Community policing facing setback in Kano as Police refuse to obey court order

In spite of clear directive of court mandating the Kano State Commissioner of Police to continue to recognize the elected executive officers of the Police Community Relations Committee (PCRC) pending the determination of the substantive case, the Kano State commissioner of police Mr Sama’ila Shuaibu Dikko has allegedly refused to obey the court order.

This was contained in a petition by Barr. Abba Hikima and sent to Solacebase on Saturday.

On the 7th day of July 2021, the Kano State High Court handed down an interim order restraining Police and the National Executive Council of the Police Community Relations Committee (PCRC) from dissolving or purporting to dissolve the leadership of the state PCRC.

The said order also restrained a supposed caretaker committee from parading themselves as the new executives of the committee or howsoever accepting to be recognized as such.

Solacebase gathered that not only has the Police Commissioner, Mr S.S Dikko been served with the order of the court, but he was also the 8th Respondent in the suit and has even filed several applications before the court through the command’s chief counsel Mr Sunday Ekwe.

On two different occasions after the court order, one at Kwalli Division and the other at Takai local government, the Kano Police Commissioner has frustrated functions organized by the PCRC, aimed at fostering synergy and understanding between police and community.

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The commissioner of police was also said to have gathered all DPOs and instructed them not to recognize the court recognized executives of the PCRC.

The PCRC Chairman Saleh Jili said the root cause of his feud with the Kano police command is his resistance to the alleged illegal issuance of PCRC ID which the state command’s PPRO Mr Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa embarked upon without proper account.

The PCRC is Nigeria’s oldest community policing based organization established in 1984 for the purpose of fostering partnership and understanding between police and members of the community.

The committee in Kano State has procured several vehicles for the police, built police outposts and supported the police in various ways. Earlier this year, the Kano State PCRC organized a state-wide security summit massively attended by dignities, security experts and artisans from the 44 local government councils of Kano state where people received training on the topic “How to report crimes and criminality without getting victimized”.

The petition alleged that “the Kano Police Command is out to strangulate the Federal Government’s effort towards effective community based policing in the state at a time when Nigeria is bleeding with criminality.

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‘’The PCRC has for the past 37 years championed Nigeria’s community policing project in Kano and the country at large. We shall follow all legally allowed means including commencing contempt proceedings against the person of the commissioner of police who is about the only one resisting the order of Kano High Court, to ensure that he does not disrespect our courts and get away with it.’’

‘’His actions are clearly arbitrary and contemptuous and if not urgently checked by either the hierarchies of the police or the court itself would herald chaos and anarchy. The same also possess a threat to Kano’s community policing program”