The story is; a guy living in Aluu owed a Uniport student some money and was reluctant to pay.
ACTIONS TAKEN:
1. The creditor mobilized a mini-mob of his own.
Reason; he did not believe in our judicial system and had to take the law into his own hands and execute judgement by himself.
2. They invaded and muscled the debtor to submission.
Reason; they did not believe in our judicial system and had to take the law into their own hands and execute judgement by themselves.
3. They forcefully seized debtor's laptop and Backberry phone and left.
Reason; he did not believe in our judicial system and had to take the law into his own hands and execute judgement by himself.
4. On their way out the debtor shouted "thieves, thieves" and alerted the community to come to his rescue.
Reason; he did not believe in our judicial system and had to take the law into his own hands and execute judgement by himself.
5. The community, already traumatized by robbers, troop out and arrested the boys, then took him to their chief's house for trial and judgement - instead of Police station.
Reason; they did not believe in our judicial system and had to take the law into their own hands and execute judgement by themselves.
6. The chief told them to go and deal with the boys, instead of calling in the Police.
Reason; he did not believe in our judicial system and had to take the law into his own hands and execute judgement by himself.
7. The mob lynched the boys without recourse to the Police.
Reason; they did not believe in our judicial system and had to take the law into their own hands and execute judgement by themselves.
8. Police patrol watched while the boys were lynched without intervening to rescue them.
Reason; they did not believe in our judicial system and had to allow the people to take the law into their own hands and execute judgement by themselves.
9. Other students of Uniport retaliated and invaded Aluu community, burning down scores of houses.
Reason; they did not believe in our judicial system and had to take the law into their own hands and execute judgement by themselves.
MATTERS ARISING: We can see that anyone of us living in Nigeria could easily have been any of the characters in 1 - 9 above depending on our location and vocation as at the time of the incident. And our actions would seem ok to us in the heat of the moment. All because our justice system has collapsed!
We can see that all of the actors are guilty of the same thing: taking law into their own hands.
Except the government strengthens our institutions in the country, including judicial system, we will continue to witness citizen's victimizing and traumatizing each other just to get by in all spheres of life, owing to systemic failure in the polity.
In as much as we condemn the Aluu lynching, let us truthfully reflect; any of us could have been any of the characters involved all because our state is failing!
