By Tiola

What is this madness? What kind of darkness has enveloped this nation? No light, no food, no water, bad governance; is that a recipe for barbarism thinly disguised as justice? A lady allegedly steals a phone and the punishment is to be stripped naked, her legs torn mercilessly apart while onlookers record the inner recesses of her human form for posterity. Till this day there is no evidence of the purportedly stolen phone.

Then the mass killings at Mubi and now four gangly undergraduates are accused of theft and what? The punishment is lynching and being burned alive? My heart rends! Where are the stolen goods? What did they take? Where is the evidence? Even if they were caught in the act; where was the police? I have a 17-year old undergraduate son… I am trying to put myself in the shoes of those parents… my mind and heart cannot conceive it!

…The protesting students…and the victims

What will you say to me as you present the charred remains… here is your son… em he was a thief?! God forbid! The bearer of such news will experience some jungle justice of their own. Double tragedy; not only did they kill those boys in cold blood, they gave them bad name in order to do it.

Is that all it takes to suddenly lose one’s life in this country, the label of thief? If that is the case then why are there so many politicians and government officials strutting around hale and hearty?

Once again people stood by and watched. Rather than attempt to put a halt to the unfolding madness they had their smart phones out and ready; recording the gory details for the world and posterity. My heart rends! Indeed, every heart of every mother should rend! Look at the faces of those boys… did they look like laptop and hand set thieves? And no disrespect to the residents of Aluu, but going by the pictures, it looked like pretty slim pickings for the boys to risk such a possible end.

Aren’t vigilante groups supposed to work in tandem with the police force? Shouldn’t their duties be limited to surveillance and at best apprehension? Well at least, Mr David Mark now sees the relevance of State Police. Eureka! Just so sad that so much bloodshed and such a consistent waste of young innocent lives had to occur before his moment of illumination.

Ah no!! There was a viciousness to this attack that just speaks of something else entirely. There was one particular shot of a man swinging a plank directed at the head of one of the victims. Even though it was a still picture you could not miss the venom. Almost like he was beating him for the very fact that he existed at all.

That’s another thing there is extensive footage and pictures all over the web so this time it should not be difficult to identify more than a few people. Even the onlookers that stood by filming while the serial killing took place should all be arrested for being an accessory to murder in the 1st degree, before, during and after the fact.

We have become a nation of cold and callous people… and seemingly without even realising it.