Ebubeagu Regional Security Outfit in South-East Nigeria: Reasons for the Discontents

In the past few years, Nigeria has been under security challenges occasioned by gaps in the size and effectiveness of the country’s security personnel. Precisely, the police and other outfits which deal with civil security are patently understaffed. For instance, the Nigerian police have a combined strength of 370,000. A good part of this number is involved in providing security to rich individuals and organisations. Hence, most of Nigeria’s space suffers limited governmental regulatory penetration. Since 2009, the northern geopolitical zones of the country came under the siege of terror, banditry and farmer-herder violence. The South-East, South-West and South-South are troubled mostly by crimes of kidnapping, secessionist agitations, armed robbery and farmer-herder conflicts. Part of the common agitations by Nigerians as the solution to the problem is the establishment of state police forces. This is to swiftly meet local security challenges, unlike the Federal Police, which may not respond quickly to emergencies that demand prompt action because it takes directions from Abuja, the nation’s capital. Consequently, governors in different geopolitical zones undertook to establish regional security outfits. In the SouthWest, the Amotekun was established on January 9th 2020. The South-East later set up the South Eastern regional security outfit called Ebubeagu on 12th April 2021. This latter group came after long public pressure from the citizens due to the rising insecurity.

In this edition of Nextier SPD Policy Weekly, we explore the discontentment surrounding the operations of Ebubeagu.

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