Thieves are beaten to death or lynched. In Buea like in many African countries, citizens administer justice because they have little trust in the police
By Sonita Ngunyi Nwohtazie & Boris Esono Nwenfor
Jungle justice practitioners normally proclaim the guilt of an alleged offender on the basis of some locally understood code of conduct or standard of morality.
BUEA, May 12, 2023 – "We are tired of these rampant attacks by thieves who have decided to eat our hard work in a twinkle of an eye,” Nkeng Delphine, an MTN Mobile Money operator in Buea cries out. Like Delphine, business persons in Buea have been harassed, robbed at gunpoint and others even killed.
Irate inhabitants in Buea, the former capital of German Kamerun, now Cameroon, have resulted in inflicting mob justice on the perpetrators, leading to the death of two thieves.
Theft has become the order of the day as many young men and women have decided to make life miserable for the local population, causing a lot of fear and insecurity. Inhabitants are requesting proper security measures be taken before the situation gets out of hand.
“Because of these increasing rates of theft, the life of one of ours has ended,” Nkeng Delphine added, referencing the robbing and killing of a Mobile Money operator months back.
A hole made by a bandit at a banking unit in Buea on May 10, 2023. He was caught by inhabitants and burnt alive
Mob justice, alternatively known as jungle justice, remains a socio-legal concern seen as social control and community securitization, as well as an exhibition of resentment with the state's inability to effectively ensure public security, majorly via the criminal justice system.
Based on the community's aggressive and collective action to illegally punish (beat, injure, kill) individual suspects who have committed a crime, such action is an age-long practice. It is vicious in that a "presumed" criminal is harmed to an unconscious state or, in some cases, killed.
We are not safe in the quarters
According to some victims, they do not feel safe in some quarters in Buea as attacks continue daily from bandits.
Some weeks ago, in Bakweri town, a locality in Buea, at about 7 pm, two bandits were caught by the population after they attempted to rob a bar. According to the bar attendant, thieves had made away with an amount worth 15 million in previous robberies. On hearing of this, the irate population set one of the thieves ablaze, as the other was rescued by the forces of law and order.
On May 10, a bandit was caught after he attempted to rob a banking unit in Buea. After making a hole in the side of the building, the bandit was caught by the security personnel, who was on the night shift, after he raised an alarm. In his effort to flee, the bandit stabbed one of the young men who heard the distress call, a situation that caused anger in the population who got the bandit beaten and burnt.
“I live in mayor street and it has been hell for some past months, especially after an MTN mobile money operator was murdered because she denied giving her bag full of money. This has generated fear as these bandits are well equipped with Guns and other materials, which resistance to comply can cause your life,” an inhabitant of Mayor Street said.
With the sociopolitical crisis in the South West Region which has generated a lot of fear in the minds of the population, sophisticated security measures are what the population of Buea longs for, before the situation develops into a more drastic one.
An African conundrum
In 2011, the Kenyan police for the first time included "lynching" in its crime statistics. The officials recorded 543 victims. In Uganda, 582 people died as a result of lynching in 2014. That is 1.6 cases per day on average. According to the United Nations, mobs have brutally killed 16 people in Malawi in recent months.
Vigilantes in northen Nigeria cropped up because residents had lost trust on the country's security apparatus. Getty Images-AFPA. Abubakar
In South Africa, it is commonly known as "necklacing." Angry citizens round up the alleged wrongdoer, after being tied up, they force a tire that has been doused in gasoline onto the neck of the suspect, and then burn him alive. Such cases happen several times a year.
In April last year, a furious crowd dragged Nigerian lawmaker Bukalo Saraki to a marketplace in the capital Abuja. The mob ripped off his clothes and hurled insults at him. The reason for the attack is that messages had been circulating on social media claiming the senator had illegally enriched himself.
"Vigilantism or mob justice is a traditional way of communities to deal with criminals or the high level of crime in the country," Gail Super, a criminologist at the University of Cape Town, told DW.
"They often feel like they cannot trust the police to address the crime problem," Lizette Lancaster, a researcher with the Crime and Justice division at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa, told DW.
