NIGERIA: RESIDENT OF CALABAR RESORT TO JUNGLE JUSTICE!

Calabar — Since the beginning of 2014, criminals have been on the onslaught in Cross River State especially in Calabar, the state capital, attacking and dispossessing residents of money and valuables.
Reports of nocturnal visits by criminals particularly, in Calabar South neighbourhoods have become a recurring decimal. As a result of this ugly development, many residents have been forced to form vigilante groups to take over the security of their streets and neighbourhood.
And as expected, when security is in the hands of people who are not trained in security issues, extra-judicial killings and jungle justice becomes the order of the day, and that is what is happening in Calabar currently. In the past few weeks, in an effort to protect themselves, angry mobs and vigilante groups have apprehended and lynched over 20 criminals. The year opened with the lynching of two female robbery suspects and their male accomplice who attempted to snatch N1.5 million from a woman.
The robbery suspects said to be undergraduates and their male partner were battered and stripped naked at Murtala Mohammed Highway/ Atekong Drive and before the police arrived, the young man who was inflicted with a deep machete cut on his forehead had died. The gulf car they used was set ablaze and pushed into a drainage.
The gang reportedly ambushed the businesswoman who had gone to withdraw N1.5 million at a bank along Calabar Road, near the Watt market, where they approached her to join their cab.  The woman who appeared eager to arrive home because of the money she had withdrawn, immediately accepted and boarded the taxi.
Trouble started as she got to her destination only to discover that the taxi driver became unwilling to allow her alight from the vehicle. Subsequently, the bandits reportedly brought out a gun and ordered her to cooperate with them if she did not want to get hurt. "They told me to co-operate with them and quietly hand over the N1.5 million or I would be killed; Suddenly, I became angry in my spirit because this money is contribution money and my members would not believe me that the money was stolen. So, I was ready to die and I began to raise alarm."
In a related development, on Monday, February 10, 2014, two robbery suspects were butchered along Mayne Avenue/Atu/ Marian roundabout and their operational vehicle, a Volkswagen Vento car set ablaze about 10am.