[Nigeria / Fulani] - The Tribal Vigilante Self Becomes the Abuser It Claims to Fight to Feed a Phantom of Justice

Event Baseline: A Fulani-led vigilante group in Nigeria, known as Pulaku, has been accused of torture and abuse against suspected kidnappers while also being credited with reducing crime in some areas.

The vigilante is the ego in its purest form. It sees a problem and appoints itself the solution. It does not trust the state, so it creates its own state. It identifies with its tribe, with its version of order, and it uses that identity to justify any action. The line between protector and predator disappears because both are the same self. The observer and the observed are one. The vigilante sees the criminal as separate, as evil to be eliminated, but the methods used are the mirror of the criminal's methods. Torture meets kidnapping. Violence meets violence.

This is the fragmentation of society. The central authority has collapsed, and the vacuum is filled by tribal self-interest. The vigilante group is not a neutral force; it is a product of the same thought that created the insecurity. It is an attempt to impose order through fear, but fear only breeds more fear. The victims of abuse are not just criminals; they are the unlucky, the scapegoats, the ones who crossed the wrong line. The vigilante self cannot see its own corruption because it is identified with the image of the righteous defender.

The system is broken. The state has failed, and the citizens have turned to a phantom of justice. This phantom is a mask for the same tribal violence that has plagued Nigeria. The group's name, Pulaku, refers to a code of conduct, but the conduct is a myth. The reality is torture and abuse. This is not a solution; it is a symptom. The disease is the illusion of the separate self, the belief that one tribe's safety requires another's suffering. Until that belief dies, Nigeria will continue to devour itself.