OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lagos | Saturday
A VIGILANTE group – which is backed by authorities in three southern Nigerian states – this week barbarically executed two suspected robbers in public, police admitted.
Members of the vigilante group known as the Bakassi Boys – sanctioned by Abia, Anambra and Imo state authorities to tackle high crime levels in the states – dragged the two men to a popular market in chains, chopped off their arms and then severed their heads. As a crowd looked on, they were then set alight.
“We have the reports. It did happen. We do not know what the dead men did but it does appear they were executed,” said an official from the office of Imo State Police Commissioner Ahmed Abubakar.
A “proper investigation” would be carried out, added the official – but he warned that the issue was politically sensitive because the highest authorities had approved the Bakassi Boys activities.
The newspaper This Day said the execution was the first carried out in Imo State since the state house of assembly in November authorised the controversial group to work there, over the objections of the state governor.
It said the two suspected robbers were killed as a lesson to others.
Imo State became the third southern Nigerian state to bring in the Bakassi Boys, who have already been accused by religious leaders and government officials of carrying out brutal punishments and executions in Abia and Anambra states.
President Olusegun Obasanjo has criticised the operation of the group, but it is strongly supported by most residents of the states and at least partly by the state authorities.
A spokesman for the Anambra State governor said the Bakassi Boys’ activities had cut crime levels in the state and improved the lives of law-abiding citizens.
A member of the unit which killed the two men in Imo State told This Day the vigilantes had feared the suspected robbers would bribe their way out of police custody.
Residents of many Nigerian states are fed up with high crime levels and have no confidence in the police to combat crime. The federal government led by Obasanjo admits crime levels are high but insists it is for the courts and police together to combat crime.
The government has taken no action against the states that have allowed vigilante groups to operate. – AFP