WHAT do we do when robbery suspects question society’s morality? We dismiss them as justifying their crime. We found this incident and its knocks on our laws profound.
Garba Sani, 24, a private guard accused of robbery, and Okwudili Godwin, 30, said to have received the stolen goods,
gave reporters a treatise on commonness of crimes in Nigeria.
“We are not robbers. We have many criminals in Nigeria.
Senators are stealing and nobody has arrested them. We too, we need money. We are jobless, we have nothing. My salary is N12, 000 monthly,” according to Sani.
Justifying crime is unacceptable, but do their claims nudge our conscience? We assume our society still has conscience. Does our society care about its members’ wellbeing? Do governments still have responsibilities to the people?
The suspects insisted their crime was milder when weighed against what others did.
“I took the goods to my warehouse at Ikorodu area. Nothing was sold; they have all been recovered intact,” Okwudili said before adding, “Have you not committed a crime before? How much are they paying you a month that can sustain you and your family? Let me tell you, we are all criminals.
We are Nigerians and we have the element of criminality in us”. Maybe exaggerated, but many would share the view.
Sani and Okwudili painted the Nigerian situation boldly. They held the grounds that what they did was common in Nigeria, even among the high and mighty.
They questioned the partiality of the law in seeming to target the poor, the weak and those without enough connections to avoid prosecution.
Our law tends to be ferociously against ordinary people.
Those who cannot afford legal services could be locked up for decades, awaiting trial. It is hard to fault the position that our law is against them.
How do Nigerians survive without resorting to crimes? Can Nigerians survive without breaking laws or engaging in crimes? Are we so concerned with those who are caught that we forget that so much could be going on undetected? Would the law understand that a country that fails in its responsibilities to its citizens breeds criminals? Why are those who breach the Constitution, after swearing to uphold it, saints?
Section 16 (2d) of the Constitution states, “The State shall direct its policy towards ensuring that suitable and adequate shelter, suitable and adequate food, reasonable national minimum living wage, old age care and pensions, and unemployment, sick benefits and welfare of the disabled are provided for all citizens.”
Which state policies were premised on the provisions of Section 16 (2d) since 1999? Unfortunately, robbery suspects are drawing attention to the unconscionable neglect of Nigerians.
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