OPINION: How ‘jungle justice’ equals justice in Oyo community

The recent travail of Peter Abiola Akingbade, a final year student of Wood Engineering, university of Ibadan who almost lost his life after being mistaken to be a thief further exposes the ill in the system.

Like Peter, we have many Nigerians who have been sent to their early graves because of basic false Identity and persecution from people who are aggrieved and at no cost wants to take revenge.

The revenging spirit is so high that we could only think of ‘Jungle Justice’ as the only resort to correcting the narrative. Sadly, all of these occurrences is present in no small quantity and to still imagine that concerned stakeholders are not proactive is yet another unimaginative calamity.

For instance, AGBOWO, the scene of this pitiful act is believed to be one of the most disorganized community around University of Ibadan.

This community has being identified with several atrocities and consequences they become infertile.

On daily basis, there is either reports of stealing, kidnapping or killing amongst other punishable act in this community and sad enough, these acts have being normalized such that security operatives ignores reports from this end.

Today in Nigeria, safety has being erased in our lexicon. Insecurity of lives has grown to become a daily routine. Just mention, we have all the possible indices in Nigeria in no small degree.

Interestingly, it started with the Boko Haram Insurgency, down to Herdsmen clash and now Jungle Justice have being in the news for judicial killings and terrorizing the lives of Nigerians, including cases of police and SARS shooting citizens at will.

Yet, the self-centeredness of our leaders is unparalleled. Government has become the exclusive perceive of a few who take laws into their own hands and believe they could act upon it without being punished.

The supposed security operatives who people thought should always run to their aide when necessary have even committed more crimes and to many people, it’s that everyone is on an island of their own taking responsibility not to be a scapegoat.

The journey of Nigeria to the promise land that we all envisage should mean that regardless of our ethnicity, and religion we have a bigger responsibility to deal with the manifold challenges we all face, the need to meet more often on equal terms, and as well the need to get everyone on board.

A responsibility to fight for collective interest, remain hopeful, and patriotic despite all odds.

True, we had made silly mistakes in our choices of leaders but even as a people that are not enough reasons for us to wallow in anti-patriotism and seek inexistent greener pasture.

We need to wake up to the reality that we are part of each other, not just interconnected but interdependent. The need to believe that our collective future rests on ensuring that the world is safe and by reimagining systems that prioritize collective humanity rather than individualism can we build a future in which all of us can flourish and sustain.

Indeed, when there is love, there must be peace and we cannot have progress except we unite upon the foundation of collective humanity.