History
These groups likely took their name from the Bakassi peninsula, an oil-rich peninsula in the Annang /Efik / Ibiobio region of the coastal southeastern Nigeria disputes over the peninsula which had hastened hostilities between Nigeria and Cameroon, with both countries contending for ownership of the region and its resources. The "Boys" emerged as a vigilante group simultaneous with sharp increases in the crime rate of Abia State. They originally enjoined the support of the governor, Orji Uzor Kalu. He sensed the effectiveness of the group in combating the merciless crimes in Aba and environs. However, as the crime rate was going down in Aba, other eastern Igbo cities were not so lucky and the crime rate in places like Onitsha was still rising. The "Boys" then were invited to other major cities, like Onitsha and Owerri, to rid them of criminals. In due time, law enforcement agencies became regarded as ineffectual symbols and the "Bakassi" endeared themselves to many Igbo traders and merchants. However, political opponents of some governors accused the group of extra-judicial killings, and accused governors of using the "Boys" as weapons of intimidation. As a result of heightened opposition, the group has attempted to re-brand itself as "Anambra State Vigilante Services".
Read more about this topic: Bakassi Boys
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in natureto Berenice—although, I grant you, far superior in style and execution. I say similar in nature. You ask me in what does this nature consist? In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“... the history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a process of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)