The resort to self help by mobs continues to wreak havoc in the country, even as the concerned authorities warn of the grave consequences of mob justice, ABIODUN AWOLAJA and OLALEKAN OLABULO report. ALHAJI Kassimu Umar, a lecturer at the Taraba State College of Education (COE), Zing, was, three weeks ago, burnt to death in a mob action after he allegedly hit and killed five primary school pupils with his car. Mr Joseph Kwaji, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of the Taraba Police Command, told Sunday Tribune that the mob had forcefully removed Umar from the Pupule Police Outpost, where he had gone to report the incident, and burnt him to death.
The police had failed to protect the law-abiding don.
“In the early hours of today, one Kassimu Umar, who is believed to be a lecturer with COE, Zing, had knocked down five primary school pupils in Zing, who all died on the spot. After he reported the incident to the Pupule Police Outstation, irate youths in their hundreds stormed the station, dragged him out and lynched him. Investigations revealed that the lecturer was trying to dodge a trailer when he ran over the pupils whose ages ranged between eight and 11 years,” he said, adding that the matter was under investigation.
The mob had tried and convicted the hapless lecturer within seconds, even though a cardinal principle in law is that one cannot be a judge in one’s own case. But that is precisely what jungle justice, the resort by a mob to self help during cases of perceived crimes, entails in Nigeria’s decidedly peculiar environment. Just a shout of “Thief!” in any market or other setting in Ibadan, Awka or Kaduna could trigger the sudden transition to the great beyond of a hapless Nigerian unfortunate enough to get caught while stealing a handkerchief, but it is often the case, observers say, that innocent people fall victim to the ire of the Nigerian mob perpetually ruled by its muscles rather than its brain. Indeed, as reported in a national daily, ina recent poll by one of Nigeria’s leading survey companies, NOIPolls Ltd, 94 per cent of respondents agreed that there was a high prevalence of jungle justice in Nigeria and described it as “a wicked and barbaric act”. While 51 per cent attributed the prevalence to a lack of trust in the law enforcement agencies, 43 per cent of the respondents had in fact personally witnessed jungle justice in their locality.
In the aftermath of the gruesome murder of four innocent students of the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT) in Omukiri-Aluu area in Rivers State in 2012, many Nigerians had called for stricter measures to tame jungle justice. However, it is difficult to correctly enumerate the exact number of extrajudicial killings that have taken place across the country since then. The UNIPORT Four, who were on a debt recovery mission, were speedily lynched by members of the Aluu community in a fit of lunatic rage, but so was a man who, in May this year, was viciously roasted by a mob in Akure, the Ondo State capital, allegedly for attempting the kidnap of some school children. And so was a woman who, also in May, was charged with the attempted abduction of three school children in the Abule Egba area of Lagos. The woman, who had reportedly tried to flee the scene on a tricycle when an alarm was raised by a vigilant and self-congratulating bread seller, was reported to have ridden an SUV to the area. She was melted by cudgels, doused in petrol and set ablaze, the mob hollering and cursing as she journeyed speedily into her final breath.
Investigations by Sunday Tribune revealed that most of the instances where jungle justice was meted to suspected criminals were hijacked by hoodlums who, true to type, took advantage of the situation to beat and kill people, and even make away with the belongings of the unwary. More worrisome, many Nigerians say, is the fact that law enforcement agents , including policemen, had on several occasions been caught partaking in jungle justice . Occasions like these apparently embolden those who participate in jungle justice and they see it as the right thing to have done in the circumstances.
One Nwalknopor and his friend Kazeem were beaten to death in Ajara area of Badagry last year. The video of the lynching , which went viral on the internet, also showed a policeman interrogating the victims who were being tortured to death. Investigations later revealed that the suspects were not armed robbers but victims of circumstances. Residents of Ajara had been under the siege of armed robbers during the time of the incident. Kazeem was a resident but not an indigene of Ajara, and Nwalknopor had gone to visit his friend and were both strolling around the area when they were arrested and lynched by the residents.
In another case of jungle justice , three people were in May killed and set ablaze by an angry mob around Gas Line bus stop along Ijoko Road in Sango area of Ogun State. The mob had accused the victims of kidnapping a woman and her three children for ritual purposes, and had defied policemen who were drafted to the scene to prevent the victims from being killed. Alarmingly, according to observers, nearly everyone of those who have lost their lives in jungle justice atrocities would not have been killed if they had been taken to a law court.
Some of the participants in jungle justice exercises had blamed their resolve to kill their victims on the failed security situation in the country and the ineffectiveness of the judicial system. “I have seen instances where armed robbers were arrested and handed over to the police and, before you know it, they were back on the streets to hunt down people again. Nobody believes in taking people to court or to police station again,” a participant at a jungle justice exercise, who pleaded anonymity, told Sunday Tribune.
Another resident of Badagry , who also sees jungle justice as the best form of preventing crime, said: “Look around this place: there is no armed robber that can come and operate here . What they do is tie you to a heavy object and throw you into the ocean as soon as you are arrested for robbery. Nobody will dare rob in this place.”
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Worried by the increasing spate of jungle justice in Lagos State, the state Attorney General and Commissioner for justice, Ade Ipaye, in May this year, issued a press statement in which he expressed the resolve of the state government to deal decisively with anybody , who carry out jungle justice on suspected criminals “The full weight of the law would be brought to bear on anyone henceforth caught engaging in jungle justice, no matter what the alleged criminal could have done. The mob may well be wrong and the helpless victim may be anyone’s child or relative. Even if they did commit the alleged offence, there is a process for prosecuting and showing the evidence in court so that proven criminals can be properly punished according to law,” Ipaye warned.
The image maker of the Lagos State police command, Kenneth Nwosu , while speaking with Sunday Tribune on what the police are doing to curtail jungle justice, stated that the exercise, apart from not being in compliance with the international best practices, is against the rule of law. Nwosu conceptualized jungle justice as an attempt in most cases to “ take a pound of flesh “ from the supposed victims by their accusers. He stated that the police in the state were in the forefront of fighting jungle justice in the country.
Ebenezer Obadare, an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Kansas, USA, told Sunday Tribune that “Jungle justice, seen as a recourse to ‘justice’ outside the framework of the law, is widespread in those societies where the rule of law is not firmly established, in large part because those in authority pursue actions that send a clear message that they are above the law. The effect is that ordinary people act in contravention of the law, which then opens the door for widespread disorder. ‘Jungle justice’ therefore is profoundly paradoxical (there is no justice in the jungle of course); it is aroused by the frustration that people feel at the impunity of the powerful, but in the end proves to be no solution.
He added: “The way out of the jungle, metaphorically speaking, is a commitment by all and sundry (both rulers and ruled), to the rule of law. It is an acknowledgement that though the law courts may be slow in their procedures, and though court rulings may disappoint some of us from time to time, it is in the overriding interest of all of us as a society that the law be allowed to take its course.”
A legal practitioner, Solomon Wada noted that jungle justice would always “The law does not encourage self help. You can apprehend a suspect and hand him over to the law enforcement agencies. You must not engage in executing judgement. The law is so clear on that: human life can only be ended b ended b a court of competent jurisdiction. Sometimes you see people lynching suspects and policemen join them to do it. It is wrong. The reason people are doing it is that they feel that the suspects, if taken to court, may be eventually set free by the court of law. Some also feel that the matter may drag too long and they may not get justice at last. They say ‘This is the man that committed the offence last time and he is here again, so let us kill him.’
“Another reason is the gravity of the offence, and the people that it affects out of provocation. For instance, if you see your child being stolen by somebody, you might descend on him and eventually kill him. That is provocation, in which case we charge you for manslaughter rather than murder, since you acted due to provocation.”
Either way, a jail term or the death sentence awaits perpetrators. The problem, however, is that there are not many examples to cite.
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