SUMMARY
The Outlaws (sometimes referred to as Island Marine Patrol, or IMP) was an armed group that was formed in Nigeria in 2005. Often described as a cult, or street gang, the Outlaws had its roots in the phenomenon of confraternities at Nigerian universities. The first confraternity, the Pyrates, was formed in 1952 and soon others appeared. Initially respectable social groups with objectives such as promoting social awareness and fighting social injustices, the confraternities eventually turned into belligerent gangs that fiercely struggled for supremacy; a transformation that many argue reflected a wider breakdown of traditional values in society. In the 1990s many of the confraternities began setting up business offshoots or ‘street cults’, especially in and around the major cities. Outlaws was a splinter group from one such offshoot, NDV, commonly called Icelanders. NDV had been formed by the Supreme Vikings Confraternity (SVC), also known as De Norsemen Club of Nigeria, which itself was founded in 1984 at the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and was intended to be used to fight for supremacy and territory through organized violence, banditry and criminality.
In 2005, relations between NDV’s leader Ateke Tom and the group’s second-in-command Soboma George began to sour. That year, the latter was imprisoned on charges of murdering another cult member, and he blamed Ateke Tom for his arrest, claiming that he was the one who had handed him over to the authorities. Soboma was eventually able to escape from prison, and subsequently broke with NDV and set up the Outlaws, together with a number of fellow former NDV lieutenants. While the new group claimed to fight for the rights of the youth in the Niger Delta region, in practice its activities remained the same as NDV’s, indicating a continued focus on the well-being of its members, rather than any larger, societal ambitions. Furthermore, the Outlaws, just like NDV, often acted as paid thugs for local politicians, especially during election periods.
The Outlaws emerged in Rivers state, which, together with Bayelsa and Delta states is the location of Nigeria’s large oil findings. However, the population, while suffering from the environmental degradation that has come in its wake, has received very little of the benefits from the oil. Instead, the area suffers from high unemployment rates and rife poverty and this created a pool of young men – often school dropouts, and criminal elements of rural communities and urban slums – willing to join cults and gangs. It was among these that the Outlaws was able to recruit its members. While originally founded by Ijaws, the group grew to also include Ibibio, Ogoni, and Ogba ethnicities. It is estimated that it had between 3000 and 4000 members.
As noted above, the Outlaws first emerged in Rivers state; this is where its main area of operation remained, and where it had the largest following. More specifically, within Rivers, the group operated primarily in Kalabari land, comprising Degema, Asari Torlu, and Akuku Torlu Local Government Areas. Furthermore, the group had a strong presence in the state’s main town, Port Harcourt.
The Outlawas in general, and its leader Soboma George in particular, was very well connected to high ranking state government and PDP (People’s Democratic Party, the ruling party) officials. The group had been used as political muscle during the 2007 elections and in its wake, Soboma emerged to be Rivers state’s single most powerful cult leader, with close ties to the administration of Rivers then-Governor Celestine Omehia. As such, Soboma and his Outlaws enjoyed a favored position in the state, and received considerable patronage from political figures. This favored position caused substantial frustration among other cult groups, who bounded together to usurp his power and wealth (see Black Axe, Bush Boys, Deebam, KK, NDV - Outlaws. During this time, the Outlaws, for its part, was allied to two other cult groups, Deewell and NDSF (Niger Delta Strike Force), which it fought together with on occasion. However, relationships between the different cult groups were fluid in nature, and alliances were in a constant state of flux. By mid-2008, the Outlaws had mended fences with NDV, but broken off its tactical alliances with NDSF.
Aside from being the leader of the Outlaws, Soboma also doubled as a commander in the loose coalition of armed groups called MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) and subsequently, his Outlaws foot soldiers were also involved in MEND activities. MEND, despite its close ties to cult groups such as the Oulaws, was often critical of them, emphasizing its more political agenda; the group claimed to be fighting for justice, resource control, and self-determination for the people of the Niger Delta. With MEND activities on the rise in the Delta, and cult violence soaring, the government in 2009 established the Niger Delta Amnesty Program (NDAP), in an effort to mitigate the violence in the region. Under NDAP, militants received amnesty, rehabilitation and reintegration into civilian society in exchange for handing in their arms and pledging to end their armed activities. In August 2009, Soboma George submitted his weapons, together with his fellow commanders, and hundreds of armed supporters, and with that the Outlaws became defunct. A year later, on 23 August 2010, Soboma was killed under mysterious circumstances.
