Abiodun Alabi, Lagos State CP: Jungle justice affects crime

The rising spate of mob action and jungle justice in parts of the country has become worrisome to the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr Abiodun Alabi.

In May this year, Deborah Yakubu, a student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, was killed by a mob for alleged blasphemy. In the same month, a sound engineer, Mr. David Imoh, was lynched and set ablaze for alleged robbery in Lekki, Lagos. And on ly recently, operatives of the Lagos State Police Command rescued four people from being lynched on Eko Bridge, including a grandmother.

But in an interview with CHRISTOPHER OJI, the police boss described mob action as a serious crime against the state and warned that the perpetrators as well as onlookers would be prosecuted.

What is your position on the rising spate of jungle justice which is becoming frequent these days?

Let me first and foremost correct an impression from you. Jungle justice in Lagos is not rampant, because, since I came on board, I think, for the past six months now, we have been trying our best and that’s the reason why, if you have been listening to radio jingles, my public relations officer (PRO) and I have been talking. It’s part of our strategy to sensitise people, to let them know that jungle justice is evil and not encouraged. It is not part of the ways in our law in dealing with criminal matters or any matter at all. Nobody is allowed to take the law into his or her hands. If anybody has committed any offence, you allow the law to take its course. That is the reason, even on our part, the police, whenever we are doing our work, when we arrest somebody who has committed a crime, we always ensure that people don’t mob the person. We ensure there is proper investigation to to enable us to know the reason behind the act and for the person to be properly arraigned in court. We have laws dealing with matters like that. So, jungle justice is criminal in nature. Whoever kills another human being has committed the same or worse offence the person did before he was killed. You don’t take the law into your hands. In summary, that’s what I’m trying to say.

What factors propel people to engage in jungle justice?

There is no one who is not aware that killing is evil. There is no religion that does not preach that people should not kill a fellow being. Well, some people may have engaged in the act of jungle justice due to ignorance, but it’s not an excuse. We are creating awareness to sensitise people to know the consequences of jungle justice. In our jingle against jungle justice, we even made people to understand that they should not take the law into their hands and that onlookers and those taking video clips where jungle justice is taking place could also be prosecuted for engaging in that kind of act.

Some policemen have said, during investigation, they found that some of those killed by mobs were innocent, but maybe they had personal problems with their accusers and their opponents raised false alarm…

During my tenure for over six months, I have not experienced where people killed others because of personal quarrels or vendetta. What I have experienced here is kind of similar, but not the same. It is rivalry or cult supremacy, where cultists engage in so many fights. That’s the only thing I have experienced. I am not saying that people may not raise false alarm, but it has not happened in my command. If people do so, we won’t tolerate it. We will arrest perpetrators and prosecute them accordingly.

What is the punishment for perpetrators of jungle justice?

In our laws, whoever kills somebody in an unjustifiable manner is liable to death penalty, except you killed out of self-defence or by a mistake. But that’s for the court to decide and not the police. If you kill someone in an unlawful manner, you will be charged to court for murder. I repeat, if you’re caught on the scene of jungle justice, whether you’re partaking in the act or not, you’ll be arrested. You can’t be innocent and watch them kill someone. If you can’t stop them from killing the person, you run to the nearest police station and report.

What is the implication of jungle justice?

By not handing a suspect to the police, it will affect investigation by the police and that will prevent us from getting to the root of the matter. So, it is better for people to assist the police by getting a criminal arrested to enable us properly investigate the matter and get to the root of the problem so we can prevent such a crime from recurring. If you kill a suspect, his or her accomplices will escape justice. When you hand over a suspect to the police, during interrogation of the suspect, he will be able to name his accomplices. For instance, if a suspected robber is arrested and lynched, he won’t be able to identify others and they will still be a threat to the society. You are helping yourself and the society at large when you hand over a suspect to the police.

\Don’t you think that because people have lost confidence in the police force they decide to take the law into their hands to prevent the police from releasing suspects?

That is not true. The police of today have gone beyond that. We are lecturing our men on a daily basis. None of our men will condescend so low to release criminal suspects without proper investigation. You can see that right from force headquarters, the IGP is disciplining officers who engage in any misconduct. This is replicated in all the commands; so, Lagos is not an exception. You must have read stories of how we discipline our erring officers. So, hand over suspects to the nearest police station or formation, instead of taking the law into your hands. If you are caught doing so, you will be arrested and prosecuted in a competent court of law.

How do we change the narrative of people engaging in jungle justice?

I have told you, that is the reason we are appealing to the media to help us in enlightening people. We on our own have done radio jingles enlightening people on the evil of jungle justice. We even in our jingle told people that onlookers are also liable to the crime. Like I said before, many of them may act out of ignorance, but the educated ones should help us do enlightenment campaigns.

What is your advice to youths, students, religious leaders, community leaders and others that go into jungle justice?

My advice to the youths is for them to remain focused and always ambitious. They should also be respectful to the society and elders. They should remember elders were once like them. The youths should keep it in mind that they are the leaders of tomorrow, the future of the nation. The youths should look for ways to develop the country, and stop trying to destroy it or embarrass it by engaging in fraudulent activities or going haywire when it comes to the intake of drugs. They should stop involving themselves in jungle justice.

The traditional, religious and community rulers have serious roles to play in ensuring the safety of individuals. The religious leaders should make sure the youths know the implications of the ungodly acts committed, they should enlightened them of the aftermath of the sins on earth. This implies to both Islamic religion and Christianity. I wholeheartedly appreciate those who have been doing so, but they should do more.

The traditional rulers, who are the custodians of our traditions and values, also have a role to play in this regard, with such power bestowed upon them, they should be able to advise their subjects to live a responsible life and shun all vices, especially jungle justice and cultism. I think the traditional rulers have been doing just that and I would like to express my gratitude to them and urge them to do more.

Apart from jungle justice, cultism is another thing that has become rampant these days. What are you doing about it?

Cultism is practised by the youths. T o curb cultism, we have to go back to the background of the youths, the family. The parents have a very big role to play in the area of ending cultism, as they say charity begins at home. You hardly see a child raised from a decent family participating in cultism. It is all these children raised as vagabonds, street boys that participate in it. I urge all parents to help their children to live a good life, give them home training, raise them with the fear of God. Like we advised in the holy book, spare the rod and spoil the child. You have to train your child very well.

Schools also have a role to play by teaching students the norms to build a crime-free society.

Religious leaders, community rulers also have roles to play by changing the mindset of cultism practitioners, telling them that the practise they engage in is bad and unhealthy for the society. Many lives have been lost and properties have been destroyed. Religious leaders should take time to preach and admonish their faithful to stop crime, including jungle justice. Since my reign as CP of Lagos State, not less than 10 youths have been reported killed during cult supremacy battles. In addition, not less than 200 cultists have been prosecuted. This is bad. The fact that jobs are scarce doesn’t give you a green card to engage in cultism or crime. We no longer hear of armed robbery attacks. We are only solving the issue of cultism.

Since my reign, we hardly experience any incident involving armed robbery. Mind you, there’s a difference between armed robbery and being caught with arms. Being caught with arms shows that you have the motive but it hasn’t been put to action. So, we are now proactive that before armed robbery is committed, we will arrest the suspects. We are winning the war on crime and criminality. I am not praising myself, but the strategies put in place by the command’s management team are working very well. We are more proactive in crime-fighting and we are doing more of nipping crime in the bud. We don’t give chance for robbery to happen. I thank the general public for being useful in giving us information that is working perfectly for us.

I am advising parents to warn their children to steer clear of crime because there is no hiding place for criminals. I also want to warn criminals of any name to turn a new leaf or quit the state, as there is no hiding place for them in the command under my watch.