Lagos — Thousands of Nigerians have been murdered and killed by insurgency attacks in the last two years, but no such death witnessed the level of outrage as that of the fatal lynching of four students of the University of Port Harcourt in the oil-rich city. A battle to bring their killers to justice is now playing out online. Some Nigerians believe social media has come to the rescue.
Under allegations that they stole mobile phones and a laptop, the four young men were victims of a mob attack one week ago. They were stripped naked and beaten to a pulp before being set ablaze in the presence of a crowd in the local university community known as Aluu.
This mob action, which is popularly known as jungle justice in Nigeria, was filmed with a mobile phone and uploaded to YouTube. Outrage expressed online and in street protests ensued, as Nigerians continue to demand justice for the slain youth.
Nigeria's leading female blogger Linda Ikeji broke the news, though refused to upload the video of the killing shortly after it happened. She told RNW that "people are outraged because we can see what happened in Aluu and not just [by watching] the news" - the possibility of which she affirmed was enabled by social media.
Power of the hashtag
"The video from Aluu sure played the biggest factor in the outrage and demand for justice," Ikeji said.
By contrast "what happened in Mubi is like hearsay", she said, referring to the murder earlier this month of some 40 students in the country's north. In Ikeji's opinion, the Mubi massacre did not cause similar reactions as the Port Harcourt lynching because "there are no names, no pictures and no family has even come out to grieve".
Female activist and Space4Change founder Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri echoed Ikeji. "Aluu killings [are] another testament of the force and power of the social media," she told RNW.
"In recent times, Nigerians have been inundated with news of killings, massacres and violent terror attacks. The inability of advocates to put a face to those stories [has] seen citizens showing scant interest in demanding justice and accountability from the perpetrators."
"But all that changed in the case of #Aluu4," Ibezim-Ohaeri said of the hashtagged Twitter topic. "The filming of the Aluu killings and the YouTube uploads, particularly, amplified the message of injustice, put specific human faces to the stories, fueling outrage across the globe."
The blogger underscored how reactions were not limited to Nigeria. "That singular act powerfully demonstrates the capacity of the social media to influence public opinion, perceptions and activate the inherent collective action potentials of citizens," she said.
Government's change of heart
Earlier in the year, Senator David Mark suggested a possible clampdown on social media, citing it as a potential menace to Nigerian society. The president of the senate noted how such forms of technology can be used to demean leaders. "The need to check the social media became necessary, as [social media users] do not have the avenue for retraction of whatever they had done," he said.
But on Tuesday in an address to parliament, Senator Mark admitted that "with the help of social media, the faces of the killers of the boys were identified".
A series of agitation and clamour continue across Nigerian cyberspace. The topic #Justiceforaluu4 has also been created on Twitter. A one million signatory petition, launched by Anthony Akabogu, hopes to mount further pressure on the government, ensuring that the culprits be brought to book.
Ikeji, for one, has vowed to take the anger collectively expressed on the internet to another level. "I am going to use this online outrage to press for a demand that a bill must be passed to criminalize mob action such as lynching a thief, rapist or anyone else," she said, "because what we call jungle justice is jungle injustice."
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Linda Ikeji appears to be a well meaning blogger when she says that she would like to outlaw jungle justice. The problem with that is there is a problem with the effectiveness of the police. Jungle justice has been around for a long time, long before independence. It has served as a method for communities to police themselves when authorities could not or would not do the job. Considering the fact that the law enforcement agencies are up to this day still bought out by criminals to turn a blind eye to crimes being committed, this is shocking that this Ms. Ikeji would like jungle justice outlawed. Did she think this through? What happened to these boys was sickening and tragic, but you should not disarm a society and leave them at the mercy of criminals since the police are compromised. Even if the police became more effective today, there is no guarantee that they will be in the future. People have a right to have their life and property protected as the federal government often tells us. Going along with Ms. Ikeji's idea will certainly be counter-productive to that ideal.
Jungle justice includes vigilante. Vigilante is community policing. Community policing comes into play in the absence of a proper working police system. The problem with jungle justice is that those who constitute it become the judges and the executioners. What happened in Aluu was Jungle justice mixed with Mob violence. The mob violence was created as a result of people living under the terror of criminals. These criminals even kill just to take your phone from you. Therefore, the mob considered it right to kill even a phone stealing criminal. This becomes wrong because the police created that sense of insecurity. When criminal fear the police and the justice system, they would respect the lives of people. When people see that their lives are respected, they won't rejoice is snuffing other people's life. The rage in those that killed those helpless boys showed how much they were searching for criminals to kill. That implies that they've lived under terror without anyone coming to their aid. Unfortunately for the students, they became victims of a long cooked rage. Where should we start the fixing. Get the criminals to
THE JUNGLE COURT: Jungle justice includes vigilante and civilian policing. Vigilante is untrained community policing. Community policing comes into play in the absence of a proper working police system or force in the area. Most communities have little or no police response. Most of our police officers are currently bodyguards for rich men. The problem with jungle justice is that those who constitute it become the accusers, the judges and the executioners. What happened in Aluu was Jungle justice mixed with Mob violence in its most untasteful manner.
The mob violence was created as a result of people living under the terror of criminals. These criminals even kill just to take your phone from you. They kill when you have nothing for them to steal. They shoot into crowds and care less. Therefore, the mob considered it their duty to kill even a phone stealing criminal. This becomes very wrong because the police created that sense of insecurity for the people.
When criminals fear the police and the justice system, they would respect the lives of people. When people see that their lives are respected, they won't rejoice is snuffing other people's life when they can get justice by reporting the crime. The rage in those that killed those helpless boys showed how much they were searching for criminals to kill. That implies that they've lived under terror without anyone coming to their aid. Unfortunately for the students, they became victims of a long cooked rage.
Where should we start the fixing. Get the criminals to fear the police, respect our justice system and have regard for human lives. I wonder how long that is going to take. Second, get the police to regard trust and confidence from the people. That mob attack had a big difference from the killings going on by Boko Haram because theirs is purposeless and without provocation. They were probably trying to revenge the terror they had lived with and went way over their heads and pulled out the evil in them until the devil became their persons.
Seeing how far people are ready to go to secure their communities, the government should step up its game and secure these communities. Take it from me, hunt down all the killer involved in the Aluu crime and put them behind bars. If you leave another community at the mercies of robbers and thieves for long, you would have another mob attack coupled with jungle justice on Youtube and Twitter with lots of hash tags. The only justice in a jungle court is death. Even a lion would pass you the same sentence, so why let them handle the case?
The writer of this material seem to be living and observing from the moon, not from this planet . The social media have played exactly in tone with norms of divide and rule philosopy in line with the interest of of those with peculiear zeal to buy public opinion with money. I know how much lynching it has been to get indepent views published if is not in praise of Israel or Western idea of free speech and democracy.There's two tie version freedom of opinion here, one for those who'll do anything to keep wool over everyones eye and the other is to praise everything that glorify known brutal conspiracy as long as they're manufactured from this part of the Atlantic hemisphere. It is note-worthy Russia and China have woken up to this relentless conspiracy and currently doing something to save mankind by standing tall to reality . For anyone to attribute sensible freedom and trasparency with so called social media, you must read between lines to believe. They're bunch of bulls.