Noah Ebije, Kaduna
A total of 750 cattle rustlers, bandits and kidnappers at the weekend swore oaths on the Quran and the Bible, that they will no longer engage in criminal activities again.
The repetance by the kidnappers was the efforts of the new commissioner of police in Kaduna state, Austin Iwar who has been engaging different community leaders to persuade deviants in their areas to abandon crime and embrace government’s amnesty programme.
The latest ceremony is coming two weeks after another set of 400 bandits and kidnappers similarly swore oaths on the Quran renouncing crime.
Addressing journalists after the ceremony, the state commissioner of police, Mr Austin Iwar said the repentant criminals took advantage of the window of opportunity opened by the government and the Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Idris.
He explained that apart from renouncing violence,the repentant criminals will also hand in their weapons to government.
“I assure you very soon we will begin to recover most of these arms, as some of them have volunteered to handover their arms back, but not in public.”
“One of the strategies we decided to adopt is to see how we can get across to some communities leaders in the context of community policing programme we are doing.
“If you want to solve a problem you have to work with people that created the problem; we also held series of meetings with hunters as prelude to the series of activities we call Renouncing Violence Strategies.”
An excited Commissioner of police Iwar said the exercise, when sustained will significantly reduce crime in the state.
“Having young people that are roaming in the bush committing all forms of crimes to come out and renounce violence, swear by Holy Qur’an that they will not go back to violence again is very important.
“You will understand that it is a very difficult decision for a criminal to come out in public and announce the atrocities he has been doing.”
Head of Anchau Vigilante Service, Malam Audu Sallau commended the security operatives for their total support to the programme, saying that they were able to win the confidence of the criminals
The ceremony was witnessed by all the security agencies in the state, with a detachment of Army, police and Civil Defence deployed to the ceremony.