A total of 750 cattle rustlers, bandits and kidnappers weekend swore to an oath with the Quran and the Bible that they would no longer engage in criminal activities.
The renunciation was the culmination of efforts by the new commissioner of police in Kaduna State, Austin Iwar, who had been engaging different community leaders to persuade deviants in their areas to abandon crime and embrace government’s amnesty.
The latest ceremony is coming two weeks after another set of 400 bandits and kidnappers similarly swore to an oath with the Quran renouncing crimes.
Addressing journalists after the ceremony, Mr Austin Iwar, the state commissioner of police, 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 would also hand in their weapons to government.
“I assure you that 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 community 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 a prelude to the series of activities we call Renouncing Violence Strategies,” he said.
An excited Commissioner of police Iwar said the exercise when sustained, would significantly reduce crime in the state.
He stated “Having young people that are roaming in the bush committing all forms of crime 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.”
Malam Audu Sallau, head of Anchau Vigilante Service, commended the security operatives for their total support to the programme, saying they were able to win the confidence of the criminals.
Sallau said: “None of the repentant criminals was forced to do so, they voluntarily saw reason to renounce violence, and since the commencement of the programme, our communities are now relatively peaceful.”
The ceremony was witnessed by all the security agencies in the state, with a detachment of Army, Police and Civil Defence corps deployed to the ceremony.
