THE kind of society this country is turning into is quite frightening: a patently lawless community whose inhabitants are quick to make a recourse to self-help and anarchy at the least of provocation. It is rather saddening that this dangerous and ugly turn of events has become a proclivity amongst many Nigerians. Across the country, people are taking the law into their own hands with reckless abandon. Anarchy, apart from being unlawful, also carries the veritable risk of exposing innocent persons to danger when the rule of law is criminally precluded from its central role in the resolution of disputes.
The following examples which eloquently evidenced utter lawlessness signpost the magnitude of danger that lies ahead if the burgeoning monster is not tamed as quickly as possible. Recently, there was the case of a dispatch rider, Williams Tadule, who was accused of child theft and was almost lynched by a Lagos mob. People who saw the rider with a 10-month-old baby raised the alarm and that attracted a mob, which promptly descended on innocent Tadule and beat him to stupor. But the Lagos State Police Command, upon investigation, discovered that the rider did not steal the child. On the contrary, he was with the baby with the express permission of the mother. What that means is that Tadule could have been killed by the motley crowd for committing no crime, but for the alleged intervention of the chairman of Sunview Estate, Sangotedo, Lagos, who rescued him from the mob.
Another instance involved four young men who were stripped by a mob for allegedly looting a poultry farm at Erunwon in Ijebu North East Local Government Area of Ogun State. Also, a man in Adamawa State bathed his lover in acid for refusing to marry him. In a repulsive show of barbarism, one Kama Hammadoja allegedly poured a liquid substance suspected to be acid on one Ladi Ishiaku for daring not to marry him. There was also the case of a suspected kidnapper who was lynched in the Oshodi area of Lagos last week for kidnapping two children. He was taken to the Army Resettlement Centre, Charity Oshodi, but the Army said he should be taken to the police station for proper investigation. Yet the mob resisted and decided to take the law into their own hands. Thus, before the police could arrive at the scene, the suspect had given up the ghost. In a recent editorial, we also commented on how a full-grown female adult was tortured and paraded stark-naked after being preposterously alleged to have killed her husband with sex overdose. The list is literally endless, pointing in the direction of a state of anomie.
The prevalence of cases of jungle justice is a symptom of a dysfunctional society and the government, and indeed the society at large, must address it swiftly before it snowballs into outright anarchy. Many people have identified the lack of public confidence in the criminal justice system as the driving force behind the dangerous proclivity for self-help. While there can be no justification for taking law into one’s own hands, it is important to take a second look at the country’s justice system and tweak it in such a way that people’s confidence will be restored in it. In addition, every act of jungle justice must be investigated and the culprits severely sanctioned according to the law. Apart from the possibility that innocent people could become victims if the rule of mob is the order of the day, jungle justice will also deny the country the valuable information that arrested suspects may provide. Such information could be what the security agencies need to combat or nip crimes in the bud.
There is even the risk that some mischievous people could deliberately raise false alarms of crime commission about their enemies and/or opponents with a view to attracting a mob to unleash mayhem on them. The consequences of anarchy are so diverse and grave that every decent society must strive to stymie the tendency for self-help by its populace. And if that is not done fast, the populace could become attuned to bloodshed, and that in itself could have dire upshots.
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