the case of the robber goat

The BBC reported on Friday that police in Nigeria are holding a goat seized by a vigilante group which claims that the animal is a car thief who has changed his shape by witchcraft. The belief in magic and shape-shifting is wide-spread in Nigeria, particularly among the less educated, and goats are a favored form for the wayward magician.

Different police spokesmen have different things to say about the goat’s case, with one claiming that it is being held as an armed robbery suspect, while another insists it is simply being kept in police custody until its owner claims it. The national police spokesman, Emmanuel Ojukwu, has this gem of insight to offer: “But of course goats can’t commit crime.”

Levity aside, the “arrest” does expose some rather glaring inadequacies in the state of Nigeria’s police forces, many of whom are uneducated, and police reform activists are pointing to it as a parable of the failures of the Nigerian law enforcement system.