Across Kano metropolitan areas, there is hardly a resident that has not had an encounter with or does not know someone who has had an encounter with phone snatchers. The crime, perpetrated mostly by teenagers mostly under the influence of hard drugs, has become a menace that has maimed and sent many to their early graves in the state. But is succour finally here for residents following the new moves the state government has put forward? Daily Trust reports:
Salamatu Suleiman (not her real name) is not just a regular listener to a popular radio programme in Kano, she used to be one of the audiences that contributed the most to the radio station’s WhatsApp group. For over a month she had not contributed to the group nor called in during the programme, and when her call eventually came in on Wednesday, the programme presenter, a fellow woman, could not hide her excitement at the “return” of one of her most loyal audiences.
After a little prodding on why she had “disappeared”, Ms Salamatu narrated how young boys she believed to be several years younger than her last born waylaid her on her way from her office the previous month, threatening her with a knife while demanding her mobile phone. Because of what she had heard about how many have been maimed while struggling with these “teenagers”, she quickly let go of the smartphone. She now uses a smaller phone without an internet facility, pending when she can gather enough money for another smartphone.
Ms Salamatu is one of the ‘lucky’ survivors of phone snatching, a menace that has held a grip on Kano residents in the last few months. She considered herself lucky because she was fortunate to only lose her phone in the encounter with the phone snatchers. Many have not been as fortunate. Several reports of residents who have sustained various degrees of injuries, some life-threatening, in their encounter with the phone snatchers abound. Many have also lost their lives.
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The cruelty of this menace and the seeming helplessness it has foisted on the city are believed to have pushed residents to resort to mob action recently when a tricycle suspected to belong to phone snatchers was set ablaze at Kofar Kabuga in Gwale LGA of the state. The phone snatchers were said to have escaped lynching by a whisker.
In the first five months of 2023 (from January 1 to May 31), the police in the state have arrested and charged to court at least 600 suspects for phone snatching, the police spokesman in the state, SP Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa, told Daily Trust.
He said whenever operatives of the command go out, hoodlums wielding various weapons with the intention of robbing people of their belongings or those that have even perpetrated the crimes form the bulk of the suspects arrested in the last few months, adding that the command will not rest until the state is rid of criminals.
While phone snatching as a menace did not start in the city in 2023, the ‘empowerment’ of political thugs during the campaign and election periods saw it rise from the embers it had been after the first wave of criminality in 2021.
Most of these political thugs unleashed mayhem on residents after political gatherings and not only snatched mobile phones and other valuables but often maimed or killed their victims. Many of these suspects, when arrested by the police and vigilante groups, have been found to be under the influence and in possession of hard drugs, thus authenticating the postulation of criminologists and security agencies that hard drug usage was the root cause of the increase in violent crimes like phone snatching as well as other crimes in the state.
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Thus, during his inauguration speech on Monday (last week), the new governor of the state, Abba Kabir Yusuf (Abba Gida-Gida), did not mince words when he declared an all-out war on drug abuse to immediately address the rampaging phone-snatching menace the state metropolis is battling with.
“We are aware that one of the major factors that fuel these criminal activities is the consumption of illicit drugs,” he said.
In view of this, the governor announced the “formation of a Special Joint Taskforce to Prevent Phone Snatching and Other Street Crimes, comprising teams of law enforcement agencies and mobile courts that would work together to clear our streets of these criminals and bring all of them to justice swiftly.”
“This menace will be confronted and brought to a permanent end throughout our state,” he declared while sending “condolences to the families of all the victims of this unacceptable crime.”
He also revealed that the Kano State Reformatory Institute, Kiru, would be reopened as soon as possible for the purposes of rehabilitating drug addicts. And to show the seriousness he attaches to this declaration, the governor made the institute his first point of call immediately after the inauguration ceremony, where he also sought the collaboration of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
Return of street lights
Also realising how most criminal activities are carried out in the dark, the new governor immediately swung to action to ensure that street lights in the city became functional.
In an interaction with stakeholders at the government house on Wednesday, Governor Yusuf said he had observed that for the past eight years, the city had been thrown into darkness. He stated, however, that “from Monday to Tuesday, we have restored lights on nine streets. Today (Wednesday), we will light up at least 20 more streets, and in the next week or two, we will restore light on all the streets.”
Aside from these moves, the new governor has something to build on. A few days before the end of the administration of his predecessor, the state’s security council resolved to declare phone snatching as another form of armed robbery, which summarily infers that the treatment and punishment meted out to suspected and convicted armed robbers would now be meted out to suspected and convicted phone snatchers.
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But since the new government said it would empower mobile courts to work with the taskforce set up to tackle phone snatching, questions have been raised on the procedure visa-a-vis the declaration by the previous administration.
Speaking to the Daily Trust, a criminal law expert, Umar Isa Sulaiman, advised the government to look at the existing laws and not deviate from already established prosecution procedures so that its efforts would not meet with legal blockages.
Sulaiman explained that since the previous administration had “rightly declared phone snatching as an armed robbery” because of the weapons used and how the hitherto process of charging the suspects with the offence of theft had become counter-productive, the new administration should use the existing law to streamline the process.
“The basic step is to look at the laws. The Police Act, for instance, empowers the police to investigate and prosecute (along with the attorney general of the state or federation), so, let the taskforce being set up by the new government arrest the suspects and put them through the process.
“But perhaps for those arrested without weapons, they can be summarily treated by the mobile court,” he said.
He opined that this is necessary to avoid a situation whereby a mobile court will be trying an armed robbery case, which is a capital offence, especially when a life was lost or weapons were used in the process of committing the act of phone snatching.
He said since phone snatching has been declared as armed robbery, with the Penal Code providing 21 years’ imprisonment and the Robbery and Firearms Act providing death sentence, a mobile court (which is akin to a magistrate court) ceases to have jurisdiction to entertain the case.
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