Should Bullies Be Spared Severe Punishment?
14 January 2024 By Abiodun Kareem Giwa
Edwin Murithi, bullying latest victim (Courtesy: Nation)
The killing of Kenya's orphan, Edwin Murithi, 17, reportedly by his uncles for a missing bag should be worrisome over increased reports of bullying death. Nation newspaper's report detailed a heinous incident showing the disappeared item was with one of the uncles' mothers. Kenya's bullying story came on the heels of Nigeria's rising music star, Ilerioluwa Aloba's death, allegedly bullied by Naira Marley, a music label boss, before his eventual death.
The Nigerian case, still unresolved, is more complex than Kenya's recent illegal arrest and tortured death. Many Nigerians are crying over the likely cover-up of the bullying case. The Kenyan occurrence has just begun, and the world is watching its direction with alarming alertness.
Why is bullying not codified in federal laws as a crime in most countries, making culprits escape punishment? There is no federal law addressing bullying in the United States and most other advanced countries known to be under the rule of law. Bullying is for states, local authorities, and schools to manage. What would people expect of Nigeria and Kenya, where they still believe in strong men? Every effort to prevent bullying links schools' measures or cyberbullying. Do they address the type of bullying that took the music rising star's life in Nigeria and Kenya's case, causing an orphan's death?
Mohbad was not in school. Kenya's orphan's issue was not in school. The former was an artist who found himself in a hostile environment at a music label whose leader and his bully master descended for abandoning the label. The young man cried out that if anything happened to him, the label owner and his bully master were responsible. There was evidence of a physical attack when he went for a concert engagement. He lived in fear and had a mortal wound on his back, showing his tormentors' mercilessness in one of their encounters. However, his passage in a different scenario confuses observers of whether his former boss at the music label and his bully master are involved. They were invited for police questioning but freed after days of incarceration. The police ordered the deceased body exhumed for further investigation. Ironically, up to this moment, the pathological result is not ready, and the body is still with the police. The development has caused many Nigerians to wonder how long it takes to determine the pathological examination on the cause of death, and they suspect a cover-up, leading to fears that the society's powerful always have their ways against the less powerful, which bullying represents. If Mohbad's case is insufficient to show how the powerful can descend on the less powerful, Kenya's incidence is. It is wild for two adults to tie up a less powerful boy and plummet him until he loses consciousness. Observers perceive Murithi's case as bullying leading to a more precarious end.
Should the public policy process not be geared toward protecting the less powerful against strongmen? Is it strange that some schoolchildren bullies imitate what they see happening in a larger community? Some of them go away with their crime of making life terrible for their less powerful mates, while their victims live with the scars of animalistic attitudes in human society. We heard about Aloba's bullying case in Nigeria and listened to reports about Murithis. Where next?
Bullying perpetrators have loopholes for escaping punishment when victims are not dead or are not the cause of death. Should bullies not be sent to jail for making life uncomfortable for others as deterrence? The lack of severe punishment encourages rather than discourages. Parents whose children are victims know where the shoe pinches, and just as their children.
The Nigerian case, still unresolved, is more complex than Kenya's recent illegal arrest and tortured death. Many Nigerians are crying over the likely cover-up of the bullying case. The Kenyan occurrence has just begun, and the world is watching its direction with alarming alertness.
Why is bullying not codified in federal laws as a crime in most countries, making culprits escape punishment? There is no federal law addressing bullying in the United States and most other advanced countries known to be under the rule of law. Bullying is for states, local authorities, and schools to manage. What would people expect of Nigeria and Kenya, where they still believe in strong men? Every effort to prevent bullying links schools' measures or cyberbullying. Do they address the type of bullying that took the music rising star's life in Nigeria and Kenya's case, causing an orphan's death?
Mohbad was not in school. Kenya's orphan's issue was not in school. The former was an artist who found himself in a hostile environment at a music label whose leader and his bully master descended for abandoning the label. The young man cried out that if anything happened to him, the label owner and his bully master were responsible. There was evidence of a physical attack when he went for a concert engagement. He lived in fear and had a mortal wound on his back, showing his tormentors' mercilessness in one of their encounters. However, his passage in a different scenario confuses observers of whether his former boss at the music label and his bully master are involved. They were invited for police questioning but freed after days of incarceration. The police ordered the deceased body exhumed for further investigation. Ironically, up to this moment, the pathological result is not ready, and the body is still with the police. The development has caused many Nigerians to wonder how long it takes to determine the pathological examination on the cause of death, and they suspect a cover-up, leading to fears that the society's powerful always have their ways against the less powerful, which bullying represents. If Mohbad's case is insufficient to show how the powerful can descend on the less powerful, Kenya's incidence is. It is wild for two adults to tie up a less powerful boy and plummet him until he loses consciousness. Observers perceive Murithi's case as bullying leading to a more precarious end.
Should the public policy process not be geared toward protecting the less powerful against strongmen? Is it strange that some schoolchildren bullies imitate what they see happening in a larger community? Some of them go away with their crime of making life terrible for their less powerful mates, while their victims live with the scars of animalistic attitudes in human society. We heard about Aloba's bullying case in Nigeria and listened to reports about Murithis. Where next?
Bullying perpetrators have loopholes for escaping punishment when victims are not dead or are not the cause of death. Should bullies not be sent to jail for making life uncomfortable for others as deterrence? The lack of severe punishment encourages rather than discourages. Parents whose children are victims know where the shoe pinches, and just as their children.
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