Abstract
Within a changing global consciousness for international guardianship of the targets of terrorism, this article explores the broad narratives, strengths, and limitations of adopting community policing for the control of herdsmen terrorism in West Africa. It follows the search by social engineering and criminal justice practitioners for a relational and experiential agent for social change against destructive terrorist tendencies and its eroding influence on the sensibilities of human civilization. The article frames an approach for creating a social policing environment in rural and poor communities along pastoral transhumance routes in West and Central Africa. The mass murder of indigenous communities by the migratory and transborder terror groups in this region is a crime against humanity. The adoption of the concept of “connected communities” is suggested to create a multilayered and all-involving intelligence community policing shield in individual communities under siege of the pastoralists.
Highlights
Our herd is our life because, to every nomad, life is worthless without his cattle
It is important to identify certain perspective of the legitimacy, use, and limitations of community-oriented policing relevant to this reinvigoration of social change, order, and control as we explore the practical utility of community policing in the impending fight against Fulani nomadic terrorism
In the case of herdsmen terrorists of West Africa, the role of local policing should emanate from its capacity to strengthen the participation of the local communities in the task of proactively engaging the threat of terrorism
Summary
Our herd is our life because, to every nomad, life is worthless without his cattle. What do you expect from us when our source of existence is threatened? The encroachment of grazing field and routes by farmers is a call to war. (Awogbade et al, 2016, p. 3)Terrorist activities by ethnic Fula herdsmen in West Africa, called the “Fulani,” result from the need for better pasture land as desertification direct their search inward and down south. As noted by Awogbade et al (2016), the loss of grazing land affects age-old pastoral practices, and the use of violence, along with illegal transborder movement by nomadic Fulani herdsmen into Nigeria from Niger, Mali, Chad, and Cameroon to displace sedentary farming communities, fundamentally, constitutes terrorism.
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