The police force should be thoroughly checked and examined for bad eggs that should be swept out of the force. Also, there should be a given jail term for such criminals and bails should only reduce this jail term rather than total or immediate freedom.
You would have watched, heard or witnessed a scene where a thief unfortunately gets caught, dragged, beaten and most times burnt to their death; that is an exact way to describe mob justice. Mob justice is otherwise known as jungle justice. It is a situation where people or residents of a particular street take the law in their own hands. This extra-judicial killings violates the Nigerian constitution which guarantees the rights to life, personal liberty, and fair hearing in which neither the government nor the police force are helping matters.
Apparently, jungle justice doesn’t look like it would end soon, not in the next 3 years or even in the next 6 years. Just 4 days ago, on my way to class, i walked past a mob, they made random noises. I couldn’t wait to watch or asked what was happening because i was running late for class. Later that day, i met with a friend and she was lucky to see and hear all that happened at the earlier read scene. She said a thief was caught and was immediately handed over to the police. The decision the mob took at that moment made me really pleased that Nigeria and Nigerians are actually going some place better if we continued to hand over criminals like that to the police force. As we further discussed, i sensed the anger in my friends voice; she has an opinion that the mob should have beaten him to stupor or better still broken one of his arms or legs before handing him to the police. I questioned her stand, she gave a very reasonable response that once a friend or relative of the thief gives the police #5000, they’ll release him without delay. Funny huh? Funny but true!
Moreover, I’ve heard and seen similar cases where the police would be given a meagre amount of money to release a criminal who stole or damaged properties worth more than the amount they were given. Just imagine, after the criminal gets released in like 2 or 3 days after he/she was caught, he/she is then seen roaming around freely in the community where he was caught, what impression has the police given to the residents of that place or is the lives of the residents not being threatened.
My stand here is, I’m definitely not a supporter of mob justice, neither do i support the police taking bribes and calling it a bail but then ,this entire issue could result in more cases of jungle justice if nothing is done about it. The police force should be thoroughly checked and examined for bad eggs that should be swept out of the force. Also, there should be a given jail term for such criminals and bails should only reduce this jail term rather than total or immediate freedom. The people should also be enlightened on the dangers of jungle justice and how it reduces our chances of getting anywhere as a country. Further reasonable steps should be taken to curb the terrible act. The government have their roles to play and we also have our roles to play as Nigerians.
