The reign of terror by terrorist group, Boko Haram in north-east Nigeria and beyond has seen the rise of several local vigilante groups who have sprung up as a result of the inability of the Nigeria military to effectively curb the activities of the rampaging rag-tag army.
“Allahu Akbar!” local Nigerian militiamen known as vigilantes shout as they go into battle against the Islamist militant group, Boko Haram.
They chant partly to bewilder the insurgents and partly because they too believe in the Islamic faith and that they have God on their side in a war in northern Nigeria that is pitting Muslim civilians against militants trying to set up an Islamic State-style caliphate.
“They become confused about who is saying the slogan, we lie down and hide, and as they approach we then open fire on them,” Tasiu Musa, a 40-year-old father of four in Maiduguri told Business Week.
Musa and thousands of other Muslim volunteers like him have taken up arms to defend their towns and cities from Boko Haram, the group whose name roughly translates as “Western education is a sin.” Armed with flintlock muskets and bows and arrows, the militiamen are winning back territory that the army has failed to recapture in the region. “Our town is ruined by insurgency, our people are being killed on a daily basis,” said Haruna Ibrahim, another Maiduguri resident.
Ibrahim, a 32-year-old bricklayer, said the insurgency has wrecked the local economy and cost him his job. Religion has nothing to do with the militants’ cause, he said. A veteran of battles in the towns of Damboa, Meiha and Gombi near Boko Haram’s stronghold in the Sambisa forest, Ibrahim said the militants rob people, shops and banks. “They relate themselves to Islam and Muslims, but they are killing everyone: Muslims or Christians,” he said. “This will tell you that they are not fighting for Islam —they are on a rampage to acquire wealth and their ideology is not Islamic.”
The vigilante groups are acting out of desperation. As Boko Haram expands its attacks in the region in its five-year-old campaign to establish Shariah, or Islamic law Nigeria, leaders like the newly installed Emir of Kano have urged residents to take up arms and fight the militants.
Bloomberg reports that the vigilantes’ effectiveness has prompted some states to consider registering and employing them. Adamawa state said last month it had set up a committee to find out the best way to hire hunters and militiamen and will screen about 10,000.
It will be recalled that multiple bombs went off at the Central Mosque in Kano as Muslims were having their Friday prayers on November 28, 2014.
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