1. Vigilante Groups and Policing in a Democratizing NigeriA: Navigating the Context and Issues
- Author:
- Adeniyi S. Basiru and Olusesan A. Osunkoya
- Publication Date:
- 12-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Brazilian Journal of African Studies
- Institution:
- Brazilian Journal of African Studies
- Abstract:
- Before the advent of colonialism in Nigeria, the various indigenous communities, like elsewhere in Africa, had evolved various self-help institutions (vigilante groups in modern sense) for maintaining public order. But, with the emergence of the colonial state and all its coercive paraphernalia, these traditional institutions of public order management, that had for centuries served the people, were relegated to the background, as the modern police force, the precursor of the present day Nigerian Police, under the direction of the colonial authorities, became the primus inter pares, in the internal security architecture of the colony (Ahire, 1991, 18). With this development, the communal/collectivist-oriented frameworks of policing that had for centuries been part of people’s social existence now constituted the informal models of policing rendering subsidiary roles.
- Topic:
- Security, Democratization, Governance, Police, and Vigilantism
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Nigeria