Militia Participation in Counterinsurgency: The Impetus of Civilian Joint Task Participation in Combating Boko Haram in Nigeria

Abstract

Since 2013, the north of Nigeria has witnessed an increased involvement of the militia group ‘Civilian Joint Task Force’ (CJTF) in combating the Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram. The mobilization of the Civilian Joint Task Force brought a tremendous success to the counterinsurgency operation. Before the CJTF’s engagement, the antiterrorism efforts of the government were marred by negligent performance. In addition to helping decrease the attack frequencies and number of fatalities caused by the insurgent group, the militia succeeded in expelling Boko Haram fighters from the towns and villages they had previously occupied. However, the unprecedented participation of the Civilian Joint Task Force in the counterinsurgency campaign has raised certain suspicions of the public in regards to the CJTF’s ulterior motives. This paper, therefore, explores the motives that triggered people’s participation in the Civilian Joint Task Force with the aim to combat the Boko Haram insurgent group. The current paper is a qualitative research, designed as a case study. The empirical data were collected by means of an in-depth interview involving 13 respondents, among who were the members of the CJTF, community leaders and government officials in Yobe State, Nigeria. The findings show that people’s participation in the CJTF is voluntary, with the main motivation being the necessity to defend the community due to the state’s failure to provide adequate protection. The article points out an urgent need to demobilize and deradicalize the participants in order to prevent the CJTF from further jeopardizing local communities’ peace and stability.

Militia counterinsurgency: Understanding the drivers of states’ engagement of militias in counterinsurgency in northeast Nigeria

“…Since the eruption of the Boko Haram, numerous national and international human right groups have condemned the arbitrary of the security operatives such as extrajudicial killings, mass arrest without trial, the disappearance of suspect etc. Whereas this has been alleged to have contributed for the sustenance of the insurgency, the brutality of the police force for extrajudicial killings Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf allegedly laid the impetus of conversion of Boko Haram into the full-scale insurgency in the north (Gana, et al, 2019;Solomon, 2012) [16,30] . The continued aggression and indiscriminate arrest brewed distrust thus influence the existentialism of the Boko Haram.…”

“…Existing works largely focused on the roles of militias in the counterinsurgency successes (Gana, 2019; Gana and Mali, 2021) [16,13] . Others on the motivations driving the militia's participation in the counterinsurgency campaign (Agbiboba, 2015; Bamidele, 2016; Gana, 2020) [1,3,12] .…”

Militia Counterinsurgency: Implications of Progovernment Militia Participation in Counterinsurgency in Northeast Nigeria

“…Most of the previous works focused mostly on the successes of the militia movement in the counterinsurgency operation (Omenma and Hendricks, 2018;Bamidele, 2016). Moreover, others on the combating strategies of the participants (Gana, et al, 2018a, Gana et al, 2018bAgbiboa, 2015), as well as the motivations driving the participation of the people in the campaign (Gana, 2019). Perspectives on the implications of the militias are not adequately studies.…”