Nigerians: Enough of this Lawlessness
November 16 2016 By Abiodun Giwa
The killing of a boy termed "The Savage Killing" was all over the internet few days ago and the Nigerian authorities have not made a single arrest up to this moment.
Typically the incidences of extra-judicial killings in the country and the 'I don't care' attitude of the law enforcement, the law makers at the federal and state levels, and the successive occupants of Aso Rock.
These people charged with the duty of keeping Nigeria and Nigerians safe, don't seem to know the magnitude of their responsibilities or what they are in office to do.
They may have been thinking that each time a Nigerian is killed by marauders and the police mess up the investigation to let the murderers roam free, that it will continue to be business as usual and that Nigerians will not care. I believe that without these wrong notion about societal management impeding their hindsight, all the extra judicial killings in the country from 1960 up to this day ought to have made them to one day say enough is enough of lawlessness and that it's time to foist the rule of law.
If the killing of a young boy beaten to death by a band of law breakers (also reported by the the Mirror) before they put a tire round his neck and set him ablaze and shown all over the world through the social media, is not enough to move President Muhammad Buhari to call the Nigeria Police to effect the arrest of the band of murderers, whose faces appeared on the internet - putting an end to a young boy's life - in the most inhuman way ever seen around the world in peace time, then nothing will ever make Buhari, the country's senators and representatives and the police, tell anyone that they know the jobs they have been elected or appointed to do.
The police authority made a statement that it got the video that showed how the boy was battered to death before a tire was placed on his neck and roasted. Like other cases of extra-judicial killing either by the police or by the powerful people of the less powerful in the society, the public may have heard the last of the case. Where were members of the Nigeria Police Force in the area of Lagos, where the boy was killed, during the duration of beating, kicking and hitting this boy with all damaging objects to silence him before he was roasted?
As a young boy resident with his parents in Ile-Ife, South West of the country, I witnessed political thugs' killing of innocent people who belonged to opposing political parties or who did not belong to any political party at all between 1964 and 1966, four to six years after the country's independence.
I thought such a time was over, until the killings in the North against the ibos occurred, and then followed by the civil war as a result of the extra judicial killings in the North. I thought that the end of the Nigerian civil war will end the atrocities against innocent people in Nigeria and that the days of any powerful person descending on the less powerful was over until what the country witnessed in the assassination of my own brother occurred and later the political killings from 1994 to 1999, and the attitude of killing suspects accused of crimes by putting tires around their necks before setting them ablaze became the law in Nigeria and no one seems to care about where this could be leading the country, just like the incidence of Boko haram slicing people's necks came on the scene.
It is simple that when a man is killed extra judicial and the police allows the killer or killers to go scot free, it will embolden other killers to do the same to other innocent people. The application of the rule of law is supposed to deter other criminals from unleashing their anger on the society. But this is not applicable, lawlessness becomes an order.
This is what has been happening in Nigeria and no one cares to address! Do we have to wait until all of us are killed by the power drunk fellows in the country, who believe they are above the law and we also make them feel they are above the law and that they are actually the law?
In Oedipus the King, an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles, the people went before the King and made supplications for the king to address the evil in his domain. But rather than address the problem in the society, the king went after an innocent soul, whom he accused of an attempt to usurp the king's position. The king was more concerned about his own position than correcting the situation and arresting the evil that had assailed the society. This is exactly what is happening in Nigeria.
Of course, if successive occupants of Aso Rock, law enforcement, law makers and ministers at every level of government have been concerned, the nation is supposed to have called this Augean Stable out for its end. But they don't care and Nigerians know they don't care and that what they care about as government officials is how to make money and take care of themselves and their cronies.
Today, Nigerians are crying against economic Armageddon and the leaders don't care. How would they since they don't care about much horrendous issue of extra judicial killings and lawlessness, how much would they care about less issue of hunger? What is the essence of wasting time voting people into office and appointing people into offices, when there is no assurance that they will address the issues of lawlessness and hunger that have become the orders of the day? It is time Nigerians must call their leaders to arrest this Augean Stable!
These people charged with the duty of keeping Nigeria and Nigerians safe, don't seem to know the magnitude of their responsibilities or what they are in office to do.
They may have been thinking that each time a Nigerian is killed by marauders and the police mess up the investigation to let the murderers roam free, that it will continue to be business as usual and that Nigerians will not care. I believe that without these wrong notion about societal management impeding their hindsight, all the extra judicial killings in the country from 1960 up to this day ought to have made them to one day say enough is enough of lawlessness and that it's time to foist the rule of law.
If the killing of a young boy beaten to death by a band of law breakers (also reported by the the Mirror) before they put a tire round his neck and set him ablaze and shown all over the world through the social media, is not enough to move President Muhammad Buhari to call the Nigeria Police to effect the arrest of the band of murderers, whose faces appeared on the internet - putting an end to a young boy's life - in the most inhuman way ever seen around the world in peace time, then nothing will ever make Buhari, the country's senators and representatives and the police, tell anyone that they know the jobs they have been elected or appointed to do.
The police authority made a statement that it got the video that showed how the boy was battered to death before a tire was placed on his neck and roasted. Like other cases of extra-judicial killing either by the police or by the powerful people of the less powerful in the society, the public may have heard the last of the case. Where were members of the Nigeria Police Force in the area of Lagos, where the boy was killed, during the duration of beating, kicking and hitting this boy with all damaging objects to silence him before he was roasted?
As a young boy resident with his parents in Ile-Ife, South West of the country, I witnessed political thugs' killing of innocent people who belonged to opposing political parties or who did not belong to any political party at all between 1964 and 1966, four to six years after the country's independence.
I thought such a time was over, until the killings in the North against the ibos occurred, and then followed by the civil war as a result of the extra judicial killings in the North. I thought that the end of the Nigerian civil war will end the atrocities against innocent people in Nigeria and that the days of any powerful person descending on the less powerful was over until what the country witnessed in the assassination of my own brother occurred and later the political killings from 1994 to 1999, and the attitude of killing suspects accused of crimes by putting tires around their necks before setting them ablaze became the law in Nigeria and no one seems to care about where this could be leading the country, just like the incidence of Boko haram slicing people's necks came on the scene.
It is simple that when a man is killed extra judicial and the police allows the killer or killers to go scot free, it will embolden other killers to do the same to other innocent people. The application of the rule of law is supposed to deter other criminals from unleashing their anger on the society. But this is not applicable, lawlessness becomes an order.
This is what has been happening in Nigeria and no one cares to address! Do we have to wait until all of us are killed by the power drunk fellows in the country, who believe they are above the law and we also make them feel they are above the law and that they are actually the law?
In Oedipus the King, an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles, the people went before the King and made supplications for the king to address the evil in his domain. But rather than address the problem in the society, the king went after an innocent soul, whom he accused of an attempt to usurp the king's position. The king was more concerned about his own position than correcting the situation and arresting the evil that had assailed the society. This is exactly what is happening in Nigeria.
Of course, if successive occupants of Aso Rock, law enforcement, law makers and ministers at every level of government have been concerned, the nation is supposed to have called this Augean Stable out for its end. But they don't care and Nigerians know they don't care and that what they care about as government officials is how to make money and take care of themselves and their cronies.
Today, Nigerians are crying against economic Armageddon and the leaders don't care. How would they since they don't care about much horrendous issue of extra judicial killings and lawlessness, how much would they care about less issue of hunger? What is the essence of wasting time voting people into office and appointing people into offices, when there is no assurance that they will address the issues of lawlessness and hunger that have become the orders of the day? It is time Nigerians must call their leaders to arrest this Augean Stable!
