, 2002, p. 13, http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engafr440142002
(accessed 12 November, 2013).
38. Tell, 18 December, 2000, p. 34.
39. “Three Hours in the Lions’ Den”, Post Express, Saturday, 29 September, 2001.
40. Ubani Mike, “Bakassi Boys”, Tempo, 3 August, 2000, p. 10.