IN A sweaty restaurant in Lagos, Ajayi Oluwatosin David, a member of a government-affiliated paramilitary group, displays a picture on his cell phone of three alleged kidnappers lying naked before the feet of a crowd.
A day earlier, security guards had caught the trio, stripped them, taken photographs and turned them over to the police. Had Mr David’s colleagues not been on the scene, the mob might have beaten the suspects, wrapped them in petrol-soaked car tyres and set them ablaze. That is what happened in April to a robber caught stealing a television in a slum in Nigeria’s commercial capital.
Vigilante killings of suspected criminals happen often enough in Nigeria that they have their own moniker: jungle justice. Some are the result of hasty verdicts and mistaken identities: in 2012 four college students were wrongly accused of theft and killed by riled-up neighbours near the southern city of Port Harcourt.
Policemen and politicians condemn these and other killings, and the Nigerian senate is considering a bill aimed at cracking down on mob justice. But experts say they go on because crime is rampant and many people do not...Continue reading
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