With flames rising to the sky one would have thought the biblical Abel was giving another Burnt offering in which the Lord was well pleased but alas it was a gory scene at the pako bus stop in Isolo, where a young man met his untimely death in the hands of angry Lagosians who turned him to a noxious chunk of suya.
This is the story has gathered by so many people, this is the closest I could get to the truth as there are so many versions of the story now.
That fateful morning on the 24th of Mar,2010 the young man while seating comfortably on his Bike 'jacked' a woman's handbag, the woman who was not ready to part with her bag easily,put up a protest. So it led to a scuffle between the two of them, the young man allegedly assaulted the woman and finally made away with the bag or maybe not because immediately he collected the bag the woman borrowed sound sultan's Line in his song "E ba mi Kigbe ole'.
Shouts of Ole!, thief!, Ole, thief! rented the air, the confused young man tried escaping with the loot and decided to dive in to a stream nearby, only to discover that, that wont stop his assailants who in no time had him in their grasp, battering him as they dragged him out of the stream. Quickly a 'mobile court' was assembled with the jury comprising of everybody present. Take him to the police, someone suggested, Police ko, Police ni. Light the morrafuka men...yeah nice idea torch the fool...You dont have to kill him now, someone countered...We would burn him ni said someone who appeared to be the presiding judge, This would serve as a lesson to others like him. I taught I heard "I RISE...COURT",no I didnt but judgement had been passed.
In no time, used vehicle tires flew in from all direction and with some generous donations of fuel, the young man was in flames. I think it was then they decided to check the contents of the bag to discover it had (So many figures here, am nt sure of how much), =N=1,200 or =N=4,000 etc, a bible and her mobile phone. That was all!...the angry faces suddenly turned into that of sympathy but the 'mobile court' still maintained their stand "He deserved it ", "I am sure this is not his first time", another person added.
Then something interesting happened, someone pushed through the crowd and tried removing a ring from the burning man's hands. The man was apprehended and mercifully handed over to the police, obviously he was the burning man's partner. Then I began to wonder if this was Nemesis in action or as Yorubas would say "ASASI"(dem follow am), he already escaped but he was unrepetant , he still wanted to continue in jacking bags and needed the "ring" probably a juju ring to continue their daily business, can u imagine the love of money and the avarice for wealth.Now that's the folly i dont understand and probably a quick rebuttal of the mobile court's presiding judge's view that it would teach 'his likes' a lesson, THEY DONT WANT TO LEARN
O.K., that's d end of the story oh sorry dt scene caused mad traffic that day along the Ikotun-ISOLO road. I hope you enjoyed the story. Now in my own opinion, Why would someone just decide to burn another person("jungle justice"), can you imagine?...I believe anybody capable of doing such an atrocious act could as well be the thief or worst still an armed robber. Why dont we trust our judicial system?...All the religions we practice dont even support jungle justice..."Thou shall not judge". Even the traditional religion believe they should take the suspect to a higher authority and give the convict a little chance to plea his course.
Well Another twist is that he died coz of =N=4,000(d highest of all d figures), can you imagine?, a sum of money he can make by begging on the streets of lagos or findin a job how menial it could be. IT'S A PITY. But the irony of everything is people who steal larger sums are either free or serving a punishment incomparable to this young man's own. Tafa Balogun was given less than 2yrs of jail term, TY Danjuma after confessing his sins was still made chairman of one advisory committee to the acting president, Diepreye Alameiseigha is still a don in Bayelsa, James Ibori was still honored sometimes ago as a free man, Bode George is the sheriff in Kiri Kiri with VVVVVVIP treatment, Erastus Akingbola is at large, there are just too many of them to mention and yet that young man was burnt to death without any 'hearing'. I am not saying what he did was good but in short I reserve my comment.
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