News
Experts lament incessant rate of jungle justice in Nigeria.
• As whereabout of 36-year old graduate throws family into panic.
EXPERTS and professionals as well as families of victims of jungle justice have lamented the increasing rate of jungle justice against innocent citizens in the country.
They urged the people to always do their findings thoroughly before they conclude to carry out their own way of punishment on suspected innocent citizens.
The experts in their separate reactions urged government to increase the awareness campaign on human rights violation and the punishment that awaits the offenders.
In a phone interview, the National Programme Officer of Nigeria Association of Social Workers (NASOW), Mr. Jamal Ali Ahmed said that the social crises in the country has led many Nigerians to resort to jungle justice due to frustration.
Ahmed who decried the jumbo salaries and allowances of political office holders stated that people should fight corruption than to carry out jungle justice on alleged offenders.
“The Senate and the House of Representatives make laws and give themselves special allowances while the poor are left with nothing, the implications are that the poor and the youth will eventually fight or they will commit crimes to sustain themselves.
Similarly, the Senior Lecturer at Department of Social Development, Jigawa State Polytechnic, Dutse further explained that, “The social worker’s roles are advocacy, sensitize and mediate, the people should fight corruption and injustice such as jungle justice, the government should create policies that will reduce such kind extraneous allowances to the law makers.
An Ibadan based civil servant, Mr. Raji Ajewole while revealing the pain their family is presently going through, hinted that one of his family member, Mr. Gbolahan Abimbola Samuel whose whereabout is yet to be known is a victim of jungle justice in 2014.
Ajewole said up till now the whereabout of Samuel is still unknown.
Giving accounts of the ordeal of the family, Ajewole said the incident that happened in 2014 has not only saddened the family but kept them in the darkness on the whereabout of 36-year old man, Samuel.
He said “Sometimes in early 2014, some people accosted Samuel and without any information about the alleged gay issue, they started to beat him. It was the trauma and the stigmatization of the alleged gay issue that made Samuel to run and flee to a destination yet to ascertained.
Mr. Ajewole stressed that all efforts by the family to know whereabout of their family member, Samuel has proved to be abortive. He therefore appealed to all Nigerians to help them locate him, saying that people should not be allowed to take laws into their hands.
It was gathered that the case of Samuel is not different with other Nigerians who had a similar experience of injustice.
At the twilight of 2016, the Nigerian media was flooded with the news of a 7 -year old boy who was allegedly killed for stealing. The boy was also a victim of jungle justice in Nigeria.
In his own contributions, an Ibadan-based legal practitioner, Barrister Ibraheem Kareem-Ojo described jungle justice as illegal and unconstitutional adding that it is a crime against humanity.
Barrister Kareem-Ojo explained that the 1999 constitution (as amended) guarantees the right of every citizen to life, hence no one has the right to take another man’s life.
The legal practitioner who cited several cases of jungle justice such as the Alu Crisis in Portharcourt in 2012 where four (4) students were wrongly accused of cultism and the story of a man who was wrongly accused of theft last year at a shopping mall in Lagos called on governments at all levels to put necessary machinery in place to step up the campaign on human rights violation.
While expressing his displeasure, he said it will be wrong for an individual to punish an alleged offender without informing the law enforcement agencies to carry out their duties.
Speaking further, Kareem-Ojo urged those in positions of authority to ensure citizens’ rights campaigns and be more responsible to the people. He therefore implored people to have confidence in the law enforcement agencies by reporting perpetrators of crimes to the security agents instead of using their own hands and methods to combat crimes.
Similarly, an Ibadan based human rights activist, Mr. Hamid Ishola submitted that government should make compulsory civic education at all levels of education so as to make all citizens aware of their duties and rights in the country.
The human rights crusader who laments the rate of jungle justice in the country urged Nigerians not to wage war against themselves but against those who are milking the treasury of the country.
Ishola said it will be amount to violation of individual rights if another person tamper with other people’s right unjustly.
In a related development, a Lagos-based Registered Social Worker and Rehabilitation Therapist, Mr. Oloyede Oyewale described jungle justice as act of disregarding the rule of law and taking laws into one’s hands.
His words, “a situation whereby angry mobsters do whatever they like to suspected criminals like setting them ablaze. It has to be noted that every criminal is innocent or a suspect until proven guilty irrespective of the offense the individual is accused of. This has been on the rise in Nigeria as people day in day out take laws into their hands without any regard for the law, morals or human dignity.
“It has to be noted that despite this, there has not in anyway reduced crime rates in our society and this act will never reduce it. Jungle justice is barbaric, evil, a total disregard for human dignity and total violation of human rights.
“A pertinent example is the Apo Killing, the brutal killings of four students of the University of Port Hartcourt by mobsters in October 2012 who reportedly went to their debtor to recover their money were beaten to pulp, laced with tyres and burnt to death in Omuokiri, Aluu, Rivers State following a mischievous alarm by their debtor.
“The social implications cannot be overemphasized. The public has to be sensitized and perpetrators be made to face the law. Our government should improve the welfare of the law enforcement agents so as to do that which is right, the masses have lost trust in the law enforcement agents and this has to be regained.
“Social workers are advocates, the voice to the voiceless, as a matter of fact, social workers must raise up to this challenge and beat the drum into the ears of the policy makers, human right must be respected, suspected criminals must be given a fair hearing, this is not to say that we take side with criminals or support criminal activities. We must advocate for a zero jungle justice”, he continued.
Dangote Petroleum Refinery has made headlines by announcing a further reduction in the price of diesel, dropping it from ₦1200 to ₦1000 naira per litre.
The refinery’s decision comes on the heels of its recent supply at a significantly reduced price of ₦1200 per litre, which was introduced three weeks ago, signifying a remarkable 30 per cent decrease from the previous market price of approximately ₦1600 per litre.
This substantial reduction in diesel prices at Dangote Petroleum Refinery is expected to reiterate positively throughout various sectors of the economy, potentially serving as a catalyst in alleviating the persistently high inflation rate in the country.
In a statement last week, Aliko Dangote, Africa’s wealthiest individual and the owner of the refinery, expressed his optimism regarding the potential impact of the price reduction on inflation in Nigeria.
“I believe that we are on the right track. I believe Nigerians have been patient, and I also believe that a lot of goodies will now come through. There’s quite a lot of improvement because if you look at it, one of the major issues that we’ve had was the naira devaluation that has gone very aggressively up to about ₦1900,” he remarked.
As anticipation builds around the implications of this move by Dangote Petroleum Refinery, stakeholders and consumers alike remain hopeful for the positive effects it could bring to the Nigerian economy in the coming months.
More than 50,000 Russian military personnel have died during the Ukraine conflict, the BBC reported Wednesday, citing its own reporters, independent media group Mediazona and volunteers.
They found that more than 27,300 Russian soldiers died during the second year of the war, a 25-percent increase on the first year.
BBC Russian, Mediazona and volunteers have been counting deaths since February 2022, using open-source information from official reports and the media, as well as using satellite images of Russian cemeteries to estimate the number of new graves.
The figure of more than 50,000 is eight times higher than the official toll acknowledged by Moscow in September 2022. It does not include deaths of militia in Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine said in February that it had lost 31,000 soldiers, but that figure is also likely to be significantly lower than the true toll.
Russian losses spiked in January 2023 as it launched a large-scale offensive in Donetsk and again months later last year during the battle for the city of Bakhmut.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” at dawn on February 24, 2022, which has since turned into a bloody and attritional war, isolating Russia from the Western world.
Responding to the report, the Kremlin said it did not disclose any information on military deaths and casualties, which falls under the remit of the defence ministry.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added official secrets laws and those covering what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine meant it was “absolutely understandable” that the ministry did not release the figures.
The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has disclosed that 95 million Nigerians need to enroll for the National Identification Number (NIN) to meet its target of 200 million enrollments by 2025.
Kayode Adegoke, Head of Corporate Communications at NIMC, emphasised the importance of this enrollment during an interview on X over the weekend.
He stated, “For NIMC to meet the 200 million target by 2025, 95 million Nigerians need to register for the NIN.”
Adegoke revealed that over 105 million NINs have been issued to Nigerians and legal residents so far.
He assured Nigerians of the commission’s commitment, saying, “We want to assure Nigerians that within the next one or two years, we will reach our target of enrolling all Nigerians.”
“The NIN serves as a unique identifier for each citizen and has become increasingly important for various government initiatives aimed at improving security, governance, and service delivery.”
Adegoke highlighted the efforts to streamline the modification and enrollment processes under the leadership of Abisoye Coker, the director-general of NIMC. He announced the development of a self-service platform, allowing Nigerians to make necessary modifications such as changing names, dates of birth, email addresses, and phone numbers from anywhere, using different devices.
Emphasising the convenience of the self-service modification portal, Adegoke encouraged Nigerians to utilize this innovative solution.
He noted the evolution of the process, citing the past requirement for applicants to visit NIMC offices for data corrections.
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