Aluu four lynching

The Aluu four was a necklace lynching that involved four young men, Ugonna Obuzor, Toku Lloyd, Chiadika Biringa, and Tekena Elkanah, all students of the University of Port Harcourt. They were all lynched after they were falsely accused of theft in Aluu, a community in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria on 5 October 2012.^[1][2][3]

Incident

Chiadika Biringa, Lloyd Toku Mike, Tekena Elkanah and Ugonna Obuzor were all friends, first sons of their parents, and students of University of Port Harcourt. The four students were also occasional roommates. Ugbonna sometimes spent the night with Tekena who lived outside the campus. He moved in because his residence on campus was broken into multiple times. Ugbona and Tekena were coming back from outside the campus one night when they met their other friends, Chiadika and Lloyd. One of the four had a debtor living in the nearby village of Aluu so all four decided to meet the person together. In the cause of settling the debt, a misunderstanding ensued which turned sour and eventually turned into a fight.

The debtor started screaming, claiming that the men were there to steal laptops and mobile phones. The vigilante group was alerted with the impression that the students were the criminals disturbing the community. The four men were chased through the streets by the stick and stone-wielding vigilantes, stripped naked, beaten and tortured until they were almost unconscious. Afterwards, in the presence of a crowd, they were dragged through mud, had concrete slabs dropped on their heads and car tyres filled with petrol wrapped around their necks in order to burn them.^[4]

A sister of Tekena was nearby and discovered that her brother was about to be killed via "jungle justice." She tried to intervene and rescue him with his friends by screaming at the top of her voice at the mob and reiterating their innocence but she was overpowered by the size of the mob. People from the mob told her to flee. In a last attempt to save her brother's life, she decided to contact other family members and the police, but the men had been killed by the time the required assistance was sought. The murders were filmed with a mobile phone and uploaded on the internet.^[1][5][6]

Reactions

The video went viral, with most viewers condemning the crime. Condolences were sent to the families of the victims. The Senate condemned the jungle justice that members of the community carried out where the four students were hurriedly murdered without trial in the presence of a crowd. Students of the University protested the murders and went on rampage by rioting and destroying propertes in the community were the students had been lynched.

Aftermath

The lynching was widely viewed in Nigeria and the rest of the world. The crime further exposed the "jungle justice" or "mob justice"' which was still prevalent in Nigeria, as well as exposed some loopholes in Nigeria's law enforcement system. Several people were arrested in connection with the crime.^[1][6][7][8]

References