A video making the rounds online shows a young man who was caught stealing an iron protector, a metal guard fixed on windows and doors to stop burglars. In the video, the man is made to carry the stolen item on his head while a crowd gathers around him. The people keep asking him, “wetin you steal” (what did you steal), and he answers, “protector.” They order him to dance. Each time his dancing does not please them, they beat him.
Why This Is Not a Joke
Many people who share videos like this see them as funny. But look closely at what is really happening. A group of ordinary people caught a man, held him, made him dance for their amusement, and beat him whenever they felt like it. He has not seen a judge. He has not been proven guilty in court. This is called jungle justice — when a crowd decides to punish someone on the spot, without police and without a fair trial.
This Has Happened Before
This is not the first time something like this has happened in Nigeria. Videos of suspected thieves being forced to dance, sometimes after being beaten, go viral often. In some past cases, the beating did not stop at dancing. Some suspects have died at the hands of a mob. What looks like harmless fun in a video can turn deadly very fast.
Why People Do This
People do not trust the police. Many Nigerians feel that reporting a thief to the police will not lead to any real punishment, so they decide to punish the person themselves.
Social media rewards it. Videos like this get many views and shares. This can push people to record and even make the humiliation worse, just for online attention.
Crowds behave differently. When people act as a group, they often do things they would never do alone, because no single person feels fully responsible.
No one is punished for the beating. The people who beat the suspect almost never face any consequences, even though beating someone is a crime too.
What This Costs Us
The suspect, whether guilty or not, never gets a chance to explain himself. He can be badly hurt, and in worse cases, killed. And when people keep sharing and laughing at videos like this, it makes mob violence feel normal instead of criminal.
A Better Way Forward
Hand suspects over to the police right away instead of punishing them on the spot.
Train local vigilante and security groups on how to arrest suspects without violence.
Stop treating these videos as entertainment. Speak up about how wrong they are when you see them shared.
Police and courts should act faster and more visibly on theft cases, so people trust the system more.
More public awareness is needed on how dangerous and illegal jungle justice really is.
My Thoughts
I understand why people get angry at thieves. But forcing a man to dance with a stolen item on his head, then beating him when the crowd is not satisfied, is not justice. It is mob violence dressed up as entertainment. Even if he really did steal, he still deserves to be handed to the police, not assaulted for people’s amusement. What worries me most is how normal this has become. People record, laugh, and share, without asking what happens the day the mob gets it wrong, or the day the “dance” ends in death. Nigeria has already seen that happen before. We should not need another tragedy to start treating this as the crime it is.
Published by Ejoh Caleb
