‘We Are Proactive against the Thieves’: Community Mobilisation against COVID-19 Criminality in Ibadan, Nigeria

Abstract

One of the unintended consequences of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) preventive protocols that restricted movements and disrupted livelihoods was the changing nature of criminal behaviour from the streets to residential neighbourhoods. While studies on COVID-19 have focussed on economic losses, disrupted livelihoods and changes in social relations, scant attempt has been made to understand how fear of insecurity during the health pandemic could reinforce the need for community policing. Against this background, this study investigated community mobilisation against insecurity of lives and properties during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Ibadan, Nigeria. Using participant observation and in-depth interviews with 15 purposively selected residents, the study shows how collective perceived insecurity can engender social and communal bonding in the formation of defensible spaces. Findings showed that mobilisation for community policing was executed because of the insecurity experienced in neighbouring communities. A decentralised mechanism was established to allow zonal community executives take charge of their community security. This involved daily midnight house-to-house mobilisation with whistle, deployment of vigilante to hotspots, burn fires to signal the presence of community guards and decentralisation of residents into different patrol groups to community borders to guard against invasion.