Introduction

It is often asserted that crime and disorder are related to transitions within political systems – from authoritarianism to democracy, from military to civilian rule, from communist regime to market economy, or from civil war to peace (Shaw 2000). Also, in tracing the emergence of contemporary vigilantism in Nigeria it is tempting to point to watershed moments that link vigilantism to transition and rupture within the nation's political fabric. The Nigerian Civil War (1967–70) is often cited as such a watershed, not least because of the subsequent availability of arms for criminal use. The impact of structural adjustment and neoliberal reforms from the 1980s onwards, which heralded the demise of the powerful petro-state, might equally represent a significant turning point. Recent trends towards devolved and privatised security, including moves on the part of the federal government to embrace policies of ‘community policing’, along with the massive growth of the private security sector, have similarly led to official tolerance and, at times, promotion of vigilante groups, especially during the well-publicised ‘crime waves’ of the 1990s. And most proximately, the return to democracy in 1999 has introduced a fundamental decentralising impetus within the nation-state in which vigilantism has come to express re-ignited religious tension, ethnic cultural nationalism and the strategic ambitions of increasingly well-resourced state governors.