Barbarity of mob action... By Nasiru Suleiman EVERY society in the world has set rules that guide the activities of every human being living in that society. In all societies there exist a reward system and also provisions were made to punish offenders and those who go against the established rules of the society. For this reasons we have various agencies working in the society to ensure compliance to the established rules in the society. For instance the police in the society are there to serve as check to every individual member of the society they engaged in crime detection, discovery, identification, and analysis of criminal evidence as a means of law enforcement. Therefore the responsibility of the police in the society is to detect crimes, apprehend the perpetrators, and provide evidence that will convince judges and juries that the perpetrators are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. To accomplish these aims a variety of methods are used, including reconstructing the crime, collecting physical clues, and interrogating suspects and witnesses. In Nigeria the body charge to perform this aside the Nigeria Police Force is the Nigeria Civil Defence and Security Corps with specific responsibility that clearly separated their task with that of the police. We also have the Vigilante groups which are mostly localized while some state governments have taken over the responsibility of financing their activities and also limit their work and make them subjective to the Nigeria Police Force. Any other individual member of the society must recognize the fact that he has no right to arrest and prosecute any criminal, because he has no right to do such task. No member of the society except the police or any other person working for other agencies such as the police, Civil Defence and Security Corps is empowered to prosecute any criminal. An average Nigeria is aware of this fact that even the law recognizes the innocence of an accused person until proven guilty by a competent court of law through criminal procedure, which a body of law regulating the inquiry into whether a person has violated criminal law. Criminal procedure governs the investigation of crimes; the arrest, charging, and trial of accused criminals; and the sentencing of those convicted (found guilty of a crime). It also regulates the convicted person’s possible appeal for review of the trial court’s decision. That is to tell you that even criminals have right. But today the flagrant abuse of the right of many Nigerians who were accused of one crime or the other has continued unabated. A number of people have been seriously beaten, battered and disfigured for stealing such objects as telephones, shoes, motorcycles and other articles. The kind of society we live in today is more prone to take laws into their hands and engaged in jungle justice. Mob action is a common feature in our society today. At the slightest alarm of a crime, you see people making attempt to lynch the accused without proper investigation as a result of this many innocent people have been killed for mistaken identity. How can we forget in a hurry the days of the Bakassi Boys in the south eastern parts of the country, the draconian reign of the Odua’ Peoples Congress (OPC) in some south western states and the Yan Banga in most northern states, these groups lynched, slaughtered and maimed a number of their victims before they were curtailed by governments. But today the most annoying thing is the increase in the activities of criminals who engaged in mob action and sniffing lives out of accused persons without subjecting them to the criminal justice procedure to ascertain if actually these accused persons are guilty of the crime they are accused of. Rather these men are spread across every region of this country, killing people as if there is no government. Last year 12th day of October, 2012 saw the extra-judicial killing of the four University of Port-Harcourt students who were alleged robbers apprehended by the people of Aluu community and were beaten and roasted to dead, and this will pop the mind of even the worst sadist the globe can produce. In the case of the Port-Harcourt killing, it is enough offence that the students allegedly committed a crime, but it is also evil and an odious crime that without proper investigation by the law enforcement agents and possible trial in a court of competent jurisdiction, some Nigerians will assume the place of the law and pass a horrifying dead sentence to these young men. It was even found out that these students were innocents, and are just victims of mistaken identity. With this case many Nigerians thought government will take drastic action against such barbarity that has taken over our society. But the government proves many of us wrong; when few weeks after the Aluu cruelty happened another young man was killed in such a gruesome manner. He was roasted like a goat to dead for allegedly stealing a phone. Many young girls have been paraded unclad for alleged stealing blackberry phones and not just children elderly people will be supervising such uncivilized acts. In most cases women are even the ones leading such wicked act. Few days ago a video was circulating online of a young boy of 12 named Samuel who was set ablaze by angry mob in Lagos. They killed Samuel on the allegation that he attempted to kidnap a school boy. Samuel was accused by his killers that he made attempt to lure the boy with N50 note, but according to his killers luck ran out of his way as the mother of the boy came and identify her son and Samuel was apprehended and later beaten to pulp, before he was roasted to death. Samuel pleaded to his killers and told them severally that he is not a thief, but just begging for money to feed his mother who was divorced by his father, and after making frantic efforts to get a decent place to lay their heads they could not find any within their capacity and resorted to sleeping under the bridge as little Samuel go begging to fend for the family. Despite his plead the mammoth crowd failed to listen to Samuel, but choose to kill him instead of taken him to the police. They even captured the odious act on video and circulate it online the reason most of us saw this uncivilized act. Samuel was killed in the presence of many Nigerians and nobody could make attempt to save the soul of that little boy. Even if Samuel was a kidnapper, does the mob action that led to his death save future occurrence? It’s pathetic that our society has been reduced to this level, that in a whole community nobody thought of calling the police to rescue this boy. Samuel going by his age is a victim of the society we lived in, even if he was a criminal, we cannot blame Samuel. He might have fallen victim of the following theories of the causation of crime, which was stated as follows: theories attributing criminal behaviour to biological or congenital (inherited) defects of the offender; theories relating crime to psychological factors or mental disorders, and theories relating crime to environmental or social factors. Many criminologists have suggested theories of multiple causation involving factors from more than one of these categories. Samuel may be victim of any of the above, which the society ought to be responsible for. Whatever may be the reason Samuel resorted to crime if truly he was a criminal, because he is dead now and cannot defend himself because he is no more. But the Government knows that Samuel was unjustly killed and there is video evidence of those who participated in the killing of this boy in such a barbaric manner, the government must show responsibility by going after Samuel killers and ensure they are brought to book. Lets put a stop to this barbarity in our society today.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 00:44:16 +0000
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