‘Uromi 16’ and jungle justice: Nobody should pretend not to know ‘how we got here’

The moment the news of the “Uromi 16” hit the internet, and people started reacting and rehearsing the age-long rhetorical question of “how did we get here?”, it got me thinking about our attitudes to all that is wrong with our country. It is one of the most annoying platitudes that most Nigerians with a modicum of (or pretence for) concern for social order in the society, often mouth, once they’ve come to the end of their wits. They often ask, whenever the decadence in our security system manifests, “how did we get here?”

Then, I shudder to ask: Who wants to claim ignorance of how we got to a situation where citizens now take the law into their own hands, not minding if it burns their fingers? When we condone acts of indiscipline and corruption, simply because the perpetrator is of our ethno-religious extraction, do we think about how those at the receiving end feel? When we all seem to have agreed that our law enforcement agents’ uniform and equipment are instruments, only, for bribe-taking on the highway, rather than for crime-detection and prevention, did we ponder what becomes of the sense of safety and security of an average citizen? When we all seem to have a consensus that the core mandate of the Nigeria Police now is, chasing “Yahoo Boys”, and effecting arrest for cyber crime alone, leaving security of lives and properties which is at the core of policing, unattended to, we were not expecting there to be a gap in the policing our neighbourhood, were we? When the common man loses faith in our administration of the criminal justice system, and we carry on as if it is his own problem, do we not think, such a person would find “jungle justice” more attractive and rewarding?

Is it going take a more dangerous dimension and get worse, now that the DG DSS, Mr. Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi, has said that “Nigerians must take responsibility for their own security, as the military, police, and intelligence agencies do not have the capacity to protect every community from terrorist attacks nationwide?” Public Office holders or high-profile politicians make populist statements that appeal to the parochial sentiment of their audience, to score cheap political points, and we applaud; do we realise what we are socialising the people into embracing? When we encourage violence through our utterances and body language, while driving home political points, do we think of the ripple effects? I guess the answer to these questions is “NO”.

The antecedents

Lest we forget, in 1995, Gideon Akaluka was in police custody, after being accused, through his wife, of desecrating the holy Quran, and a mob broke into the cell where he was kept, brought him out, killed and beheaded him. His bodiless head was then paraded round the streets of Kano. None of the perpetrators was ever apprehended, let alone, tried, or prosecuted till today. Sometimes in October 2012, four students of the University of Port Harcourt, popularly referred to as “The Aluu Four” were lynched by a mob, after being accused of theft. Again, in 2022, a Christian lady, Deborah Samuel, who was then a student of Shehu Shagari College of Education Sokoto, was gruesomely murdered in Sokoto over an alleged blasphemy against the religion of Islam. The killers never suffered any consequence for it. In the same year, an Adamawa-born pregnant woman, Mrs. Harira Jubril and her 4 children were killed in Onitsha, for a singular offence of being, by origin, from a different part of the country.

There was no sign of even, an arrest of the killers, let alone, bringing them to book. This is just to mention, but a few cases of jungle justice/ mob-killings, across the country over the past couple of decades.

While there was no arrest for the killings Akaluka, Mrs. Jubril, there were arrests in the case of “The Aluu Four” where two suspects, including a police Sergeant, were sentenced to death by the Rivers State High Court. In the case of Miss Samuel, the main suspect, though arrested alongside others, was said to have escaped from custody, to the Niger Republic. That was the last we heard of the incident, until the case was struck out by the court for lack of diligent prosecution. For those who do not know, in any act of “Jungle Justice”, or a mob action that leads to loss of lives and properties, if the perpetrators are not arrested, and brought to justice, it would be an incentive for the prospective perpetrators to proceed with the next one
Meanwhile, nobody know who the victim might be.

Need to strengthen law enforcement

I must confess that, it is inconceivable in the 21st century that, a country where there is a sitting government at the centre (Federal), 36 at the regional (State) level, and 774 others at the grassroots (Local Governments) levels, yet, culture of jungle justice remains a recurring decimal in our redress-seeking, and grievances-settlement systems. The reason is not far-fetched. Our law enforcement agents sometimes act as though, they’re for hire. Even if they are at the scene of a crime, they feign ignorance, or turn a blind eye, claiming that nobody has come to report anything to them. Don’t accuse me of exaggeration. It has happened to me twice. The first time was at the popular “New Tarzan” Park in Aba Abia State, sometimes in 2007. It was during my NYSC year. I was coming from Calabar, going to Onitsha, en route my hometown — Ayetoro-Gbede. A tout had ushered me into a waiting bus, shouting, “Onitsha ofu Onye”…..! I met three empty seats, and settled into one of them. Within me, I reckoned, in less than 30 minutes, we would take off.

So he collected my fare (I was naive to have paid him so quickly). When I realise the bus would not move in the next 2 or 3 hours, as those who pretended to be travellers are resident touts, and have started leaving, I realised what was happening. But it was too late. I walked up to him, nevertheless, and demanded a refund. He was instead advising people around, to warn me not to disturb him. He’d gathered about 7 fellow touts to take a sit on the bus and pretend to be passengers, while shouting Onitsha Ofu Onye, Onitsha Ofu Onye! Meaning: Onitsha, one more passenger to take off!

As we were arguing the matter, we both had a choke-grip hold on each other’s shirt. Two police officers covering the area were standing by, watching. When called I out to them, and they saw my NYSC crested vest, they simply walked away. People advised me to just be patient that they won’t refund, and the police won’t intervene either. I arrived at the park from Calabar about 5 minutes past 8am in the morning, but the bus (a ten-seater) never took off, until around 1:30pm. You can imagine my frustration.

About two months later again, at Okene Park, Agbor in Delta State, I was less than a second away from boarding a waiting rickety Peugeot 504 Saloon car belonging to a gang of armed robbers (four in number). As they tried to cajole me into boarding, a local police man stood by and watched, while pretending to be minding his own business. What saved me was that, one of the Armed Robbers, sounded rude to me, and I gave it back to him. While that was ongoing, my brain started booting, and I started taking cognisance of their appearances. Each of (the four of) them had a rich resume in crime, with deep scars on his forehead, and face, with smoke-stained teeth, plus a type of voice you can only hear at Oshodi, Ojuelegba under-bridge, and other black spots in Lagos. That was when I threw their car door, telling them, arrogantly that, they should go to hell, and that, I won’t be traveling in their car again for being so rude. Out of anger, they too drove off. Then a petty trader, an old woman who would be in her 60s, beside whom I was standing, then said, “congratulations!” I heard but didn’t respond because I never thought she could be talking to me, a total stranger. Besides, I didn’t win any jackpot, so I wasn’t expecting any congratulatory greeting from anybody. But she repeated it and said, “Na you I dey follow talk”. I said, me? Yes, she responded. I said, congratulations, over what? “Àbí you wan tell me say you nor know say dem be armed robbers?”, she quipped.

I said, “Ma’am, how I wan take know?” She then drew my attention to a man of about the same age as me, who was giving me a sign, across the road, that I should not board their vehicle. I saw him, but I ignored because, I did not decode he was talking to me. The woman made me understand that, if they’d caught the man in the act, they would kill the gentleman within 24 hours, without any consequence whatsoever. Then I asked what about the “Mobile Police” officer who was standing about 10 meters away from us? Wouldn’t he have intervened? She chuckled and said, if they’d succeeded in giving me “gonorrhea” (rob me) according to her, he would later meet them for a bottle of beer at a local beer parlour, as his reward for not obstructing their “work”. Her narration sent such jitters down my spine that my hind limbs could hardly support my weight anymore. Sorry for the digression. It is just to highlight how much the police have abdicated their constabulary responsibilities, in the midst of the chaotic breakdown of law and order in the country.

Back to the issue of jingle justice, and the killing in Uromi, Edo State. On 12 May 2022, Deborah Samuel, the second-year Christian college student, was stoned to death by a mob of Muslim students in Sokoto, Nigeria, after being accused of blasphemy against Islam, as said earlier. We spoke against it, but some ethno-religious bigots who act and sound, as though the Holy Prophet (SAW) came to northern Nigeria to borrow the religion of Islam from them (being more Egyptian than the Pharaoh) resorted to name-calling, cyberbullying, and outright threat. I asked one of them: “were Prophet Mohammed (SAW) to be alive, and the case taken before him, do you think he would have sanctioned your condemnable acts?” The response I got for the question was, “you are pooll”. A number of those cretins came into my inbox to insult, and threatened to kill me, before I blocked them. I do not blame them because they have both been miseducated, and diseducated. Unfortunately, the (political) elite who are supposed to educate them, by ensuring that those who perpetrated the dastardly act were brought to justice, went mute. Atiku Abubakar, I could remember made a post on his X handle, condemning the killing, but he was forced to delete his comment, hours later, by the social media mob. Because of approaching 2023 general election, he danced to their tunes.

The same goes to some Southerners on social media. When a lady Harira was gruesomely murdered by some Unknown-gunmen-wannabes, in Anambra State (Onitsha to be precise) I can’t remember if any prominent southern political elite spoke up against it, except those who used it to score cheap political points. Now, fast-forward to Thursday, March 27, 2025, when a group of hunters of Northern extraction, reportedly based in Port Harcourt were on their way to Kano to celebrate Salah. The same pattern is bound to be repeated.

While transiting from Port Harcourt in Rivers State to Kano State, through Edo State, the victims, were said to have been stopped and searched by a group of vigilantes in Uromi. The local vigilantes reportedly found some Dane guns, and machetes on them. Some accounts say, with a huge amount of cash. Those, I assume to be their work tools, and proceeds from their trade, respectively. The travellers, were allegedly killed by those men of the vigilante group in the headquarters of the Esan North East Local Government Area of the state on suspicion of being criminals (kidnappers). Reports have it that the environment had suffered incidents of kidnapping by some bandits believed to be herders from the north. But does that justify their barbaric action? The answer is an emphatic NO. The social media is awash with the gory video of those innocent travellers being thrown into a bonfire by the mob. Some, after being beaten to a pulp, could not walk again, and had to be wheelbarrowed into the fire.

I don’t know how the Police Division at Uromi would want to explain their inaction, while the crime was being perpetrated. With the kind of crowd at the scene of the crime, it is not possible for, at least, a policeman not to have heard what was going on, and alerted their station for mobilisation to rescue the victims, and if need be, call for reinforcement from Benin City or a nearby police division. But the mob had a field day, and the lives of the travellers were cut short.

Showing leadership, and need for there to be consequences for action

It is, however, show of leadership, and a good optic that the Governor of Edo State, in collaboration with security agencies, swung into action immediately and had gotten as many as 14 suspects arrested for possible prosecution.
This is expected to serve as a deterrent to future recurrence, if the case is diligently prosecuted. In another reassuring move, Governor Monday had paid a symbolic condolence visit to his counterpart in Kano, Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, and family of the slain hunters. The efforts of Governor Okpebholo appear to be yielding dividends, as frayed nerves appear calmed. An account by one Badamasi Sally who spoke on behalf of the northerners resident in Edo State said: “The swift response of the state government was commendable. Moreover, it was the people of Uromi who rescued some of the victims from the assailants. This tragedy will not change our bond with the people of Edo.”

This shows that even in the midst of the seeming mutual distrust among the various ethnic groups in the country, the majority still believe in “humanity-first”, and would do everything within their capability to defend it.

But I hope the arrest of the suspects won’t go the way of those who killed Deborah in Sokoto. They, were arrested but, one reportedly, escaped from the custody of the Nigeria Police, to the Niger Republic, without any tangible effort to rearrest him. Unconfirmed reports have it that the suspect is back in the school to continue his program, and has been walking freely. The remaining two standing trial were later set free because the case was struck out by the court for lack of diligent prosecution. Trust Nigerians. Events have overtaken it. We’ve moved on, as it is characteristic of us. We’d be waiting for the next episode of callousness of Nigerians against fellow Nigerians. However, I do hope that, the Uromi killing would represent a watershed in our genuine attempt at stamping jungle justice, out of our culture.

Talking about the trigger

Part of the things (if not the major thing) that irrigate the reported killing of the “Uromi 16” is, the dangerous and false narratives some cowards (including leaders of some socio-cultural organisations) push on social media. I have seen some ignorant folks on social media, yearning for reprisal attacks against Southerners resident in the North. Don’t blame them. If the table were to be turned, you’d equally see their southern counterparts doing same or worse things than that. This is usually the trigger of such hate crimes and the political elite must take a deliberate step to discourage it, going forward.

The most annoying part of it is that, the majority of these people calling for a reprisal attack, have never travelled out of their local governments of origin, since they were born. Yet, they would want to teach you how to view people you’ve encountered without any problem whatsoever. It doesn’t make sense to me, why or how a Nigerian would not be free to move from one part of the country to another, due to ethno-religious profiling that is based on wrong premises! The ethno-religious profiling, tribal slur, and chauvinistic rhetoric, by those who are looking for likes and comments on social media (click baiters), are, unfortunately, the main sources of (mis or dis) education for the category of people who committed the Uromi murder. And the demographic is region-blind.

That is why, recently, when I read in the news that, a federal lawmaker moved a motion for the price of data to be brought down, for affordability purpose, a part of me thought about those who deploy their internet access for negative uses like, authoring of toxic and divisive contents that amplify our fault lines, on social media. Perhaps, if they are unable to afford data, it might be functional to our drives to detoxify the inter-groups relation in the country. Please don’t mistake me for a certain military man-turned lawmaker, who once said telephone was not meant for the poor. It was just a thought that came straight from my church mind.

Leaders as Enablers

Those who style themselves “leaders” at various levels of our national life have their share of the blame. Things they say or fail to say enable mob actions, especially when it involves people from other ethno-religious group. The kind of incendiary statements coming from them, leave much to be desired. Just take a look at this, coming from the spokesperson of Norther Elders Forum (NEF) Abubakar Jiddere, as an official response to the killing in Uromi:

“The north has tolerated numerous such animalistic and cannibalistic acts of recklessness from some southern part of Nigeria in the past.”

Not to be outdone in the issuance of inflammable comments, Umoru Momoh, the chairman, Edo People’s Congress responded, saying:

“The NEF cannot play ignorance to the execrable activities of some of its people who are outlaws, terrorists, and bandits given the abundance of such videos and several arrests by the security agencies of northerners in the unfortunate but thriving kidnapping for ransom and general insecurity in the country.”

With these types of populists, but incendiary utterances, the mobs need little or no motivation to resort to jungle justice in addressing whatever grievances they might have been nursing towards any other out-group they perceive as threatening.

While we expect the law enforcement agencies to be up and doing in applying kinetic measures to preventing the kind of barbaric incidents witnessed in Uromi, Kano, Sokoto, referenced above, and other places within the country, our so-called leaders must endeavour to complement their efforts with a sociological, non-kinetic measures. They need to be toning down on the kind of languages they deploy in conveying their feeling, just because they want to be applauded by a crowd of local community. Such verbal recklessness hurts our national unity, to say the least. Let’s learn from what is happening in the Middle East, where an average Israeli believes that, the only good Palestinians are the dead ones, while it is vice versa for the Palestinians. May Nigeria’s not get to such a level of mutually assured destruction.

But above all, justice must be served. It is, therefore, commendable that Governor Okpebholo has swung into action, with a view to apprehending the perpetrators and bringing them to book.
There should be no place for that type of crime in the Nigeria of 21st century. May the Almighty Allah rest the souls of the departed, and console the bereaved!

Abubakar writes from Ilorin, Kwara state. He can be reached via 08051388285 or [email protected]