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ARISE, NIGERIANS!

SAY NO TO JUNGLE JUSTICE.

O W U N A J O H N A N D B O T E M M A N U E L
igeria, the giant of Africa; a nation
abundantly blessed with natural minerals
Nin her belly and potentials in her head; a
nation well advanced in age compared to her other
African sisters, diverse in culture and rich in
heritage, a nation sovereign from external
dictations yet chained in the shackles of poverty,
tribalism, religious intolerance, executive
corruption, broken legislature and a decaying
judicial system leaving her compatriots in great
doubt if truly her past heroes laboured at all.

The current state of our judicial system has left
many Nigerians becoming judges in some criminal
scenes, one of which is "Jungle Justice" leading to
series of embarrassments, tortures and to most
victims, death.

In spite of the civility of Nigeria, jungle justice is still
an anomaly thriving in the country due to lack of
trust for the system. Becky Uba Umenyili writes on medieval-like (old school) acts such as jungle
the need for government to restore faith in the justice which has been buried ages ago in the
judicial system by allowing the law run its course on Western world. The most dehumanising
crime (THISDAY 2023) aspect of it all is how victims are paraded
naked on our streets to the sights of both
The Christians Bible says "Brothers, do not criticize young and old, male and female, distorting
one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother the concept of human dignity in the minds of
or condemns him, speaks against the law and our children, the leaders of tomorrow,
condemns the law. If, however, you condemn the orientating their minds toward a life of
law, you are no longer an observer of the law but a violence and bitterness.
judge over it "(c.f. James 4:11-17)
A young man steals a phone in Hamaz market,
Abati (2015) states that jungle justice is a situation people gather to kill him, a young woman is
where a group of lawless or non-law abiding set of caught in bed with a married man at Tudun
individuals enrich themselves with the powers of Wada, let us body-shame her on the streets, an
being responsible for punishing alleged criminals old woman keeps to herself in Du, she is a
through ill-fated extra-judicial killings, horrendous witch who needs to die, and of course, again
beating or public humiliation without considering we employ the stone in this computer age to
the rule of law and the fundamental human rights prove how lawless the jungle is. Every day we
of the alleged offender. wake up to the news of how innocent people
die for the wrong reasons. Even Jesus was a
Under the 1991 constitution of the Federal Republic victim of a careless judgement, lucky Jesus: he
o f N i g e r i a ( a s a m e n d e d ) , a n a c c u s e d did not have a pinch of the agonizing stone-
personordinarily has the Right to silence, Right to throw, Calvary would have become merely a
be presumed innocent until proven guilty, Right to location in hindsight. The fact is, the culture of
an interpreter, Right to be informed properly the killing still remains, the Jews and Pharisees
nature and detail of any charge (Ignatius 2020) but screamed; “Crucify him” (c.f. Lk 23:21). We
regrettably reverse is the case in our motherland rephrase the sentence by saying: stone her!
where rights are best expressed on leaflets. Strangle them! Burn him! Shoot them! etc. We
may not all be guilty of this culture, but Pilates’
mere show of hand-washing did not make
It is unfortunate that events in the past years and him less of a murderer (Mafeng)
especially in recent times seem to have coloured
our development stage unbalanced, where we
earnestly yearn, imitate and accumulate Western This culture of killing is further reinforced by
culture and happenings but adamantly cling onto the lack of confidence in the judicial system.