More than half a year after the gruesome murder of Citizen Deborah Samuel in Sokoto, Sokoto State, over her alleged blasphemous comments on the Islamic faith, nothing has been heard about the state’s efforts to make the perpetrators of the dastardly act pay for their crime. There were initial rumours of the arrest of some miscreants but apparently, nobody has been charged or held responsible for the crime even as the murder was committed in plain sight and at an open place with many witnesses. The case is simply true to type, where innocent citizens are killed and properties destroyed by religious fanatics, especially in the North. After the cacophony that attends such hideous acts in the immediate period, everything is swept under the carpet and the criminals become free again on the streets, waiting in the wings for an opportunity to unleash senseless and ghoulish action on other innocent victims.

It is indeed disappointing that the Deborah Samuel incident has gone the way of its predecessors. Surely, the fact that nobody has been prosecuted six months after is an open encouragement of impunity. Recently, the chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, Sam Amadi, lamented his frustration about the loud silence of the government on the barbarous act of the lynching of Deborah. And he wrote: “Nobody has been arrested and prosecuted for the murder of Deborah. Nobody will. This is because Nigeria is managed as a theocratic neo-feudal state. Nigeria’s path to development passes through the dismantling of the religious construction of the foundation of the Nigerian state. All through, Nigeria has continued to appease religious fundamentalists.” This is a sad commentary on the sociocultural developmental trajectory of any plural society like Nigeria. No decent nation state should permit the level of religious intolerance that is witnessed in this country, especially in the North.

The lackadaisical official handling of the killing of Deborah, in particular, is not just a reflection of the tardiness of the Nigerian state and its legendary incapacity to function well, but also a sign of a deeper problem with the country regarding the emerging reign of impunity where and when powerful interests are implicated in wrong doing. There are as well many other crimes in the books in Nigeria without any concrete step by the government to come clean about them and the need to apprehend and make perpetrators accountable for their deeds. This situation cannot make for a viable country and society. The emergence and tolerance of impunity can only lead to anarchy.

We call on the government to immediately set in motion the necessary processes for the prosecution of all those involved in the murder of Deborah Samuel. Otherwise, her bizarre killing will become an albatross on the government and yet another testament to its ineffectiveness and ineptitude. And more significantly, and sadly so, the level of savagery displayed by the hoodlums who killed the lady, and now the seeming official reticence to ensure that justice is done, seem to lend credence to the government’s alleged nepotism and religious partiality.

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