The Commissioner of Police in Kano State, Mr Mohammed Gumel, has explained how the command successfully arrested 1,000 suspected criminals within three months of his deployment to the state.
Gumel said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) 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 all remanded and prosecuted.
“I conducted a security survey on locations where emerging crimes were taking place.
“We now moved into sensitizing members of the public to accept the police as friends who are ready to help them in order to fight crime and criminality in 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.
Gumel said that apart from getting the buy-in of the stakeholders to his plan for community policing, the command mapped out strategies to achieve that.
“We crime-marked the area for 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 synergized with the judiciary to ensure prosecution of suspected criminals.
“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 who 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 like theft and ordinary offences, simple offences.”
