Religion and Crime in Nigeria: University Student Lynched For Blaspheming
So Islam is trending on social media for all the wrong reasons. A traumatizing video of a young woman being stoned to death is circulating. Here’s what happened.
Believe it or not it all began with a WhatsApp broadcast message. According to some sources from Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, where the incident happened, a religious broadcast was sent to a student group that the victim, Deborah Samuel, belonged to. She disagreed with the message and complained that it wasn’t necessary to the group.
“Send us important information. This group was not created for you to send useless information. It was created for you to send past questions if there is a test or an assignment. It is not for you to send useless information. Which prophet?” Deborah was quoted in a voice note she shared to the WhatsApp group.
The recording was later deleted but not before it was shared to other students.
She was killed on the school premises, when a mob of fellow students accosted her after class. They accused her of insulting the Prophet Mohammed and took it upon themselves to punish her. According to reports, the school authorities tried to protect the victim but failed as the mob stormed the place where she was being held. The authorities then allegedly gave her up to save themselves.
The students proceeded to stone and beat her to death, which was shown quite graphically in one of the videos circulating. And in another they burnt her body and the building that she had been held.
This incident is jarring to say the least. The school has now been closed down indefinitely by the Sokoto government and two suspects were reported to have been arrested. But is that it?
In a video where at least ten people could clearly be spotted, only two have been arrested. It makes you question whether this is even seen as a crime. Currently there is a twitter protest going demanding for the arrest of the killers. With many Muslims openly speaking against the incident.
We are no strangers to religious casualties in Nigeria as ritual killings, boko haram deaths, even people getting flogged to death in the name of “casting out demons” are everyday topics. No investigations, no suspects and no justice.
People are able to exploit the tenets of religious doctrine to justify criminal offenses. But the issue isn’t necessarily about the offender but rather about how this offense is judged. Within or without religion?
This case is only a few days old so the hope is the government takes action and gets justice for Deborah.
All images are sourced from twitter.com
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