By Theodore Shoebat
A heroic and courageous militia has risen up in Nigeria, called the Civilian Joint Task Force (JTF), and they have been successful in driving out Boko Haram Muslim jihadists in numerous instances. The group is also known as the Borno Youth Association of Peace and Justice, and it was founded in the area of Maiduguri.
One member of the militia, Shehu Abdul Gani, said:
I joined the Civilian Joint Task Force June 12 last year… At that time Boko Haram were living in the same environment as us… We would see them carrying guns. They would come out and kill our brothers and sisters any time. My brother was killed. They came into our house and shot him in the evening time. I was sitting right next to him. When I remember this incident, I don’t have mercy for them … We are chasing them with our sticks and cutlasses – we are going to chase them out of Nigeria.
Members of the militia
The militia is a people’s police force; they search cars, maintain check points, and even jihadists when they catch them. And of course, they have weapons. Shehu affirmed that the militia is the eyes of the government soldiers, ceaselessly watching out for, and apprehending the jihadists:
We are [government troops’] eyes here. We are watching and listening for them. We are giving them information on anything they don’t understand because we are the sons of the soil,” said Shehu. “We knew Boko Haram and it just became too much … Last June Boko Haram came and killed a 90-year-old woman, three children and many younger ones so we were very angry. So the next day we started this work. We started fishing them out inside the metropolis. We went searching house to house. If we saw people with a gun we would arrest them and hand them over to military personnel. That is the beginning of the Civilian JTF here.
In Maiduguri today, one will not see soldiers, but young men who are members of the militia, patrolling the streets and seeing to it that the land is safe from the violent hands of jihadist savages. The Borno State Government has organized and established the Borno Youth Empowerment Scheme (BOYES) and says it will actually train at least 5,000 local vigilantes by 2015. But for now the militia mainly consists of young men armed with knives, swords, sticks and bows and arrows, with some in possession of fire arms.
The Obama administration has helped and even armed jihadists in Syria, but they are not helping this poor militia fight Boko Haram?
The work of the militia is very prospective, and they have managed to clean much of Nigeria of the Boko Haram virus. As Shehu explains:
The work is successful in the metropolis and GRA [Government Residential Area]. You will never see any Boko Haram in these places now. But in the villages we still have a little problem. I’ve been to Sambisa to look for Boko Haram. It’s a thick forest, but there are small villages within the Sambisa so the Boko Haram just go and conquer those villages, make it their place. They are using the villages.
Expect a civil war to erupt in Nigeria. As long the country continues to suffer Islamic violence, we will see the rise of more militias, and the sudden occurrence of interior war.