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The Rising Scourge of Mob Action in Nigeria
In the past few years, irate mobs have unleashed jungle justice on hapless citizens, claiming many lives in the various zones of the country. From 2019 to date, it was reported by SBM Intel that there have been 279 cases of mob justice in Nigeria, resulting in the death of 391 people, 223 of them occurring in the South. So far, the South West is leading the pack with 100 incidents, South South 64, North Central 39, South East 33, North West 30 and North East 13. What could be responsible for this rising inhumane trend, where citizens take the law into their own hands, resorting to self-help and becoming the Prosecutor, Judge, Jury and Executioner? Is the nation’s criminal justice system failing? Is it caused by a combination of factors like unemployment, poverty, illiteracy and religion? What is the panacea? Professor Earnest Ojukwu, SAN, Professor Andrew Chukwumerie, SAN and Chukwu Emeka Eze examine the worrisome trend and proffer solutions
Causes of Mob Justice in Nigeria
Professor Earnest Ojukwu, SAN
T
he growing trend of mob action or mob justice in Nigeria, needs to be addressed urgently. There are many reasons for this upsurge. Mob justice is a sign of a failing or failed State, where governance is collapsing or has collapsed. It is evidence of lawlessness and impunity.
The major basis is a feeling of injustice, and a mistrust of the justice system. This includes a distrust in law enforcement agencies, especially the Police; a distrust of the Judiciary, Lawyers and the legal profession; and a distrust of political leaders and the law itself. Mob actions are also fuelled by anger, which is in turn fuelled by economic and social justice deprivations; religious and tribal hatred fuelled by inequality, distrust, ignorance, prejudice, and indoctrination.
The spread of prejudice and use of indoctrination, is largely based on a growing culture of dishonesty among the greater number of the Nigerian population, and this has manifested in the effective use of false information to misinform and miseducate, to reduce our greater illiterate and half educated population to the lowest animal levels and achieve hatred, insecurity, strife, and in fact, terrorism.
Reversing the Trend of Mob Justice
To reverse the trend, will require so much effort. The will and actions to stem the tide, has to be equal. We must focus on extracting Nigeria from a failed State status, and engender good governance at all levels and in all parts of the country.
Our economy must improve tremendously; employment must be created; poverty must go; fairness and equity must be enthroned; our justice system must work effectively and justly; the Police must be wholly reformed and transformed to a civilised Police Force; re-education and re-orientation of the entire population must begin in earnest; the standard of our normal education must be improved; the illiteracy gap must be closed, especially in educationally disadvantaged parts of Nigeria; and our culture of corruption and dishonesty must be extracted from our “blood”, especially from the “blood” of our political leaders and civil servants.
Professor Earnest Ojukwu, SAN, former Deputy Director General, Nigerian Law School
The Rising Incidents of Mob Action in Nigeria
Professor Andrew Chukwumerie, SAN
Causes of Mob Action
1) Failure of Law Enforcement
The rising trend of mob actions, is really disturbing. The causes are many. The first cause, is the failure of the enforcement of the law. The country has been in a state of lawlessness, for many years now. Nigerian criminal legislation is full of prohibitive provisions against mob actions, religious riots etc. If laws were to be enforced no matter whose ox is gored, there would not be so much mob actions and riots. However, once some people can do something or commit a crime and nothing happens to them, other persons would be emboldened and seek to do similar or other things and crimes. That is from the point of view of the aggressor, the initial criminal. From the stand point of the victim of the crime, if there is no retribution for a crime committed, the initial victim may get frustrated with the State; anger that no one can help. That immediately forces him into a retaliation. It is human nature to disobey the law; the rules. Once the law is properly enforced, practically everyone will be law abiding. The difference between the law abiding civilised nations and Nigeria, is traceable to this factor.
2) Oppression of Citizens
Closely linked to this, is the deliberate use (or misuse) of the law for the deliberate mistreatment or indeed, oppression of some of the citizens. The hue and cry of Nigerians now about the state of things economically and socially, is one great source of mob actions and riots. The demand for the Police Force to be an agent for the proper protection of the people, instead of a tool for the harassment and oppression of these same people, was the genesis of the #EndSARS riots across the country in 2020 that resulted in so much damage to lives and property. The demand for the restructuring of the country, is the source of agitations across the country. So many youths are involved in these agitations. Sadly, the powers that be in the country are taking these agitations in their stride, believing nothing will come out of them. It is not a good omen for the country, that so much of its population spread across the country are agitating for one thing or the other, due to their dissatisfaction with governance.
3) Religion
The other thing is, religion. There is some misunderstanding of religious writings and proclamations, by some clerics. Those clerics go ahead and tell their followers that they can get involved in mob actions or riots and kill adherents of other religions, especially Christianity, when things happen that they easily term as against their religion. I am aware that Christianity and Judaism, especially Christianity, are considered religions of the Book, and no adherent of the one should do any harm or kill an adherent of the other. I have had extensive discussions with very notable and influential Muslim faithfuls, and heard them quite clearly on this. I am aware that Christians will consider somebody an outcast, if they hurts or kills the Muslims, followers of African traditional religion, followers of Hinduisms, Buddhists, Sikhism or Judaism, or indeed, anybody, on account of religious differences or expressions of those. It is so, whether the person does something considered blasphemous to his faith or not. That person will be understood as trying to fight for God, the Almighty, Who, apart from being thoroughly forgiving to errant humans, can always fight for Himself in much more effective ways, when it becomes necessary to fight for Himself.
The situation is worsened in Nigeria, by the use of such misunderstanding of religion for political reasons. It is used as a tool which much (definitely not all) of the political class (even when civilians are not in power, but the military) uses for political domination. Clearly, this is not the fault of Islam (much less of Christianity, Judaism, African traditional religion, Hinduisms, Buddhists, Sikhism or any other religion practiced in Nigeria) as a religion, but the fault of politicians using mob actions and riots as a political tool of negotiation – negotiation in violence. Once the mob action or crisis starts, members of other religions are slaughtered. Eventually, nothing happens to the perpetrators. It was once said at a time during the Obasanjo Presidency, in the heat of a riot that started in a particular State, that the Presidency warned the then Governor of the State that serious consequences would follow if riots occurred further in the State. At that time, the Presidency had used the declaration of state of emergency once, and was going to use it once more in that State if the riots persisted. No further riots occurred in that State or neighbouring States, at the time. The law was going to take its course. Everyone behaved well, and lives were spared.
It is the intention of some people to use religious riots and mob action, to intimidate the rest of Nigerians into fear of saying or doing things that their religion may consider unfavourable. In the country now, there is a palpable fear of saying anything that religious fanatics or their far sighted sponsors may find offensive – even when those things are clearly not offensive to anyone.
When these things happen, some persons just take up arms and hurt and kill others in the name that they have blasphemed the own faith. The surprising thing is that, you will hardly find a well-informed person inside such a crowd, when they are killing the person alleged to have blasphemed. Well-informed and positioned persons, their own children, no matter how young or uninformed they may be, are hardly seen doing this. Is the revenge for blasphemy, a thing for the less informed ones in the society?
4) Failure of the Law
Where the law fails as it has in Nigeria, ambitious persons arise, wanting to sway public opinion in their favour, whether or not the other members of the society like it or not. To some extent, this seems to be what has happened in certain parts of Southern Nigeria. Criminals seem to have taken over people’s legitimate grievances, and turned them into an engine of fraud and crime.
The last point I would want to highlight here, is a high level of frustration manifesting in the entire populace, especially amongst the unemployed youths. The point has been made time and again, that Nigeria is sitting on a time bomb. Regrettably, those in Government at the Federal, State or Local Governments, do not seem to fully realise this point, or are not prepared to do anything serious about it. A situation where unemployment amongst the youth is so high, is extremely undesirable. In addition or in lieu of the statistics normally coming out of the Bureau of Statistics, just think of the number of Nigerians that leave the NYSC each quarter of the year. How many of those get employed? Or put in another way, how many are even employable? Think of those who could not go to tertiary institutions, and are roaming the streets unemployed. Think of the number of Nigerians who lose their jobs now and then, because of the failure of companies or their downsizing! Think of the millions of people who cannot access their pensions, either because a government is deliberately owing them, or because those who were supposed to administer their pensions simply made away with the money. All these people are without any means of income! Any spark of by way of a misdeed against them, or any source of anger causes a resort to mob action. Many people who joined the #EndSARS riots, probably joined just because of this cause.
Realisation
If Nigeria realises realises that it is losing human life and human capital, and getting steadily dragged backwards by avoidable loss of lives each time these things happen, the country will stand up against the mob actions. If Nigerians realise at personal levels, that (whatever any one believes or does not believe) whatever a man sows he will eventually reap now or later, much progress will be made in this area.
Professor Andrew Chukwumerie, SAN, Abuja
Legal Diagnosis of the Resurgence of Mob Action in Nigeria
Chukwuemeka Eze
According to Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan, 1651), the state of nature was one in which there were no enforceable criteria of right and wrong. People took for themselves all that they could, and human life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” The state of nature was therefore, a state of war, which could be ended only if individuals agreed (in a social contract) to give their liberty into the hands of a sovereign, on the sole condition that their lives were safeguarded by sovereign power.
Rising Cases of Mob Action in Nigeria
There are reported cases of mob action in recent times, across the country without consequences.
It will not be exaggerating to dub April and May 2022, as months of jungle justice in Nigeria.
In April 2022, two alleged motorcycle thieves were lynched at Suleja in Niger State. In the same April, an alleged kidnapper was killed by a mob in Kano.
Early last month, Nigerians woke up to read about the gruesome murder of Deborah Samuel Yakubu through jungle justice, by her fellow students at the Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, after accusing her of blasphemy. Attempt by the Sokoto State Government to bring the ringleaders of the killing to book, led to a riot in which property valued at millions of Naira, were destroyed.
In the same second week of May, a sound engineer, David Imoh, was mobbed and killed by Okada riders in the Lekki area of Lagos over a N100 dispute. Similarly, a pregnant Hausa woman, named Harira, and her four children, were killed in Anambra State, also in May, by unknown gunmen. These cases have raised concern among many Nigerians, as to the lack of sanctity of life in Nigeria.
Thomas Hobbes is one of the legal philosophers, inclusive of John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau, that examined the state of nature with regard to the social contract theory. His proposition presented man as being in an anarchic state of nature where everyone was at war with everyone, which Latin translation is, _omnia contra omnes._ Citizens eventually handed over their fate and protection, into the hands of a sovereign. The Nigerian State has undertaken the duty to treat our welfare and security as the primary purpose of government, under Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution.
A situation where groups of citizens regularly take the law into their hands to kill their fellow citizens without the due process of the law and without the imprimatur of the State, is one of the hallmarks of a failing or a failed State. The incidence of mob action, is not new to us.
In October 2012, four students of the University of Port Harcourt – Ugonna Obuzor, Toku Lloyd, Chiadika Biringa and Tekenah Elkanah – were lynched after they were falsely accused of theft in the Rivers State community of Aluu. The act elicited widespread condemnation and cry for justice, using #Aluu4 on social media.
In June 2016, an Igbo trader, Bridget Agbahime, 74, was killed by a rampaging mob in Kano, after an alleged act of blasphemy.
A month later, a preacher/evangelist and member of Redeemed Christian Church of God was killed by some assailants while preaching at Kubwa, an FCT satellite town.
Following the disturbing trend, Senator Dino Melaye introduced a Bill for a law to protect persons against “jungle justice”, which passed through the Second Reading in the Senate in October 2016. The Anti-Jungle Justice Bill, SB 109 – was formally titled ‘Bill for an Act for the Prohibition and Protection of Persons from Lynching, Mob Action and Extrajudicial Execution and Other Related Offences 2016’. The Bill was eventually not signed, to become an Act of the National Assembly.
Illegality of the Abridgement of the Right to Life through Mob Action
Section 33 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 entitles every person in Nigeria to the right to life, and nobody has the power to unlawfully take another person’s life without the due process of the law. During mob actions, the mob serves as the prosecutor, the judge, jury and the executioner.
In legal terms, mob action is an act where a person acting together with one or more persons and without authority of law (knowingly, intentionally and recklessly), disturbs public peace by the use of force or violence. In other words, it is an act where a person assembles with one or more persons to do an unlawful act (knowing and intending) that the purpose of the assembly is to perform the unlawful act.
Causes of Mob Action
The increasing rate of criminality in the society and the continuous delay in the dispensation of criminal justice, has led to wide provocation among the public to take the law into their own hands. A research carried out by Mr Ilori, a Criminologist at the University of Ibadan in 2014, found that factors like insecurity, understaffed and ill-equipped Police Force, are drivers of jungle justice. An overwhelmed Police, makes neighbourhoods seek the services of vigilante groups for local security.
The form of street justice occurs where a dysfunctional and corrupt judiciary system and law enforcement, have lost all credibility. When people lose confidence in judicial or law enforcement agencies, it will most often lead them to have resort to mob action.
Investigations have shown that one of the major reasons for such act, is lack of confidence in the security and justice system. Many believe that some of the victims are usually hardened criminals, or those found to have been involved in very heinous crimes, particularly as it appertains to taking of a life. There is also the belief that some of these alleged criminals always find their way back into the society, and some buy their freedom.
However numerous the factors behind mob actions in Nigeria may be, mob actions can never be justified, being that such type of actions are mainly self-help, which does not enjoy any form of support by the laws of this country.
What the Law Provides
The Constitution provides for the right to life, and it is declared that nobody’s life should be taken. In Nigeria, it is an offence to participate in any mob action by setting a person ablaze or inflicting physical injury on them, or death.
The abridgement of life through illegal means, is frowned at by domestic and international laws.
Section 33(1) of the Nigerian Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 provides:
“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”.
Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 provides:
“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”.
Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966 provides:
“Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life”.
Article 4 of the African Charter on Human Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act provides:
“Human beings are inviolable. Every human being shall be entitled to respect for his life and the integrity of his person. No one may be arbitrarily deprived of this right.”
Section 315 of the Criminal Code Act provides that:
“Any person who unlawfully kills another is guilty of an offence called murder or manslaughter, according to the circumstances of the case.”
Section 220 of the Penal Code also provides that:
“Whoever causes death:
(a) by doing an act with the intention of causing death or such bodily injury as is likely to cause death…commits the offence of culpable homicide”.
Section 2(1) of the Violence Against Persons Act also provides that:
“A person who wilfully causes or inflicts physical injury on another person by means of any weapon, substance or object, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment not exceeding 5 years or a fine not exceeding N100,000.00 or both”.
Section 8(1) of Administration of Criminal and Justice Act (2015) provides:
“A suspect shall:
(a) be accorded humane treatment, having regard to his right to dignity of his person;
(b) not be subjected to any form of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”.
The United Nations Rapporteur Report on Extrajudicial Killings in Nigeria, etc, states that the overall situation encountered in Nigeria gives rise to extreme concern. The warning signs are flashing bright red, increased numbers of attacks and killings over the last five years with a few notable exceptions; increased criminality and spreading insecurity; widespread failure by the Federal authorities to investigate and hold perpetrators to account, even for mass killings; a lack of public trust and confidence in the judicial institutions and State institutions more generally; high levels of resentment and grievances within and between communities; toxic ethno-religious narratives and “extremist” ideologies – characterised by dehumanisation of the “others” and denial of the legitimacy of the others’ claims; a generalised breakdown of the rule of law, with particularly acute consequences for the most vulnerable and impoverished populations of Nigeria.
Weakness of the State Enforcement Machinery as Catalyst for Mob Actions
Based on the foregoing provisions, it is safe to say that any society that tolerates such barbaric conduct shows clearly the level of its judicial development, and that is a very clear evidence of a failing State.
People are increasingly losing faith, in the Police investigative system and processes. They think that when these suspects are arrested, they might be freed by the Police or released by the courts, so the right thing to do is to take the law into their hands; but, it is noteworthy that two wrongs do not make a right. No amount of loss of faith in the judicial process, should encourage and tolerate or empower any person to take the law into his hands.
Another Attempt at Legislative Intervention
The Nigeria criminal justice system, has been a very topical issue everywhere. But, the slow pace of obtaining justice should not be an excuse to delve into the arena of violence and crime. Whoever is opposed to the process and decides to indulge in criminal acts, should find himself on the wrong side of the law. The era of taking suspected criminals into private custody and killing them, should be gone.
In 2021, Hon. Emeka Martins Chinedu, a member of the House of Representatives representing Ahiazu-Ezinihitte Mbaise Federal Constituency of Imo State, introduced a Bill seeking to punish those who engage in mob action. The Bill was considered by the House of Representatives, but it was envisaged that the intent of the Bill will be grossly misrepresented to mean a Bill seeking to jail protesters. The introduction of this Bill, was a clear indication that mob action is a threat to our security and safety in Nigeria.
The Way Forward
The possible solution is to establish confidence in the minds of the people, that the Judiciary will always do justice to those who engage in heinous crimes, and also that the law enforcement agencies will crystallise their investigations to the satisfaction of the people, to enable the people believe that justice will always be done in every case concerning crime. Also, the Judiciary and law enforcement agencies should be up to their feet, to ensure that those who engage in mob actions or jungle justice are brought to face the wrath of the law.
Religious leaders of all faiths should dissuade their followers from self-interpretation and enforcement of punitive measures pursuant to their holy books, without indictment through the judicial process.
Conclusion
Mob action or jungle justice, is inhuman and barbaric. It signposts a return to the state of nature, where life is solitary, short, nasty and brutish; and where everyone is at war with everyone. The act of mob action is not only illegal, but a regression into antiquity. The State needs to provide safeguards against jungle justice, and to ensure the existence of a legal framework for appropriate punitive measures against those that constitute themselves as mobs to abridge the lives of others.
Chukwuemeka Eze, Lecturer, Department of Public and International Law, Faculty of Law, Nasarawa State University, Keffi
