The 'Jungle' In Justice

I was on my regular morning drive to work. Same old drive I’ve made for about a year & a half. Along my usual route, as my car moved slowly through rush hour traffic,I noticed a large cluster of people walking on my right hand side. I then observed that this group of individuals was drawing interest from practically everyone else around. As my iris probed further, I quickly noticed that the main centre of attention was this dark, naked mid-20s looking chap. He had a thick silver chain tied around his neck, handled by another hard-faced dude. It instantly became obvious that the clothless guy had probably being caught stealing, allegedly at least.
As he was being dragged, some other guys in the contingent were kicking,slapping & flogging him as he moved along weakly. The chained guy was crying and had some blood stains on his face & parts of his upper body. At first, I thought to myself, ‘Good for him. Everyday for the thief, one day for the owner’. As this ‘centre of attraction’ was been paraded to everyone’s viewing pleasure, I noticed some policemen about 20 yards away. They too had their eyes locked on the group, visually following the increasing crowd’s march. They just stood watching, like everyone else, as the men passed. It was quite clear what was extremely likely to happen to this guy. They were probably going to decorate his naked frame with fuel, throw a tyre around his neck & then light a light, making an instant barbecue of the alleged criminal.

So,I then wondered ‘Has jungle Justice come to stay?’. Part of me said ‘This wicked man,who has probably caused enormous grief for many families, deserves what fate was about to bring him.Afterall, he chose his path & should bear the natural consequences’. But my more sympathetic, 'rule-of-law' side responded, like it was a mental debating session ‘Should people take matters into their own hands?What example is that setting?Isn’t there a constitutional, legal process that every criminal should go through?’ That politically correct perspective gave me some worry,though. In this country where N20,000 could possibly get a police station’s DPO to tear your case file to shreds, even if you are under arrest for murder, robbery and rape combined. I was really in a dilemma here, as to what should really happen to this so-called crook. I then recollected the situation Jodie Foster faced in her latest movie ‘The Brave One’ where she had to take laws into her own hands after her boyfriend’s brutal murder, since the law enforcement officers(aka New York's finest) seemed in no mood to handle the case effectively.
As I settled down in the office, I wondered if the guy had already been executed.
Well, maybe sadly to say, I didn’t feel too bad.