JUSTICE IN THE JUNGLE 2

Damn!!! Ayo must have come looking for me only to be cornered by this mad crowd.

I turned around in search of a friendly face for help. I spotted the man who ran with those items in the crowd…watching, waiting. Our eyes met briefly, he saw me and moved back slowly…the man was disappearing into the crowd.

The police! How do I get the police involved? I had left my phone behind in my car for fear of theft in the market. I didn’t even have the police emergency numbers. Rushing back all the way to the car wasn’t going to help. They might even kill Ayo before I could reach the car.

“Police! Somebody call the police! This is an innocent man!” i yelled.

I found myself at the front of the crowd. Ayo was sitting on the dirty ground, bare-chested, his cloth shredded into strips and muddied by dirt. He was bleeding from the many lacerations on his body. This fine educated innocent gentleman had been reduced to an object of ridicule and scorn.

I bent over him and I could hear him groaning from the pains inflicted on him.

He recognized me. I saw the pain and fear of death in his eyes, he had been weeping profusely from the beatings. He weakly stretched his bleeding hands to mine.

“Help me…..please get me out of here” he muttered.

Rough hands suddenly seized me from behind and I found myself being dragged backwards. A fiery slap from landed on my face and momentarily I saw darkness as I fell down dazed.

The darkness quickly cleared from my eyes & I found myself staring into the sunken eyes of a man with a sadistic face. A dirty looking black fez cap was perching on top of his flat shaped head while his thick ugly lips were drawn in a snarl. A long wooden club dangled from his right hand. He was undoubtedly the ringleader of the mob and i wanted to bury my fists in his ugly mug.

“Na so una dey tif tif for this market, God don catch una today! If you no wan stay for one place I go vex kill you join!” he shouted as he glared down on me.

“Na im broda be dat” “Kill dem, na dem dey worri us for dis market”. Murderous voices sounded from the crowd.

I struggled and got up to my feet and moved back the menacing crowd could seize me up in an instant.

An old frail woman moved forward and struck Ayo with all her strength screaming invectives at him, she received cheers and applause from the crowd.

Was this a horrible nightmare or for real? I couldn’t believe my eyes.

A bottle of petrol and match box was brought and I heard Ayo say with his last strength.

”Why me father? Why me?”.

An elderly man tried to push forward to tell them you have the wrong man, but the stares he was given were enough to say” back away old man, or you join him”.

The fate of my friend was sealed.

The fire was set and I couldn’t stay to watch my friend burn to death. 

An innocent man had been sacrificed. The fire sprang up in the air.

I took to my heels and away from the scene. I was delirious muttering incoherent words. I had failed Ayo. The look of helplessness on his face will forever be emblazoned in my mind. As I ran, hot stinging tears streamed down my face. I got to the pavement where my car was parked. My wobbling knees gave way and I fell on the ground and passed out.

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I woke up in a hospital bed. An elderly looking doctor stood over me examining me.

“Where am i?! I asked him.

He informed me that good Samaritans found me lying on the ground close to my car. They bundled me inside and drove me to the clinic.

“Where is Ayo! Is he okay?” I hollered as I raised myself from the bed.

“Calm down son, you can’t leave now….you need to rest” he gently said.

My heart was heavy with guilt. I felt I was the cause of Ayo’s death in the hands of the mob. If I had not informed him about my intention of visiting the market he wouldn’t have turned up to meet his painful death.

I was discharged from the hospital after two days of being placed on sedatives and psychoactive drugs.

The firm had hired a team of police detectives to investigate the incidence. I narrated the harrowing experience to them. I was informed by Dr Joseph that police officers later arrived at the scene but they were too late. Ayo had already been burnt alive by the barbaric crowd. They arrested some of the market leaders and bystanders.  The case was in court.

The firm and I were determined to see that justice was done for the memory of our colleague Ayo David.

The police investigations revealed that when the thief ran round the corner, Ayo was on his way from a store holding lace materials he had purchased. The thief in order to divert attention from himself yelled “ole!” and pointed in Ayo’s direction and bolted.

When the crowd turned to see the trader shouting “ole” too, they just grabbed Ayo without thinking or asking questions. They saw laces in his hands as the trader was raising alarm of the theft of her lace. Before the woman could recollect and match the face of the thief, the crowd had taken over the situation. It was a fatal case of mistaken identity. The ugly incidence was widely reported in the media.

Six days after this incidence the charred remains of my friend was buried amidst tears and deep grief, his family and fiancee were inconsolable.

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“Jungle justice is a common place occurrence in this country, the people on the streets kill at the slightest excuse, no one is safe! All what it takes is for someone to point at you and shout Ole in the marketplace  or on the streets and you are a goner!” The voice of Barrister Etukudo rose angrily in my sitting room. Barrister Etukudo was the prosecuting attorney for the case and also a human rights activist. We were reviewing Ayo’s sad case.

“You are right, human life is not valuable in this country” I responded.

“Look at it this way, the thieving elite class and leaders steal billions of naira and stash their loots overseas. These are the people that should be lynched! rather they are worshipped and respected by the masses. He said and continued…

“People take laws into their hands because they have no trust or confidence in the justice system or law enforcement agents. The wheels of justice grind very slowly in this country, people choose to dispense justice themselves!

“I don’t see things changing anytime soon!” I replied. “Do you think we can get justice for Ayo? Can we win this case? I inquired”

The attorney turned his face away and said “To be honest with you Ubong, this case can be stalled for a long time by the other side. The defendants can get their lawyers to strike out this case. Our country is like a jungle and there’s no guarantee for justice in the jungle……”

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I needed a break and a change of environment. The psychological effect of Ayo’s lynching was taking its toll on me and on my productivity at work. I figured out a vacation would do me a lot of good, make me refreshed and re-energized. The MD Dr Joseph was understanding and approved a one month leave allowance for me. Sun city in South Africa was my chosen vacation spot. Firstly i needed to visit Rowland, a close friend in Onitsha and then proceed to check up on my sister in Makurdi before jetting out of the country.

I stayed in Onitsha for two days before heading to Markurdi. There was no direct air flight from Onitsha to Markurdi so i boarded Kumi kumi motors a popular mass transit company.

I sat close to the window in the second row of the luxurious bus. My music earpiece was firmly stuck in my ears keeping me company for the duration of the four hours journey. The driver of the vehicle was a jovial fellow throwing banters with the passengers.

We got to the outskirts of Onitsha when robbers suddenly sprang out from both sides of the bush. A warning shot was fired and our vehicle was intercepted and surrounded.

The robbers were all masked and dangerously armed. Some got inside the vehicle while others remained outside.

The leader of the robbery team was a gigantic fellow with long arms. He waved his gun at us while announcing in a loud voice.

”Place your money on the floor! All of it because we will search everybody! You either make this operation easy for us or pay for it with your life! He declared.

We all had no qualms that he meant every word he said.

It was a well coordinated operation. A section of the robbers were offloading all the passengers bags into their van, rummaging through the bags while three robbers went by collecting money seat by seat. They also searched everyone down to the pants.

“Jeez! what kind of country is this?” I asked myself, I will probably never return from my vacation in South Africa.

I placed all the money I had on me on the floor.

There was a young woman in her 20’s seated in front of me next to another older woman. She was dressed in an all black outfit. She was holding a baby boy in her arms.

The young lady quickly split her money into two parts. She hid part in her baby’s pampers and dropped the last on the floor.

The older woman, myself and a few others saw her do this.

It was my turn to be searched. They came to my seat, took my money, roughly frisked me and went away with my Samsung S7 tab. Two of the robbers got to the young lady. They told her to drop the baby and stand up for a search. She did that and they found nothing on her. They looked at her baby and asked her to sit down.

As the robbery came to its tail end, the thieves had secured their loot and were about leaving. Suddenly, the woman seated next to the nursing mother screamed….

"THIS WOMAN HID MONEY IN HER BABY'S PAMPERS".

It was like a scene from a horror movie as the robbers turned and walked towards the lady who was shaking like a leaf. They took her baby from her and lifted it up. The head of the gang tore the pampers, removed the money and said…

"as you small so, you don sabi tif abi?".

In a split second, he shot the baby pointblank in the head and flung the corpse into the bush. He ordered the driver to kick start the bus and leave or he was going to kill everybody.

There was absolute silence and terror. I was extremely horrified. No one uttered a word as the bereaved mother went blank. She was in shock, she didn't cry, didn't talk and didn't move. She just sat there still like a stone. The driver didn’t say anything as he drove in silence. The tension in the vehicle was palpable.

We drove for hours till we got to river Benue. The driver stopped the bus at the edge of the bridge and came down with his assistant. They opened the door and asked the woman who reported the hidden money to the robbers to step out. She started crying, wondering what they wanted to do with her. She refused to step out and denied that she was the one who made the report. The driver and his assistant forcefully pulled her out and to our consternation threw her into the river. The last thing we all heard was her high pitched piercing scream as she clawed at the air and plunged into the river below.

The driver turned to us and said

"Anybody wan follow am?”

No one made any sound as he shut the door. In a short while we had entered Makurdi, the driver drove to the park and we all highlighted from the vehicle.

I had witnessed another Jungle justice case.

Was the driver and his assistant justified in taking the life of the woman? Couldn’t they have allowed her to live with her conscience haunting her for the rest of her life? Couldn’t they have reported her to the police as an accessory to murder? These questions puzzled my mind as I tossed and turned over in my bed that night. I knew for sure that definitely the market mob wasn’t justified in taking the life of my friend Ayo.

The next morning I took a flight to Lagos and in a short while got out of the country.

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I am presently basking in the warmth of Busia hotel in Sun city South Africa. I am sitting in the hotel lobby sharing a drink with Lerato a beautiful lady I met in my first week in this tourist resort. I am yet to recover from the trauma of the two jungle justice events. I still see Ayo in my dreams stretching out his bloodied hands to me for help. The piercing cry of the woman thrown from the bus still sounds in my mind at night.

I have drafted a resignation letter to Dr Joseph. It is lying in my email draft box. I intend sending it in three days time unless I can come up with a valid reason not to. I have applied for an extension of my tourist visa. Deep within my heart i don’t intend returning to Nigeria the Land of jungle justice anytime soon.

THE END.

Shoutout to the amiable and beautiful lawyer/blogger Emeh Achanga for providing the leads to the jungle justice scenes.