Roughly said, there are vigilante non-governmental organizations for the enforcement of police functions in Nigeria. In the developing country have the “poor” a chance to buy security from crime and thereby set on vigilante and Neighbourhood guards. In Nigeria there are two large vigilante – the OPC and the Bakassi Boys. The OPC was at the beginning of an umbrella organization of the Yoruba tribe, who in the course of time took over duties to fight crime, while the Bakassi Boys of the Igbo were designed from the start to the fight against crime. Big problems arise when the vigilante begin to operate on the territory of other ethnic communities.

Besides these two great organizations there are in Nigeria, a large number of locally active vigilante. To countered against the discrimination of the Yoruba OPC was founded and quickly developed into a resistance movement. Aim to protect the “Yoruba Nation” and the fight against crime in urban areas is of Yoruba in the southwest Nigeria. The federal government classifies the operations of the OPC for a professional and has the vigilante in 2000 prohibited. In the fight against the OPC, it came and it comes to massive human rights violations.

The vigilante groups of the Igbo governors of southeastern states will be tolerated in the police activities, and even supported, as the Bakassi Boys are no ethical militia. Nevertheless, there are repeated reports of torture, mutilations and executions. The reputation of this group relates as well as most of the other attributed to them “magical” powers. In the country there is the view that the group was in the area of crime far superior to the state bodies, as they fought against evil magic with magic. Despite repeated statements by the federal government to want to endure the self-defense militia no longer, there were and are only few measures against the militias.