There is more than one way to skin a cat, and, it turns out, more than one way to skin a thief. A community caught a suspected thief this week and chose a form of punishment Nigerians rarely see anymore: correction without killing. No fire. No machete. No mob dragging a body through the street.
The elders and youths stepped in, refused jungle justice, and instead sentenced the suspect to days of hard labour, clearing the community’s blocked gutters, shovel in hand, from morning till evening, under supervision and in full view of his neighbours.
This is what community punishment for thieves should look like. For years, “jungle justice” in Nigeria has meant one thing: beaten to death or burnt alive over an accusation that was never tested in any court. Sometimes the wrong person paid with their life.
This week’s response broke that pattern entirely. Nobody died. Nobody was maimed. The punishment was hard and humiliating, yes, but it was survivable, and it fit a suspected theft, rather than treating theft as an offence worthy of execution.
That balance deserves more credit than it’s getting. This was not extreme cruelty. But it also wasn’t extreme impunity; he didn’t simply get a warning and walk free. In a country where mob killings barely make headlines anymore because they happen so routinely, a form of punishment this measured is worth holding up as an example.
Nigeria doesn’t have to keep choosing between two extremes, a machete or a shrug. This week showed there is a third way: firm, public, and humane. If more communities adopted something like this instead of reaching for fire and stones, we would save lives without letting crime go unanswered.
The gutters got cleared this week. Perhaps that’s the lesson: justice doesn’t need a body count to be taken seriously.
