 Welcome to the Advocate on PLOS TV, Africa, where we discuss thought-provoking topics in an atmosphere of seriousness, decisiveness and laughter. Here we call a spade a spade. Today I'm talking about the actions, or rather the inaction of the government to mob action. In the same vein, Elijah is speaking on diversity and freedom in religion and in Nigeria. If Edolapo is looking at how running away, or jakba, is now the new normal, sit back and after this break would be here to dissect it all. Stay with us. Mob action and government lack of action. In Nigeria and by Nigerians, two persons were burned to death by a mob in Ijesha, Lagos state, over an alleged theft of mobile phones. Deborah Samuel was gruesomely executed and her remains burned by fellow students over alleged blasphemy in Sokoto. A teenager was burned to death by a mob on accusations of stealing a motorcycle in Auchi Edo state, and David Imor was bitten up and set ablaze by commercial motorcyclists in leaky phase one, over some yet to be known crime. All these in May alone. Bear in mind that these are the ones that made the headlines. What of the ones that did not? This is our reality. Next door in Ghana, a Nigerian stole a mobile phone and what did they do to him? He was made to clear the gutters in the community after which he was given water to have a bath and thereafter fed. This is a Nigerian in a foreign country. How is it that he was shown mercy when his own brothers would have put a tie around his neck and set him on fire? What has happened to us as a people where we have become so completely lacking in empathy and basic human decency? The Nigerian police and other law enforcement agencies have a duty of care to protect the lives and property of her citizens as well as to defend the Constitution. However, it's beginning to look like we're in a free fall where everything goes and everyone can do as they please without fear of being held accountable. Now what does the Constitution say? According to the 1999 amended constitution, every person has a right to life and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, safe in the execution of a sentence by a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria. Every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his person and accordingly no person shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment. A person shall be entitled to a fair hearing within a reasonable time by a court or other tribunal established by law. A suspect shall be accorded human treatment having regard to his right to the dignity of his person and not be subjected to any form of torture, cruelty, inhuman or degrading treatment. A suspect shall be brought before the court as prescribed by this act or any other written law or otherwise released conditionally or unconditionally. The question that begs to be answered is, for all these crimes, who has been arrested? In the case of Deborah, for instance, two people have been arrested and for what crime you may wonder? For conspiracy and inciting public disturbance rather than for murder. In Lagos, four people were arrested but have not been charged and the governor has banned commercial motorcycles in some areas of the state. So my question is, is this the totality of it? Before you forgot to add that the Nigerian that was soon empathy or love in Ghana, you also found love. You know after eating, there was a lady that fell in love with him allegedly. Me, will you? I saw it, I saw it lie actually, this is a very serious issue actually. I remember the first day, very first day of my life I saw a human being born today that was in nursery school. I remember, I can't forget, one of my guidance was taking me to school at that age, that early age and I saw a corpse being born. I was like, what happened? He was trying to close my eye, don't look. I may be inquisitive. I saw it. I guess when I go home, I couldn't sleep, I was scared and he told me, who asked you to look? And I was like, why would he do this to people? It's inhumane, it's barbaric. Can't take a loss into your hands. Our country, we have to evolve. Imagine what happened to the Unipod force today in 2012, the Alufo. Those boys did not rob according to what we found out. They said they only went, although what they did perhaps, they didn't do it properly. They said they wanted to go collect their money from someone and the person collected money for them from a business and when they came to maybe harass him to collect back their money, business going wrong, he shouted, thief, thief, and that's how people came and just gathered them. They started asking what happened. They killed them. Then I remember sometime between late 90s and early 2000s, one of my cousins was telling me of one incident that happened at the area, I think that was really some years back. That period, a woman, her son, according to her, stole from her and she started shouting, thief, thief, people came as I beat in the child. Later, the boy said, no, no, no, my picking, no, no boner, and there was another incident that happened during the lockdown. His young boys, two was Gali, remember that story, and he was born, we didn't find out in Lagos here, that was during the lockdown. So this is sheer wickedness to me. There is nothing like trying to prove a point or let's kill them so that robbery will stop or this is wrong. Many of these people that were born to life were actually innocent. Many of them were not guilty. I think we should look at the fundamentals of like when these mob killings happen, where does it happen, who are the people that participate in it? We see that most people that are participating in it are either illiterate or like extremely poor people or like people that have nothing much going on for them. And mostly people that maybe they are poor know hope for them. The government isn't doing much for them. Society isn't doing much for them. And they probably go to bed hungry. They wake up, still know who begging for food and looking for meat. When you get born, when they mob you, that's the worst thing that can happen. Not to me. No, when they mob someone, the mentality is even though I go to bed hungry, I don't have hope, I don't have anything going on for my life, I'm still better than that person that was mobbed. OK, so to be honest with you, I hear you. But I must do, I mean, just disagree with you. And the classic example is the poor. They were not poor. They're students, they were not illiterate. They're students in a polytechnic that you would assume have a level of enlightenment. And for me, I think what I'm really trying to raise here is not even just the, so it's a mob, there's a mob mentality. There's something that happens when a mob takes over that really nobody can control. What really bothers me, what bothers me, sorry Elijah, may I just finish, what really bothers me is the government's lack of inaction and the fact that all those things that we've talked about, they've happened, but no one has been convicted. No one has been brought to book. So look at Deborah, for instance, people have been arrested for conspiracy and disturbing the public piece. Who's been arrested for murder? The one in Leckey as well. Yes, the government has banned the motorcycles. But it's not bringing the person back to life. For you to, I think I raise someone for murder, you need to know what final hit killed the person. And you need to know the person that made a final hit to kill the person because that means you're accusing about 50 people of murder, which is not possible. Some of them may be responsible for manslaughter. So even murder, the person that started it in the first place. I think the person that started it in the first place, in the case of the Leckey situation, the Okara men that first came to start the opera and he wants to have been arrested. And I can't justify it. It is appalling. There's no justification. I heard about the Leckey thing. And then I heard about Deborah. I'm a Muslim and I heard that the Deborah situation had something to do with religion and this. And then you see, we bring a quote in our Quran that says that we shouldn't take a life. It is dear. And then some people misinterpret it as we are fighting for God and this. And like, it's like, how many people, like even madam, I'm scared of going to this side of the place where Deborah was schooled in. I won't mention the state. I'm scared of going there because they are extremists. They won't, if I'm telling them, Islam is my religion, I understand you understand. They won't came to what I'm trying to say because they will think like, maybe I'm whitewashed or I'm westernized and this. They're extremists. You can't really make sense with a stupid person. Okay. The thing is, from what you said, it's not, I would disagree with you with regard to what you said initially about the persons that are involved in mob action. I usually treat nothing much for them. It's not actually true. It's mob mentality. Mob mentality. When I was in the secondary school, I remember we were having conversation with our English teacher and he said something that that was the day he was driving through the popular books at because that period, almost every week they won't come back from school. We're going towards books. You must see a dead body. And that, along with those books, yeah, they've killed somebody. They've burnt someone because there's always work with them. Now, guess what? He said there was someone that was a leg of stealing. And before, you know, God, I saw him beating him. The next thing, the woman packed a vehicle, came down from a vehicle, say, I have four of them, let's burn him. Now that woman, according to him. Did not know what was happening. That woman, she's not. And she had no idea what was happening. It's just mob mentality, like you said. So the government have to be decisive. Number one, nobody has the right to take laws If you feel somebody do something wrong, hand over the person to the police, let the police do their job. And they should also pass a bill that anybody involved in mob action, they can arrest the person. If they're involved one way, remotely or directly, the person should spend some time in jail because it's wrong. I think our problem is not that there are no laws. It's just that they are not being enforced. So pass a bill all you can. What are the existing laws? Nobody's enforcing it. And what makes me really sad is the fact that our law enforcement agencies appear to be completely impotent and unable to do anything about it. I mean, luckily you heard that, oh, the police came and the mob overpowered the police. And I mean, that is just so sad. Anyway, up next is Elijah. Stay with us.