| Summary: | In the last few years, vigilante groups and other informal policing structures have assumed a greater role in the security architecture of many countries, especially those that exited from authoritarian order. In spite of this development, however, issues and concerns are constantly being raised about them regarding whether they could really be agents of democratic policing against the backdrop of their penchant for human rights violations and extra-judicial killings. It is against this background that this article examines the balance sheet of vigilante groups in a democratizing Nigeria. Following an extensive review of extant literature on police, policing, vigilantism and vigilante groups, as well as relevant studies on vigilante groups in Nigeria, it observes and notes that unlike the practice in liberal democracies, where vigilante groups - in conduct and practice - conform to principles of rule of law and constitutionalism, the opposite is the case in a democratizing Nigeria. It argues and concludes that as long as the vigilante groups, like the formal policing establishments, remain the instruments of intimidation of political opponents by the politicians that control them; the terrain of vigilantism would continue to be in the realm of ‘anocracy’.
|
|---|
