Sokoto University Students Gives Jungle Justice To Suspected Thieves (Read Details)

Taking justice into one’s hand, otherwiswe known as jungle justice, has become a tradition at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto (UDUS).Students lynch suspected criminals caught in their hostels without investigation.

Students had complained in the past that cases of theft in the hostel were not properly dealt with by the security agency of the school. Thus, most of them prefer jungle justice to handing over of caught thieves to the school’s security personnel for proper investigations.

Aggrieved students could not hide their grievances when an unnamed thief was caught red-handed, stealing a student’s phone in the hostel mosque on June 19, 2018.

The suspect, who was identified as a resident of one of the neighbouring villages of the university was beaten to pulp.

Again, on Saturday in June, 2018, another similar case was reported. It was 3:30am when the alarm was raised that two students were caught unplugging phones being charged in Block B while everyone was asleep.

An eyewitness said immediately they were caught, one of them ran away and the other was locked in a room, where he was beaten into a pulp before being released and handed over to the security.

Earlier, on a Friday in March, after Jumaat service, a mob of students in the hostel beat an alleged thief to a pulp.

He was flogged for entering the dormitories and
burgling a locker, using the opportunity of deserted hostel to pack some valuable things.
It had become a usual act on Fridays for criminals to burgle the hostels.

The suspect immediately fled the scene, but was caught metres away by some students, who gave him a hot chase. He was thoroughly beaten before a team of security men came to rescue him.

However, the school’s Deputy Chief Security Officer, Mr. Ishaya Koba, in an interview warned the students to shun jungle justice.
“It is true that lawbreakers are supposed to be punished, however, the law loses its value when individuals take it into their hands.
“There are appropriate channels by which justice can be served, and we, who live in a civilised era must know better than to callously mob, lynch and brutalise those who flout certain rules.
“Jungle justice is not the best to be administered on thieves, as it hampers the security unit in finding the facts and evidence to prove the victim guilty as alleged and, most times, it complicates the issue,” he said.

The Nation