I have tried hard to keep from saying anything on this subject, but it keeps coming back to me – so I’ll just have a go at it.
I am a proud alumnus of OAU: the quality of the students, the beauty of the buildings and the landscape, the safety the OAU10 gave their lives for, and the systems the Students Union put in place to maintain that safety guarantee that basic moral standards were maintained.
We had the SMS, Scientific Maximum Shishi, a public beating that was meted out to thieves, cultists (and sometimes rapists – I remember one incident when I was in Part One and Pre-Degree students in Ipetumodu were raped) – with two aims: correcting the ‘sinner’, and deterring ‘wanna-be’ thieves from trying.
Such thieves would be beaten, stripped, and paraded round hostels – kept safe from further beating by the same students who had beat them in the first place. I know one of such guys, who left school because of the shame following from the public disgrace, but turning so ‘straight’ that he traces a marked improvement in the quality of his life to that beating.
Sadly, the same motivations cannot be said for the evil people who took the life of the UNIPORT FOUR.
For a fact, we will never know whether those four were guilty as charged, or innocent – as they no longer live to tell their side of the story – ripped, as it were, from this life by an angry mob.
This is not the first time mobs will lynch people in Nigeria, and sadly - this will not be the last. People do not trust the police to keep them safe, and have taken the responsibility to keep the law upon themselves. Sadly, we could not be more wrong.
We beat and kill those who steal our blackberry phones, often without bothering to check the facts – and hail those who steal millions – from us and from our future. We throw tires round the necks of promising youth who need ‘corrective action’ and ‘help’, and run after the cars of fools who steal the money that would empower our police and keep our youth employed.
The truth remains that action must be taken. The Government MUST do something! I have not seen the video – I do not have the stomach for such violence – but I saw the pictures, and I know the perpetrators are identifiable. They must be arrested, and charged for the murder of those four students.
Even if those guys stole a car, they did not deserve to be killed!
We don’t want a committee set up to “look into this”. We want arrests to be made. We want people to be charged for murder – or manslaughter as the case may be. We want (heavy) sentences to be handed down.
#RantOver. What do you think?
If you have the stomach to watch the video, go
here.
Updates:
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| Ibim Semenitari is the Commissioner for Information (Rivers State) |
According to
Linda, some arrests have been made (the chief of Aluu community, and 12 other people)... Will keep y'all posted.
