The Amnesty International, AI, has called on religious, traditional and other local authorities in Nigeria to strongly discourage mob violence and jungle justice.
Speaking in Calabar after a street walk to sensitise people about dangers of mob violence, Programme Officer of AI, Barbara Magaji noted that jungle justice was on the rise in the country, stressing that the practice should be discontinued.
She said most often victims of jungle justice are innocent of the alleged crimes preferred against them.
“We call on Nigerians not to take laws into their hands. When ugly or provoking situations arise, they should report to the police or such appropriate authorities.
“We call on the police and justice agencies to act rightly because there appears to be a mistrust by the public which reason they tend to hesitate to report cases at such agencies. The justice actors and the police must always do thorough investigations into such reports.
“The magistrates and lawyers should give ears to such complaints and reports, ensuring that cases are swiftly determined. This way the people can trust the system.
“We conducted an 11-year research on mob violence across the country and found that 555 people died as a result of mob violence. This translates into average of five persons killed every year from mob violence.
“Some of these are as a result of alleged witchcraft, or somebody holds dissenting views or have hurt another person, or wrong labeling of someone to be a thief,” Magaji said.
In Cross River State, Magaji said the findings indicate that most of deaths from mob violence were associated with allegations of witchcraft.
“Our concern is that sometimes these allegations are not proven and people just take the laws into their hands. There are usually likelihood that the persons alleged are not even the person. And when the person has been killed it is difficult to bring back the wrongly accused. His rights and freedom from torture have been violated as a result.”
She appealed to Nigerians to stop taking laws into their hands, stressing that jungle justice is not justice.
Magaji called for enforcement of the law against brutality, mob violence and jungle justice, as well as inculcating human rights into police trainings.
“We call on security agencies particularly the police to inculcate human rights trainings in their individual curriculum, so that when they pass out into the civil population they know how to apply their enforcement.
“We also encourage religious, traditional and school leaders to caution their followers and students against the culture of mob violence.”
