CONTAINING INCREASING CASES OF JUNGLE JUSTICE

The authorities must do more to stem the menace

In Sokoto State, mob justice is fast becoming a pastime as people regularly take the law into their hands. According to reports, more than 190 people have been murdered extra-judicially in the past two years. Last week, criminals wielding locally fabricated guns stormed a market and killed an Imam and 10 others at Mamande village in Gwadabawa local government area of the state. Said to be members of an outlawed vigilance group, the gunmen accused the victims, who are all Fulanis, of involvement in banditry. Less than a month earlier in Tangaza, also in Sokoto, some angry mob sacked a police headquarters and lynched 13 bandits after which they set their bodies ablaze.

However, mob justice is by no means restricted to Sokoto State or the Northwest of the country. It is a national epidemic. Across the country, many Nigerians are increasingly taking the law into their hands and delivering “instant” and brutal justice to many Nigerians without recourse to the law. Indeed, according to the Daily Trust newspaper’s recent report, virtually all the states in the six geopolitical regions of the country are deeply implicated, viz: South-South, 46; North-West, 38; South-West 35; South-East 26; North-Central, 22; and North-East 13.

Victims of mob justice are often accused on mere suspicion of offenses ranging from kidnapping, banditry, armed robbery to rape or witchcraft and lynched without given a chance to defend themselves. Even more odious, some of these brutal killings were filmed and circulated on the social media. Not long ago, no fewer than four suspected kidnappers who allegedly feigned insanity were killed in mob attacks in Ilorin, Kwara State. In all the cases, the hapless victims were beaten to coma before being burnt alive.

Most worrying about this recourse to mob justice is that a lot of times, innocent citizens are often the victims. The brutal murder of four innocent undergraduates of the University of Port Harcourt in 2012, for instance, was a case in point. Five years after the incident, the court pronounced their innocence while four of the identified murderers were sentenced to death.

The spike in cases of jungle justice raises some pertinent questions: Why are more people resorting to mob justice? Why is the public becoming increasingly impatient in following the dictates of the law? Are many losing confidence in law enforcement agencies or are these signs of a more dangerous national ailment? Is human life no longer sacrosanct in Nigeria?

The answer of course is simple. It is a combination of all. There is some form of jungle justice in many societies, but what is troubling here is that the propensity for dispensing this brand of justice is becoming increasingly high. The rule of law, as opposed to that of the jungle, presupposes that anybody accused of a crime, however heinous, is entitled to a fair trial before punishment could be meted if found guilty. But as more and more Nigerians shun the instrumentality of the law in the settlement of disputes, many innocent people are getting maimed and killed.

We therefore believe that the government should crack down on the perpetrators of such acts to ensure that only the courts can give a guilty verdict and stipulate the commensurate punishment. Having said this, we are also mindful that many criminals get away unpunished and that, in most instances, provoke the mob. Some criminal trials go on almost indefinitely. To redress the situation, the police and the courts must collaborate to ensure that crime suspects are given speedy trials at the end of which those found guilty must be punished according to the law. That is the only way to end the barbaric regime of jungle justice.