by Olaitan Babatunde
When Ibrahim Mbaya was dragged into the public square, accused, beaten, and eventually killed by an angry mob, there was no judge to hear his defence, no lawyer to challenge the evidence, no witness to be cross examined, and no jury to determine whether the accusations were true. The verdict had already been reached before the first blow landed. In the court of public anger, suspicion was enough. The crowd became the investigator, prosecutor, judge, and executioner. Whatever crime Mbaya was alleged to have committed became secondary. What remained was a disturbing reminder that in many parts of Nigeria, justice can still be measured by the loudness of a crowd rather than the strength of evidence.
Jungle justice is often defended with a familiar argument. People say the police are slow, the courts take too long, criminals return to the streets, and victims rarely get justice. These frustrations are real. Nigeria’s justice system is under enormous pressure. According to the National Judicial Council, courts across the country continue to battle a significant backlog of cases, while police investigations are frequently delayed by inadequate manpower, poor forensic capacity, and limited resources. Yet none of these failures gives citizens the legal or moral authority to replace the justice system with mob violence. A broken justice system should be repaired, not replaced with public executions. When citizens lose confidence in institutions, they should demand reform, not revenge.
History has shown that jungle justice rarely punishes only the guilty. Across Nigeria, there have been numerous documented cases where innocent people were lynched after being falsely accused of theft, kidnapping, witchcraft, or ritual activities. Some were later found to be ordinary travellers who could not speak the local language. Others were mistaken for criminals simply because they looked unfamiliar. In 2012, the infamous Aluu Four case shocked the nation when four university students were beaten and burnt alive after being wrongly accused of theft. Years later, evidence showed how quickly rumours had overwhelmed reason. Their lives could never be restored because a mob believed that acting first and asking questions later was justice.
The psychology of a mob is one of the most dangerous forces in any society. Individually, many people would hesitate to assault another human being. Collectively, that hesitation often disappears. Responsibility becomes diluted. One person throws the first punch, another picks up a stick, someone records the violence on a mobile phone, while others cheer from the sidelines. Afterwards, everyone claims they were merely part of the crowd. The law, however, does not recognise collective innocence. Every individual who participates in an unlawful killing bears responsibility for it. The Constitution guarantees every person accused of a crime the right to fair hearing. That protection is not reserved for the innocent. It exists precisely because guilt must be established through evidence rather than emotion.
The Ibrahim Mbaya case should force Nigerians to ask uncomfortable questions. What if the crowd was wrong? What if crucial evidence had emerged later? What if the accused had information capable of exposing a wider criminal network? Every time a suspect is killed before investigation, society loses the opportunity to uncover the complete truth. Justice is not only about punishment. It is about establishing facts. A dead suspect cannot confess, cannot identify accomplices, cannot return stolen property, and cannot answer the questions victims deserve to have answered. Mob violence therefore satisfies anger while often destroying justice itself.
There is another consequence that receives far less attention. Every successful act of jungle justice weakens the authority of the state. The government alone possesses the lawful power to investigate crimes, prosecute offenders, and enforce punishment through the courts. Once communities begin deciding who lives and who dies, the rule of law slowly gives way to the rule of emotion. Today the victim may be an alleged thief. Tomorrow it could be a political opponent, an innocent passerby, or someone falsely accused because of personal rivalry. Violence has an unfortunate habit of expanding beyond its original target.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that jungle justice often creates more victims than criminals. Families lose fathers, mothers bury sons, children grow up without parents, and entire communities become known for brutality rather than justice. The crowd disperses within minutes, but the consequences remain for decades. Those who genuinely care about security should be the first to reject mob killings because every unlawful execution makes lawful justice harder to achieve.
The true strength of a democracy is not measured by how severely it punishes crime. It is measured by how faithfully it protects justice even when emotions run high. Citizens have every right to arrest a suspect and hand that person over to law enforcement. They have every right to demand faster investigations, quicker trials, and tougher penalties for convicted criminals. What they do not have is the right to become the court themselves. Once that line is crossed, the next victim of jungle justice may not be a criminal at all. It may simply be the wrong person in the wrong place, surrounded by the wrong crowd.
