In Nigeria, it is an indirect effect of the oil boom of the late 1970s when there was easy money to be made. Less than half thought that security would be improved if the police were better equipped and corruption weeded out. People in the better-off districts are more inclined to employ security firms, a luxury reserved for the rich. Africans have become advocates of self-defence on the American model. And they have the most sophisticated security firms in Africa.
Abuses are frequent and encourage a spiral of violence.
Local patrols can be taken over by political movements and become privatised armies. Conversely, a national army can move into the private sector. When apartheid ended in South Africa some soldiers, sensing the way the wind was blowing, set up lucrative security firms. The African state, which has never had the monopoly of force associated with the rule of law, is being undermined by these self-defence schemes. Unlike vendettas, which at least conform to specific social rules, the lynching of a thief caught in the act in a market is not part of any system of justice - certainly not traditional justice, which at least requires consultation beforehand.