Sincere Ramblings

I’m sitting here on my bed wondering about the myriad that have been lost to jungle justice. A fifty naira note stolen here, a phone over there, pepper…. And there it is- bloodshot eyes, a raving mob, lost minds, a tire and matches’- Jungle Justice! A life lost prematurely, judged by a gathering of ill informed, ill engaged, self-righteous, misfits no better than the ones they strain to judge.

I imagine the feeling of helplessness that comes over the victims. Strength cannot save, nor can they stand in the face of this unjust ‘just’, their lives never to return cut short by the arbitrary and random whims of an impersonal mob.  No one dares intervene. To intervene would be to be judged an accomplice, perhaps the mentor of the errant, likely by eyes reeking insanity. To intervene would be to be judged- by jungle justice.

On a level it happens everywhere. Not just on the streets- the arbitrary and deranged gang-up against an individual at work. It might clear up in a minute. But imagine if it hadn’t. You just tasted helplessness.

It might be among a group of friends- that unexplained situation that flashes past your face when you are suddenly the one looking in from the outside because they all just decided you were up for ‘mean-spirited or wicked pot shots’- for some reason. You might not end up dead on the streets but imagine a little tilt to the left and you just might be. 

What about the chance happenings, the unexplained choices that decide a person’s death just by them running into an irate mob while they were on an innocent errand. Does even one person blink? Does even one person speak up and ask, “What is going on?” Or does someone really wake up and is too scared to ask?

Then what is the fate of innocent people every day? What is the fate of lives lost on a mob’s whim? What is the fate of an innocent whose only sin for arraignment is ten naira stolen? Can’t we rise? Can’t we awaken? Can’t we love? Is the milk of human kindness dried up in our hearts? Is compassion lost forever? Has hunger ripped mercy out of the mercy-judgment equation? Or are Nigerians the world over simply to be sent on mandatory individual, personal and intense one-on-one deliverance?

Cannot that life taken make or see a million times that fifty naira if just given the chance? Cannot jungle justice be judged? Cannot jungle justice be stopped? Can people be given a chance to live? Can thieves cease to kill? Can those arraigned for death be given a decent exit? A dignifying one? A humane one? By the Courts?

What about the innocents tried in the courts and still found guilty? Roped in? Who pleads for these ones? Surely, the worst off is the innocent cut down before or after they have risen, having lived incomplete lives and their justice perverted. Who would save us from this? It could happen to anybody. It could happen to everybody.

Where is the will? Where is the mind? Where is the strength of humanity?