Mob Justice is Bad, But…
I planned to take a two-week hiatus from writing on Medium to prepare for my end-of-year exams but then this happened:
DISCLAIMER
This article may easily be misconstrued to support or worse encourage acts of mob justice, this is far from the truth. This is my honest take on a recent act of mob justice which happened on the morning of June 20, 2023 in Chikanda [a village in the outskirts of Zomba Township, Malawi].
WHAT HAPPENED?
Kindly refer to the screenshot of the news below:
BUT WHY?
Before I rant about the why, a brief background of where this happened.
Chikanda is a village situated to the west of the University of Malawi formerly known as Chancellor College or CHANCO in short. Since the university does not have enough hostels to accommodate all students, most students — more than 60% seek accommodation in this village since it is the one closest to the university.
The demand for lodging places has grown since the university is now a stand-alone university following the de-linking of public universities in the country.
Cases of thefts are as common as the rising of the sun. And they become more intense and daring towards the end of the semester like now.
OTHER CASES
Three weeks ago, thieves broke into a hostel in which a friend of mine resides and got away with his laptop and smartphone, which FYI is the prime stuff these thieves are after.
Two days after that day, another friend of mine washed his clothes and left them on the drying line, and guess what, thieves stole all the clothes including his underwear. To make it worse, the friend happens to be the type who waits till most of his clothes get dirty to launder them. This means he was left with only the clothes he had on plus a couple of leather shoes.
Wait, that’s not all: thieves broke into a house in which a friend of mine resides while he was at a group discussion and they got away with his laptop, blankets, clothes, and all his food! And all this happened a week prior to the commencement of the end-of-year exams!
This is not even close to the tip of the iceberg of what these bastards do. This other friend of mine got stopped by these hooligans as he was coming from the library where has pulled an all-nighter. It was around 3 in the AM. luckily for him, he had left his smartphone and laptop at a friend’s for fear of thieves.
As he was walking past this other bridge, he was stopped by a gang of thieves. They asked where his laptop and smartphone were and when he told them he didn’t have any, they hassled him, one even produced a cigarette lighter and tried to burn the friend’s goatee!
And this other lady friend of mine, thieves broke into her room and when they found that she didn’t have a laptop, they plugged electric wires onto a socket and forced her to touch the live wires! Imagine that!
STILL, IT’S BAD BUT
So yes, I, like most students who know how heartless these bastards are, felt no pang of guilty on his being lynched. True, one is not supposed to take matters into one’s own hands and leave such matters to the police, these cases are going out of hand. And as far as I’m concerned, the guy reaped what he sowed.
