Kano declares phone snatching armed robbery

The Kano State Security Council has declared phone snatching as armed robbery, directing that any individual or group caught in the act should be treated as armed robbers.

Daily Trust reports that cases of phone snatching have been on the rise in the city in the last few weeks with over 90 suspects arrested by the police and 10 people feared killed by phone snatchers.

Residents have been lamenting over how the suspects arrested and tried for phone snatching are seen back on the streets after just few months of being incarcerated, with criminal experts positing that charging the accused with theft which attracts as little as six months imprisonment and or fine, was not enough deterrence.

But in a statement on Sunday, the state’s outgoing commissioner for Information and Internal Affairs, Malam Muhammad Garb,a said the security council, which was presided over by the outgoing Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje during its valedictory session, noted that perpetration of the act in recent times has reached a worrisome proportion and therefore needed drastic measures.

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