Apparently some suspected thieves are more innocent than the other or how else can one rationalize the craze for dispensing jungle justice on ‘petty’ thieves while those alleged and known to have looted the public till still walk freely on the streets like peacocks?
Friday would mark an unfortunate day for a man suspected to be a motorcyclist thief, when he was set ablaze by angry youths at a workers’ village, along Kilema Doma road in Lafia, Nasarawa State, while allegedly trying to snatch a motorcycle, popularly called okada in the area.
The unfortunate incident which was confirmed by the Deputy Police Public Relations Officer (DPPRO), Nasarawa State command, Mr Cornelius Ocholi, revealed that the victim was set ablaze by a local vigilante group in the area while his accomplices escaped.
He explained that before his men got to the scene, the deed had already been done even as “effort made by the police to get the names of the accomplice proved abortive as nobody could be found at the scene of the event, where the suspected thief was set ablaze.” He however cofirmed that seven persons have been arrested in connection with the incident.
Different eye witness, accounts say angry youths, who arrested the suspect, told him to take some of them to the scene of the incident, where he was beaten and set ablaze, while another claimed that the suspected thief died while receiving medical attention at Araf Dalhatu Specialist Hospital, Lafia.
However, the Nasarawa State Police Commissioner, Mr Abayomi Akaremale, has warned members of the public to desist from taking laws into their hands as according to him, what the mob did was unlawful, adding instead of setting the suspect ablaze, they should have reported the matter to police.