Defending or Harming? The Precariousness of Civilian Joint Task Force in Countering Boko-Haramism in Northeast Nigeria

• In Event: State Crime and Its Harms

Abstract

The Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) emerged as a pro-government militia group supporting the military to counter persistent Boko Haram violence in Nigeria’s Northeast. Despite successes, the group has been accused of extrajudicial practices against civilians. In this study, we use interview data gathered from fifty-eight victims of CJTF abuse in Borno, Nigeria to examine circumstances surrounding civilians’ plights in the hands of some CJTF members. We find that some delinquent CJTF members have committed a series of transgressions mainly - wrongful criminal labelling, indiscriminate profiling, restriction of access to family, financial and material extortion, sexual harassment, psychological torture, and shadow criminal justice largely due to lack of policing training, poor regulation, and institutional unaccountability. However, our study addresses the rarity of empirical evidence to substantiate claims of abuses perpetrated by CJTF. In addition to contributing to scholarship on political and community violence, we prove that those claims are not illusions, but rather realities depicting the plights of civilians in conflict-ridden communities. The operations of CJTF in the already-fragile communities present dilemmas for achieving peace, security, and social cohesion. We offer avenues for future research and discuss policy implications in the context of state-society relations and CJTF reform.

Authors

• Habeeb Abdulrauf Salihu, University of Ilorin

• Ali Shodunke, The Pennsylvania State University