Insured By the Mafi
There used to be a popular car sticker with the inscription, “Insured by the mafia. You hit me, we hit you!”, which seems to have vanished from our streets. The message therein is simple: It is based on a notion of equating vengeance with justice and the absence of proportion between offence and punishment. Unfortunately, that is the situation in our country today as more and more Nigerians boycott the court in favour of judicial black market where “justice” is swift and without mercy. It is then little wonder that almost every day comes with stories of killings, most of them based on revenge for real or perceived injury. If we will also be honest, our justice administration system has reached a point where it is almost impossible to secure conviction even for crime suspects caught in the act and for that reason, many Nigerians would rather take the laws into their own hands. Today, there are too numerous homicide cases that remain unresolved, and given our collectiv...