By Iretiola Doyle

Being a platform that provides one easy access to unlimited information and an audience base of hitherto unimaginable numbers at the mere click of a button, it is no wonder that new social media has gained such popularity within such a short time. Indeed,there have been many success stories of people who by simply posting a five-minute video of themselves on YouTube have achieved worldwide fame and fortune; Justin Beiber is one that readily comes to mind.

There have also been instances where new social media obviously played and unquantifiable role in determining the outcome of certain events. Remember the Arab Spring? And closer to home; I have no doubt that images of an unarmed young lady being assaulted by naval ratings captured by people on their smart phones and broadcast far and wide within minutes of its occurrence went a long way in ensuring that the vagabonds didn’t get away with their crime.

However for all its success stories new social media in the ‘wrong hands’ can be a very scary prospect. I witnessed one of it’s the most chilling fallouts recently via a video that had gone viral several weeks ago. In the said video, a young good looking girl was being stripped naked and attacked by a bunch of men who were going at her like a shoal of piranhas.

It was a mob. They grabbed and pinched at every inch of exposed flesh–and all of it was out there. She had been stripped down to her G-string. Some kind Samaritan had given her a wrapper which she was holding on to for dear life; a task made doubly difficult because she needed those same hands to stop the men who had frankly gone mad – there is no other term for it—from exposing the core of her being to the entire world.

It was a lost battle. In the space of that three to five minutes video the wrapper went, the G-string followed, their hands were at her shoulders, under her armpits, hands holding her at each ankle as the men spread her wide apart expo
sing her to the core.

As if that wasn’t bad enough you had spectators who were recording it all on their phones some of them framing their shots up close and personal,while this girl screamed and yelled with stark terror in her eyes… Her offence? She purportedly stole a phone in computer village here in Lagos … So? if person thief no be police station demdey carry am go?

Okay, because this is Africa and that is our way, beat her, okay because there is some proverb somewhere that says a thief must be exposed, strip her naked but what part of our culture or justice system native or otherwise,prescribes that kind of punishment?

Is this some new form of jungle justice? I don’t want to turn this into a sexist argument but pray tell when male thieves are caught does the mob fiddle with his penis? Jiggle it around a bit; yank it for a couple of times for good measure?…I just blanched on the memory of a story once told of how a thief that had a broom stick inserted into his penis when he got caught so maybe the answer to my previous questions is that yes, we are barbaric enough to do that.

Which is just plain bullshit really because if James Ibori (he’s a convicted felon, serving time, I can mention his name all I want) made an appearance in that same market they will roll out the red carpet! Thief pass thief abi?Then again… where were all the women when all that was going on…?

The paradox is that no one realises that the real crime was the intent to rape and the assault of that utterly abused girl regardless of whether the allegations of theft were true. The crime was further perpetuated by the invasion of her privacy by everyone who received that video clip and passed in on.

For that video clip to eventually get to me… Believe me; it went viral. I have only been able to look at it once. That is how unspeakable the footage on that video is… and mostly then in an attempt to see if there was one face in the crowd… one face that could be traced so that somebody could be brought to book. Unfortunately, all we see is the close up of the stark terror of a victim of man’s inhumanity to man.