11 October, 2012

Another Jungle Justice: The Norm In Nigeria Now?

It happens everyday but rarely caught on camera – when the people take the law into their own hands and become judge, jury and justice in Nigeria. Or what is commonly called ‘Jungle Justice”.
There is a system of administration of justice in Nigeria which runs parallel to the regular system. This system is devoid of any pretence to civilization. The system is as pedestrian as it is mediocre. The system is as disgusting as it is appalling. The system is as brutal as it is ruthless. The system is as embarrassing as it is shameful. The system is as nihilistic as it is atavistic. Everything about the system yells stone age, backwardness, under development and retrogression. Welcome to Nigeria's jungle justice system.
Disputes in Lagos are often settled in a manner such as that seen in the video because the state justice system is regarded by most Nigerians as broken.

An Amnesty International Nigeria news report described the Nigerian justice system as “utterly failing Nigerian people.”

“Nigeria’s prisons are filled with people whose human rights are systematically violated. Approximately 65 per cent of the inmates are awaiting trial most of whom have been waiting for their trial for years. Most of the people in Nigeria’s prisons are too poor to be able to pay lawyers, and only one in seven of those awaiting trial have private legal representation.” – Amnesty International

And often justice in Nigeria can turn violent.

In the University of Portharcourt, Portharcourt Nigeria, 3 days ago, four students were beaten and burnt to death by a mass of angry, heartless mob for allegedly stealing some phones and laptops. This kind of reaction is a norm in nigeria and I hope that by exposing this, the nigerian government will sit up and put a permanent end to this.
The photo below, according to some unidentified person, are two armed robbers caught at satellite town, Lagos.
 GRAPHIC PHOTO BELOW

 Another Jungle Justice Incident In Port Harcourt
WHAT could be described as a fairy tale turned real in 2008 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, as a cat allegedly turned into a middle-aged woman after being hit by a commercial motorcycle (Okada) on Aba/Port Harcourt Expressway.
Nigerian Tribune learnt that three cats were crossing the busy road when the okada ran over one of them which immediately turned into a woman. This strange occurrence quickly attracted people around who descended on the animals. One of them, it was learnt, was able to escape while the third one was beaten to death, still as a cat though.
According to a source who witnessed what happened, the cat-woman said she and the two other cat-fellows had travelled from Abuja to Port Harcourt to kill three people. "The woman said they came to Port Harcourt from Abuja and that they came to kill three people. She said they had succeeded in killing two people, but the third person, whom I guess might be a pastor, was difficult for them and that they were preparing to go back to Abuja ," said the source.
Another witness, who gave his name as James, said the woman started faking when she saw that many people were gathering around her. "I have never seen anything like this in my life. I saw a woman lying on the road instead of a cat. Blood did not come out of her body at that time. When people gathered and started asking her questions, she pretended that she did not know what had happened," he said.



When the Nigerian Tribune got to the scene of the incident near Garrison Junction, the cat-woman was seen sitting on the ground with blood all over her body. The right side of her face had a deep cut from what was gathered to be from a cutlass.
It is time for the President of Nigeria, the Nigerian National Assembly, Nigerian State Governors, State Houses of Assembly to descend heavily on all those dangerous Nigerians who are involved in the jungle justice industry. The Nigerian Police Force and related or allied governmental agencies must set machineries in motion to quickly bring to book all those guilty of the serious injustice of unlawful jungle justice killing and sexual molestation in Nigeria. Video clips available on the internet should be microscopically investigated to help identify culprits. All that can be done should be done to exhaustively stamp out this sad blot on Nigeria's corporate and social existence. Nigeria must not be allowed to be reduced into a terrain of brigandage, brutalization and dysfunction by some misguided, lawless and sadistic bloodhounds.
The argument that jungle justice is tolerated because it helps to ensure that criminals do not escape justice by having the opportunity to bribe the police and return to the society to continue to torment innocent citizens, is not good enough, to allow the obnoxious jungle justice to flourish unabated. As is very well known in legal parlance, it is better to allow nine guilty men to go free, than to allow one innocent man to be subjected to undue punishment






Credit: OnlinNigeria

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