This month made it exactly two years since four young men were viciously murdered in Aluu, a community in Rivers state. The young men were reportedly students at the University of Port Harcourt.
Reports say the youths were thought to have stolen something or were cultists. So a mob attacked them on a street, stripped them naked, battered them with heavy sticks and then burned them to death while dozens of spectators cheered on.
Pictures and videos of the murder quickly spread through social media and the public reaction was intense rage. People were very appalled by the horror.
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The media turned a big spotlight on the story. Activists boiled, and many people went on TV and social media to vent and call strongly for justice.
The police response was instant too. They pounced on that community, made arrests and trials started few months later. Those trials have now dragged on for two years and many people who followed the issue ardently when it was fresh have since given up in their hope for justice.
Such mob killings happen every now and then in this country. When some people believe a person has done a crime, they immediately attack the person. It’s called jungle justice. Some people do this because they believe thieves should be punished as severely as possible and that police and the judiciary cannot be trusted to deliver justice. So when a person is suspected to have stolen something or is caught, some people quickly attack the person instead of alerting the police and letting them do their job.
One duty of the police is to protect people in danger, but the police failed to protect those young men even though reports say calls were made to the police to intervene.
ASP Oluwalola Obadare is the police PRO at Zone 11 Command. He says about such mob cases, “The problem is with our people’s mentality. When they catch someone, nobody contacts the police, at least on time. We don’t get the tip-off from anyone. So it’s hard for us to respond promptly to stop the attack. So I’d like you to see that it’s not totally a police failure. The problem is that people don’t alert the police on time.”
The judiciary is another concern. The Aluu case has dragged on for various complications that could be avoided if the system was more organised and efficient. In this case, the instability in the state judiciary appears to have hampered the trials. This June the judiciary went on a strike indefinitely, suspending all trials. This has been another problem.
Interestingly, many activists and others who were vocal about the issue have since quietened and moved on. The story has also mostly vanished from the media.
Omojuwa is a well-known public speaker. He was one of those who spoke up in favour of the murdered youths when the incident happened. Today, he says, “People who vented at that time have played their role, which is important. They’ve brought the issue to the front burner and got a lot of people to know about it. They’ve done the right thing, but you know they’re not the ones who will deliver justice. So you can’t blame them. And don’t forget that these people have their own life to live. They have to go on with their business. So it’s simply normal that they’ve now moved on.”
But Vincent is another person who was outspoken about that murder on social media, and now that he looks at it, he thinks that he and others should have kept on the pressure. He says, “The fact is that even if we are not the one’s responsible for justice being done, as socially responsible citizens, it was our duty to keep the issue on the front burner. On that, we failed. It was wrong to simply moving on as if that incident never happened.”
This murder also raises questions about how civilised the Nigerian society really is. It’s a reminder that while parts of this society continue to advance and people continue to get more sophisticated, there are still parts of the society where entire communities are still stuck in a previous century.
-Adedayo Ademuwagun
RIP Ugonna, Tekena, Llyod and Chidiaka!
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