Nigeria’s seemingly inexorable descent into anarchy appears to have acquired a fast and furious pace with the horrendous burning to death last week of a woman by a mob in Kogi State. Salome Abuh, 60, a women leader of the Peoples Democratic Party in the state, was reportedly locked up inside her house, which was then doused with petrol and set ablaze. Her chilling voice of distress could be heard from a distance, ringing out above the ravenous and merciless blaze that would eventually consume her.
For a country that has acquired notoriety for bizarre killings by non-state actors, Abuh’s extrajudicial killing in broad daylight would rank among the most heart-rending, callous, brutal and nasty. A crowd was said to have gathered to cheer as the perpetrators methodically carried out their hideous act. Nobody felt rankled among the spectators. In fact, it became a “sporting event” of sorts; and the cheering crowd did not leave until the mournful voice inside the house fire had died down, silenced by the raging inferno that, by then, had consumed the entire building. “There was little of the head and chest (left); they packed the whole thing in a cloth before they went to buy a coffin in Ayungba,” Ruth Acheme, who claimed to be a cousin to the deceased, narrated about Abuh’s charred remains.
This could only have happened in a country where the rule of law has completely taken flight, a society where the government has abdicated its constitutional responsibility of guaranteeing the security and wellbeing of the citizenry. How was the whole ghoulish drama hatched and executed without the intervention of law enforcement officers to arrest the situation and bring back sanity? Where else but in an ungoverned territory could that kind of medieval era barbarity be permitted to take place with the people cheering wildly?
To compound the matter, it was not until a whole week after the incident, that one of President Muhammadu Buhari’s media aides, Femi Adesina, issued a statement, condemning the act and calling for a thorough investigation with a view to punishing the bloodthirsty culprits. “President Buhari charges all security agencies involved in the investigation to do a thorough and expeditious job on the matter, so that justice could be served without fear or favour,” the statement read.
As of Friday, a report quoting Acheme claimed that only a member of the House of Representatives, who offered N50,000 for the purchase of a coffin, had visited the scene of crime. The state government, she said, was yet to get in touch with the family. Obviously, this is not good enough. This is a serious dereliction of duty by the government. Even if she belonged to an opposition political party, the governor, as the chief security officer of the state, had a duty and a responsibility to protect her life, as he should of all other citizens.
It brings to mind a similar incident in which four undergraduate students of the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, were gruesomely lynched in an atmosphere of wild gyration on October 5, 2012. The boys, Chiadika Biringa, Ugonna Obuzor, Muke Toku and Tokena Erikena, were set on by residents of Aluu community in Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State after they were labelled as cultists, gang members and rapists, depending on whose account one chose to believe.
In a sane society, the boys, all aged between 20 and 21 years, should have been handed over to the police who would investigate the allegations and prosecute them, according to the law. Unfortunately, this was not done. They were not only beaten to a pulp, the young Nigerians were drenched with petrol and then set ablaze. They were burnt alive! Again, there was wild excitement as the victims of the mob attack writhed in pains until their bodies finally stopped moving.
It is regrettable that as countries continue to expand the frontiers of knowledge and civilisation, Nigeria continues to slide down the path of backwardness, with no respect for the rights and dignity of humans. Barely two years after the Port Harcourt incident, two ladies were subjected to unbelievable acts of torture and dehumanisation for allegedly stealing pepper at a market in Ejigbo, a suburb of Lagos.
In an act that should not be condoned by any standard of civilised conduct, the ladies, a palm wine tapper’s wife and her stepdaughter, were both stripped naked and thoroughly beaten; after which they were pinned down on their backs and foreign objects suspected to be laced with pepper thrust continuously into their private organs. Helpless, the women pleaded for their dear lives. But their depraved tormentors rejected all entreaties to spare them. Not surprisingly, one of the women later died as a result of that debasing brutalisation.
These incidents are not isolated cases; they are becoming part of normal life. Most times they go unreported. But with the advent of the social media, they are now coming to light; the incident at Ejigbo and the burning of the students were brought to public notice because they were recorded and uploaded on the Internet. Stories abound of how students spill blood on the campuses in the name of cultism, as was the case in 2016 when two undergraduates of the Abia State University were beheaded and their heads used as goal-posts. These are all evidence of a failing society and the government has to take the right steps to ensure the majesty of the rule of law.
Nigeria has to bring back the country from the cliff by restoring the rule of law. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The police should ensure that the killers of Abuh are brought to justice. It is heartening, however, that the police said they had been arrested almost a week after. They have to be diligently prosecuted and punished. This may not bring back the dead, but it will serve as a deterrent and rekindle hope that the country has not yet descended into anarchy.
