Mob justice has persisted with daily reports of victims killed horrifically. Perpetrators usually claim the criminal justice system will set the suspects free, so they take the laws into their hands. But what does the law say about ‘jungle justice’ and those who engage in it? How can the trend be reversed? PRECIOUS IGBONWELUNDU sought the views of legal experts.
All David Sunday Imoh, a young sound engineer, wanted to do was to broker peace between two of his co-workers – Frank Olatunji and Philip Balogun – and a commercial motorcyclist, Dahiru Ayuba, 25.
They were scuffling over N100 outside a lounge on Admiralty Way, Lekki Phase 1 in Lagos, where they had a show in the early hours of May 12.
But Imoh became the victim of a lynch mob comprising commercial motorcyclists and passersby who not only savagely attacked and killed him but set his body ablaze.
Like Imoh, Hannab Saliu, an alleged commercial sex worker, fell victim to a mob of fanatics at the Alaba Rago area of Ojo, Lagos, on March 31, because a Koran was found in her possession.
She too was violently attacked and set ablaze by the mob which accused her of blasphemy.
Also in March, one Lati accused of motorcycle theft was murdered by an irate crowd at the Morogbo area of Lagos.
In Sokoto State, Deborah Samuel, a student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, was gruesomely murdered by a mob comprising fellow students over alleged blasphemy.
Her killers watched her writhe in pain as the fire burnt her to death.
Just last week in Abuja, three suspects alleged to have kidnapped a Point of Sale (POS) operator on Lokogoma Road and locked her in the boot of their vehicle were stripped and beaten to pulp by a mob that refused all entreaties to hand them over to the police.
An epidemic
Across Nigeria, there is an epidemic of mob justice with daily reports of people taking laws into their hands at the slightest provocation.
Although there are no available statistics on victims of mob justice, hardly a day passes without videos and images of mob attacks posted across social media platforms.
There have been instances where people got mobbed for stealing yam or other food items to feed their families at village squares.
In other instances, many innocent victims have been lynched over mere allegations of theft, kidnapping or blasphemy levelled against them in markets or motor parks by people they have disagreements with.
Resort to self-help
There is no doubt that delayed justice as well as endemic corruption in the criminal justice system have, over time, created a trust deficit between the populace and agencies involved in the administration of criminal justice.
Failures of the police, corruption, weak laws, ignorance, loopholes in the judiciary, love for quick justice, social behaviours, rampant/habitual criminality, ethnoreligious sentiments, and normalisation of violent crimes have been identified as causative factors.
Also, the wanton slaughter of humans by terrorists, other armed groups who are sometimes granted amnesty without consideration to victims of their heinous crimes, their families and the rest of society; bad governance and degrading economic situations have all been identified as reasons for mob justice.
The police, for instance, have been accused several times of freeing criminal suspects after collecting bribes or after the intervention of powerful people in the society without taking them through the due process of law.
Rantings from the mob at the Lokogomo scene last week summed up the thinking of the perpetrators. They screamed that they would lynch the kidnap suspects instead of handing them over to the police for investigation and prosecution.
They were not willing to give the police the benefit of the doubt. To them, the police would only collect money and release the suspects.
What the law says
The 1999 Constitution, as amended, the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015, the Criminal and Penal Codes all upheld the sanctity of human lives and the need for an accused person to get a fair trial before the punishment for his or her alleged offence is handed down by the court.
Section 33(1) of the Constitution provides that “every person has a right to life, and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, save in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria.”
Also, sections 34, 35 and 36 of the Constitution guarantee a person’s rights to dignity of the human person, liberty and fair hearing.
Chapter 10 of the Criminal Code outlaws unlawful assembly or riot, while Section 8 of the ACJA, 2015, prohibits inhuman treatment and/or torture of persons suspected of committing criminal acts.
Legal experts speak
These laws, according to Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Yomi Aliu, do not make a distinction between government agencies and individuals.
The law, Aliu said, does not support mob action as courts have as far back as 1958 been convicting people of murder for mob action depending on the role played by individuals in the action.
He said punishments range from six months to life imprisonment, adding that Chapter XXVII of the Criminal Code, which deals with murder and manslaughter, provides the death by hanging punishment or life imprisonment.
Another senior lawyer, Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), believes that mob justice is no justice and has no place in the country’s legal jurisprudence.
He referred to the constitutional presumption of innocence in favour of every citizen until proven otherwise by a competent court of law.
“Nobody has the right to take the life of another person in the name of mob justice except where that is done in self-defence.
“But even in cases of self defence, the degree or proportionality of the force used in self defence will have to be weighed vis-a-vis force used in mob attacks.
“So, mob justice is no justice. It is criminal if human life is taken,” he said.
Way out
Lawyers who shared their views on the issue believe that the spate of mob justice was a result of failure in governance and the lack of trust in the justice system.
For the trend to reverse, they argued that the rule of law must mean what it says.
According to them, if the country had an effective, equitable and fair justice system, aggrieved persons would not see the need to resort to self help.
Other lawyers who spoke on the issue were constitutional lawyer Dr. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), professor of law Ernest Ojukwu (SAN), Convener, Access to Justice, Joseph Otteh, and a lecturer at the University of Lagos, Dr. Fassy Yusuf.
Agbakoba said the only way was for the rule of law to mean what it says and government to create the environment that would enable governance to thrive, and quality justice to apply.
“Nigeria has suffered long years of neglect. The 2023 elections present a big opportunity for Nigerians to demand the rule of law,” he said.
Ojukwu blamed governance for the rise in the frequency of lynching and mob justice.
He said: “It is evidence of a failed state and failed governance. When people frequently take the law into their hands, especially concerning extra judicial deaths in the hands of the mob, it is evidence that the people no more trust the justice system as a whole.
“People do not also trust the law, especially where the laws have not provided adequate rules to guide punishment and compensation of victims of crimes.
“You can see the evidence available to people is true that the state is a failed one as, after every mob action, nobody is brought to book.”
To Aliu, mob justice arises from the fact that the state of nature is innate in all human beings.
He added that the urge to react instantaneously came out of empathy for the victim of the crime and as a deterrent to others in the shoes of the offender.
The learned silk blamed the attitude of law enforcement agents for the rise in mob action.
He cited as an example the Oke Ogun lynching of a Seriki Fulani alleged to have been receiving ransom on behalf of kidnappers who usually returned to the community after they were arrested without trial because of the intervention of some influential people.
He said: “Mob action should be condemned by all since innocent people could be involved. An example is the vintage jungle justice commonly tagged ‘Aluu killing’ of 2012 involving four University of Port Harcourt undergraduates that were tagged robbers when in fact they went to recover a debt.
“They were stripped naked and necklaced by a mob that allegedly involved policemen.”
‘Perpetrators can be charged with murder’
Dr Yusuf said those who engaged in mob justice could be charged with murder if a prima facie case was established against them.
“The law does not allow anybody to take the life of another person unless through a judicial process.
“Curbing jungle justice would require creating an environment for the society and those in the society to believe in the rule of law and to subscribe to justice and equity.
“In this case, nobody should be seen to be above the law and justice should not only be seen to be done but it must also be manifestly seen to have been done.
“The entire judicial process should be built for this; the lack of it in the justice administration system and of course corruption in high places, legal gymnastics and rigmarole are some of the causes and or the reasons why some subscribe to jungle justice.
“It is not appropriate for anybody to contemplate jungle justice.
“Although someone can say it is out of desperation but nothing can justify jungle justice and, therefore, it is condemnable, it is inhuman and it does not befit a society that has decent human beings.”
‘Mob justice like ‘mob judgment’
Okutepa said mob justice was not limited to killings, adding that it also comprised mob judgment without passing through appropriate judicial funnels where matters are examined with the finest judicial combs.
“It includes where Nigerians condemn people unheard. No civilised society should allow mob justice in its legal lexicon.
“It is unfortunate that most Nigerians make comments laden with emotions and perhaps sentiments. A lot of Nigerians like mob justice and actions.
“Sometimes ago, I spoke of mob justice even within the legal profession. I said: ‘That is not what I learned’.
“I have decided not to join issues with some of the emotional outbursts of some of my learned friends. No meaningful thing would be achieved by emotional outbursts and name calling.
“Those who cared to know, know that in exercising our rights to express our feelings we must do so with all sense of responsibility and decorum and with the best traditions at the Bar. Lawyers are not trained to be touts. No we are not.
“But we are here conducting social media trial. May I remind us all that we are lawyers and the Body that has been vested with jurisdiction to hear questions of professional misconduct is the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC).
“We as lawyers should not, no matter the temptations, engage in abusing ourselves or become so indecorous in expressing our views because one’s stand does not accord with our emotional and sentimental feelings. Even God himself did not condemn Adam unheard.
“Clearly mob justice is real and many resort to mob justice because our legal system appears inadequate to give immediate justice. Honestly, mob justice is unlawful and not allowed under our laws.”
‘Mob justice a verdict on govt’s failure’
Otteh said incidents of mob justice reflected the endemic nature of the loss of confidence crisis in the criminal justice system.
“They represent more of a judgment on our criminal justice institutions than anything else, and the direct victims of these acts of violence – those who suffer the mob violence – simply take the fall for what actually is caused by others – the government in particular.
“If we had an effective, dependable and fair justice system, no one would likely feel they needed to take the law into their own hands,
“So, at the end of the day, the government’s inability to exercise the responsibility of providing a reliable justice system is what is implicated by the practice of jungle justice. The fear is that we will likely see an escalating spiral of this unfortunate behaviour given that our institutions of criminal justice still pivot on a culture of being inefficient, lethargic, and lacking in competency.
“The failure to reform the police force, for example, since after the transition, has meant the professional decline of that core law enforcement agency.
“That decline is seen in the poor capacity levels of the force, the culture of impunity, lawlessness and injustice that has come to define it, and the huge distance and alienation between the force and the people it is meant to serve.
“These are the fundamentals and the context for people taking the law into their hands and we must urgently reverse this curve.
“The current government had great opportunities to reform institutions of justice and rebuild public confidence in them but drew blank. Unfortunately!!!” he said.
