Women Maiduguri are signing up to join youth vigilante groups to fight Boko Haram Maiduguri

Some women and young females are signing up to join youth vigilante groups known as the civilian Joint Task Force (JTF) across Maiduguri as the huntfor Boko Haram members intensifies across the metropolis. Being on the run and forced to operate covertly, Boko Haram has resorted to using women to plant bombs and its members are also disguising as females.
To combat this, the civilian JTF is now recruiting women who can stop and search suspicious characters in hijabs or purdahs to see if they are concealing weapons. According to reports from Maiduguri, yesterday, girls and women, aged between 15 and 30 were seen in the city carrying swords, daggers, knives and sticks. They stop and search vehicles and pedestrians together with their male counterparts and take it upon themselves to frisk female suspects.

 Whenever a vehicle is stopped, the women volunteers check their womenfolk while men check men and when the vehicle is certified the driver is allowed to go. Both private and commercial vehicles are not spared in the operation as the checkpoints mounted by the youths far outnumber that of the security operatives. One of the volunteers named Halima, who is 17, said:
“We joined the civilian JTF in order to be searching females. A woman can search any other woman anywhere and nobody can raise eyebrows.” She added that she was not afraid at all and had participated in raiding some houses in the Kumshe ward of Maiduguri where Boko Haram gun men were suspected to be hiding. “Securing Maiduguri is now a collective responsibility, irrespective of age, gender or status, as the safer the town, the better for all of us,” Halima added. Another volunteer, Saratu, said she suspended working as a sales girl in order to take part in the routine patrol being undertaken by civilians.
Hawkers of weapons such as swords, bows and arrows and knives are now enjoying brisk business in Maiduguri as a result of the high patronage by the civilian JTF. Before the emergence of the youth groups, it was not possible to see anyone selling daggers in the open but now, the industry is enjoying a boom.
 One of the hawkers said his sales had risen by over 80% in recent weeks, adding:
 “The price of a sword has also gone up from N250 to N350 or more.” Meanwhile, Barrister Usman Sani, a Maiduguri legal practitioner said there was the need to control the proliferation of such weapons in the hands of the youths. “If the authorities do not take the right measures now, wewould find ourselves confronted with another serious dilemma in the nearest future,” he added. JTF spokesman Lt Col Sagir Musa echoed his thoughts. He called on parents to also assist the authorities in regulating the activities ofthe youth vigilante groups.