The Commissioner of Police in Kano State, Mohammed Gumel, has explained how the command successfully arrested 1,000 suspected criminals within three months of his deployment to the state.
Mr Gumel said during an interview in Kano that the feat was achieved through community policing, inter-agency collaboration and kinetic measures.
He said that the synergy yielded results as the 1,000 suspected criminals were remanded and prosecuted.
“I conducted a security survey on locations where emerging crimes were taking place. We now moved into sensitisation of members of the public to accept the police as friends who are ready to help them to fight crime and criminality in the society.
“I went round by visiting the traditional and religious institutions as well as the people from the private sector, those who are responsible for building the economy of the state,” he said.
Mr Gumel said apart from getting the buy-in of the stakeholders to his plan for community policing, the command mapped out strategies to achieve that.
He stated, “We crime-marked the area; crimes that were disturbing the populace, especially issues of supremacy and fights.
“Street boys who engage in armed robbery, snatching of cell phones, terrorising people at traffic lights, in the marketplace; there was nowhere that was peaceful in the state. We first launched various kinetic approaches to fish them out; the hardened ones were arrested and investigated.
“Within the first three months, I was able to take off the streets over 1,000 suspected criminals and they were all prosecuted in court.”
The CP also said the command synergised with the judiciary to ensure prosecution of the suspected criminals.
He added, “What helped us in even keeping the situation quite better is the kind of discussions we had with the judiciary as well as my legal team. We looked at the provisions of the law as to anybody that uses weapons in the form of a sharp knife or any instrument to extort property under fear of death. I think we all agreed that it is armed robbery instead of the previous times where they are charged to court for offences such as theft and ordinary offences, simple offences.”
Mr Gumel said that this enabled the prosecutors to charge the suspects for armed robbery, a non-bailable offence.
He said before now, “when they are arrested and charged to court, the next thing is, you’ll see them back; but armed robbery is a capital offence that has to go through the high court.
“So these 1,000 suspects that we prosecuted in three months have been behind bars; they are undergoing trial for armed robbery, none of them has been released,” he said.
The CP said other miscreants, who willingly surrendered to the police, were offered amnesty and special employment as constabularies to help fight crime.
Mr Gumel commended personnel of the command, the Army, Navy, Airforce and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps for their joint efforts to fight crime in Kano State and its environs.