Daily Trust Editorial, Thursday Aug 7, 2025
Nigeria’s defence and security sector is heavily funded to tackle bandits and terrorists. But Nigerians in towns and cities are confronted with ever-present danger posed by hoodlums, cultists, and gangs who operate in cells and wreak havoc on our communities. The data collected by Nextier, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), on casualties from the violent activities of gangs is as staggering as those from destruction caused by bandits. Between 2020 and 2024, as many as 20,472 persons were killed by hoodlums and gangs, while more than 5,000 others suffered various degrees of injuries.
The activities of gangs revolve around organised crime, including extortion, robbery, drug trafficking, and kidnapping for ransom. Some gangs are sponsored and funded by political actors. They are hired to play ignoble roles, like intimidating political rivals, rigging elections, or enforcing loyalty, especially during campaign seasons. Many gangs recruit young people, exploiting poverty, unemployment, and lack of education. In urban centres and universities, cult groups like Black Axe and Vikings operate with ritualistic violence and territorial control. There are extreme cases in which gangs transmute into “bandits” who take over large swaths of territory, engage in mass abductions, cattle rustling, and attacks on villages.
In the Southern part of the country, gangs operating as cult groups clash over turf, leading to street fights, robberies, and killings. The North Central is replete with hoodlums who rob unsuspecting persons of their valuables, especially mobile phones and electronic gadgets that could be sold off at giveaway prices to local technicians and collaborators. Extreme cases occur in the North West and North East, where criminal groups seize farms and extort local businesses, crippling agriculture and trade. Others have forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, especially in Zamfara, Katsina, and Kaduna States.
Hoodlums, cultists, and gangs create an atmosphere of fear in cities and towns where they operate. There is a constant threat of violence, leading to widespread psychological distress among children and even families. As a result of the lack of trust in security operatives, many communities do not cooperate with the authorities to expose the ringleaders of gang groups. Most times, informants are not protected; some are exposed to brutal abuses when their cover is blown open by the police or other security agents.
Worse still, hoodlums who have strong financial backing exploit poverty and unemployment by recruiting young people, thereby deepening the cycles of violence. In this manner, some communities come under control by cult groups, gangs and hoodlums, undermining government authority. Some gangs become very powerful and entrenched to the point that they become tools in the hands of the elite and political leadership in some states.
Sadly, the government does not have a policy on curtailing hoodlums and gangsters in Nigeria. That is why, in most states, they are treated like common criminals who are detained briefly and later released after sloppy investigations. There are instances in which influential politicians who engage the services of the miscreants approach the authorities for their release, despite clear evidence of criminal violations. Through such indulgences, some gangs have effectively recruited hundreds of youths into their fold, become powerful and have defied local policemen or vigilantes to the point of taking over control of sections of our towns and cities. Added to the proliferation of illegal arms, many gangs have access to sophisticated weapons for their operations. They become too tough for the police to confront. No serious and civilised society would give space to the multiplicity of hoodlums and gangs that operate across Nigeria.
The first step toward overcoming this menace is for the government to come up with a deliberate policy on eradicating cultism, hooliganism, and gangsterism in whatever form in Nigeria. The National Assembly must enact a law that specifically provides the nature, manifestation, and strategies to stop this reign of terror across Nigeria. Policemen must be provided with special training and skills that will enable them to cut off the wings of gangs. In doing so, our security agents must first build trust with local communities to enhance local intelligence sharing.
Also, local communities could be empowered to protect their communities. Measures must be put in place to deny political figures the use of gangs for personal gain. The judiciary, on its part, must not take the prosecution of cultists, hoodlums and gangsters with levity. There must be a kind of reform in the judicial processes that would ensure the timely prosecution of arrested hoodlums.
It is a well-known fact that most of the youths involved in criminal gangs do so out of idleness or frustration. The huge population of unemployed youths in our towns and cities is readily available for recruitment by gang leaders who mislead them into criminal acts with the promise to pay them handsomely. To reduce the number of youths who join such groups, the three tiers of government must be intentional in their investment in schools and literacy programmes, and in the creation of jobs for unemployed youths.
Where jobs cannot be readily created, the government must deliberately set up vocational training centres where youth can acquire skills and be exposed to mentors. If effectively managed, those centres could provide skills that will encourage many youths to become self-employed.
We can no longer ignore the activities of hoodlums across the country. All hands must be on deck to stop them.