Aluu 4: Still Crying For Justice Three Years After

Editor’s note: In recent times, the popular constitutional provision for the right to life has been negated following the incessant extrajudicial killings by insurgents, trigger-happy police officers or community jungle justice. Eustace Dunn, Naij.com’s senior editor, in line with this, writes on the killing of four young boys in Aluu community in Rivers state and the delay in the court proceeding involving the suspects.

Suspects of the Aluu 4 killing

It is now three years since the four boys from the University of Port Harcourt were lynched in Aluu, a community in Rivers state known for violence.

The torture was highly heartrending and barbaric. From being beaten up with batten to being burned alive with petrol and tyre, the boys were given slow and painful death sentence.

If they had envisaged the death trap, Lloyd, Chidiaka and Tekena wouldn’t have joined Ugo to help him retrieve his cash from a debtor. The four handsome promising dudes were in cold-blood murdered in broad-day-light.

Why the four shouldn’t have been killed

This is a country where people die by jungle justice and the killers do not get questioned in the long run.

Then one would imagine how these killers sleep with their eyes closed comfortably inside their houses with the thought of who to kill next. One would also imagine the kind of children they would unleash into the world; their offspring may not be different from their trait.

The problem is not whether the four were guilty of the accusation or not, it is whether whatever they allegedly stole was worth the bright future of the four. The two guys who clearly killed Cynthia Osokogu having lured her through Facebook were not beaten, not to talk of being killed.

For Cynthia’s case, the court processes have been on. On July 22 this year, Justice Olabisi Akinlade of a Lagos high court sitting at Igbosere at a point became furious and had lambasted the counsel to one of the accused killers of Cynthia for his delay tactics. Then the judge threatened to revoke the bail granted the defendant, Nonso Ezik.

But does the Rivers state government of the presiding judge care about the delay in the Aluu 4 case? A popular parlance says, justice delayed is justice denied.

Come to think of it, if really those boys stole anything, the best would have been to hand them over to the law. The most painful part is that a sister to one of them was there when her brother was tortured and finally burned alive.

There were all manner of allegations, some said they were thieves, others said they were cultists and all what not. They died not knowing that they were going to die; they died, not saying goodbye, they all died with talents and dreams. Who will talk for them? Even though anyone gets to talk for them, they are dead and gone.

The negligence of the Nigerian police force

It’s a shame that this happened for hours in broad-day-light without the police showing up. It was reported that there was a police officer at the incident but was unwilling to stop the act. Is a community bigger than the law? It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.

The Nigerian police can never be known for saving a fly, instead they would be the ones to kill or engineer the killings of others. Just on Wednesday, September 16, a police corporal attached to the Isheri-Oshun division in Lagos fired a shot at a moving tricycle along Isheri road killing the wife of the operator. What happened thereafter? Such case would automatically die simply because it involves a man in uniform.

It is this nonchalance for human life that made the police ignore the mob action that led to the abrupt death of the four young undergraduates.

Charles de Montesquieu, a French lawyer and political philosopher once said that there is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice. Under the very eye of a Nigerian police officer, jungle justice was pronounced.

The comatose justice system

Since the incident, many people have advocated the prompt trial of those behind the heinous act. While some have continued to advocate for death sentence, others urge life imprisonment with hard labour. But the justice system is lackadaisical on matters like this.

It had once been predicted that the matter would end becoming a forgotten one as the government of Nigeria would not do anything about it. Truly, three years down the lane, no resolution.

In 2014, the executive director of the Society for the Promotion of Better Nigeria, Livingston Wechie, said that it is a disturbing fact that the Aluu 4 incident is still generating losses to the affected families and the society in general particularly since justice is still not in sight.

He said that there is nothing that can best describe it as ritual killing without any justification.

One of the suspects, Ikechukwu Louis Amadi, had last year admitted in court that he was involved in the incident but only used a stick to hit the deceased.

Other suspect are Lawal Segun, Abang Cyril, ex-Sergeant  Lucky Orji, David Chinasa Ogbada, Abiodu Yusuf, Joshua Ekpe and John Ayuwa,

Recently on a Thursday, June 11 this year, the hearing of the case was stalled owing to the fact that the accused persons were not present in the court despite the their counsels being present at the resumed hearing from its one year closure.

One question for everyone is whether there can ever be justice for the Aluu 4 when the courts are perpetually shut in Rivers state.

Imbibing the spirit of empathy

It can now be understood, as Benjamin Franklin would say, that justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are. One may not know how hard it has been for the families to cope after losing their first sons until such nefarious act comes knocking at one’s door. Imagine it was you, your brother or cousin or friend, what would you have done?

In this country, your safety is in your own hands. The uniformed men who are supposed to be the ones protecting lives and properties of the citizenry are the ones who perpetrate told and untold crimes against innocent people on daily basis.

Maturity and the spirit of peace had led to the reason why there was no communal hostility which may have culminated from the gruesomeness of the cruelty.

The fact remains that when all these particles of injustices are not flushed out, the younger generation is watching… They may take it up someday if nothing is done about it.

Two of the lynched four were upcoming rappers and had released a song with the caption: “Ain’t no love in the heart of the city”. Truly, there was no love in the heart of the community where they were burned alive.

The truth is, there may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. The dead cannot cry for justice, it’s the duty of the living to do so for them because injustice anywhere in the country is tantamount to injustice everywhere the world over.

May they all rest in perfect peace.

The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial policy of Naij.com.

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