Ibrahim Idris is the Commissioner of Police, Kano State. He was formerly the Director of the International Peacekeeping Operations at Police Force Headquarters and the Mission Police Commissioner for the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT). In this interview with SA’ADATU SHUAIBU, he speaks on the security measures adopted in Kano and the possibility of peace returning to the state.
There have been many explosive substances discovered in the past few months in Kano. Where are they coming from?
I remember when this issue of terrorism started. It is something we used to hear about from far, but there is no doubt it is now here with us. One of the measures that the new Inspector General of Police has introduced is to enhance our explosive ordnance department, these are the people who you see go out to demobilise bombs. These are very young junior officers but I am impressed by their performance. They have analysed these explosives but from the briefing I got from them, some of them are ammonium nitrate, some of them are TNT, which is a highly volatile explosive. We have recovered three bags of TNT and from the analysis I got from the experts, that thing should cost over N30 million. It is a very highly costing substance.
According to my records, from January 20th till date, we have recovered almost over 500 small cans of explosives; they are put in cans and used as hand grenades. And these big drums, we have almost 20 medium size bombs and we have recovered at least 3 suicide bomb vehicles and each of them have big drums. All this is because we have trained the explosive ordinance unit. Even in the middle of the night, we have people who are ready to move. They always move at short notice and they always get to the scene to demobilise these explosives. Also, for the past month, the IG has deployed some sniffer dogs. These are dogs gotten from outside of the country which are trained to sniff for explosives. So, these are the things we use in every situation when we respond to incidents or to prevent the reuse of these items.
From all indications, from the accounts of those experts, I am aware that TNT cannot be gotten in this country only from a few places, I don’t want to mention them. So, there is a possibility that these explosives are gotten outside of the country.
Niger’s Foreign Minister claims that Boko Haram is being trained by Al-Qaeda in North Africa and Al-Shabaab in Somalia. Do you agree with this theory?
From our own investigation here, I can give you some scenarios before I conclude the answer to your question. First, we have got some materials which have been forwarded to the appropriate authorities where it showed some script where some of these boys are being trained. I am obviously aware that in January this year there was a German that was kidnapped in Kano. And we saw on YouTube that Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb stated that they want a lady in Germany to be released and they want to use this German that was kidnapped in Kano. I think if you’re talking about a connection that is the best illustration I can give you.
What are the Kano police doing to protect its citizens from the ongoing attacks in the state?
I think we have put in a lot of strategies and a lot of measures to reassure the people that they are safe. One of these measures is to have high visibility of the police all over the city and the state. We have deployed most of our patrol vehicles; we have armoured personnel carriers in various locations in the state.
We have created what we call nipping points. They are not checkpoints per se, but these are placements of officers where people can see them, though they don’t block the road. But we always reactivate them, that is, if there is need to block the road, we give them communications so that either if there is car theft or an incident somewhere and we feel there is a need for them to block the roads, we direct them to block the roads so that they can check vehicles and try to restrict movement so that we can intercept car thieves or people carrying criminal items.
We also formed the Joint Task Force (JTF). This Task Force was formed after the 20th of January incident in Kano city. It is comprised of the military, the police, and the State Security Service (SSS). It is a joint effort where we jointly analyse intelligence and go into operations and I think we have recorded a lot of successes in this regard. Also, within the divisions, we have sectorized the city into five sectors where we put some divisions together. These divisions mop up their resources, both the personnel, the vehicles and the logistics, and conduct raids or patrols within those sectors. One, they show their presence and two, they try to go to black spots to address areas where we feel there are problems with drugs or miscreants hanging around and dispossessing people of their items.
We have gone on public sensitization campaigns. Weekly, we have programmes in the Hausa language and in English. And as a practice by the command, every two weeks, I address a press conference where we highlight our successes just to reassure the people of the state that obviously their security is our concern and we are doing everything to ensure that there is peace and security in the state.
Another area as I explained to you, I just came from a meeting of a small committee that we formed. We are trying to remobilise the stakeholders of this state. We set up this committee, we give them one week where they are going to meet and they are going to determine the form in which what we call ‘the Kano State Stakeholders Forum’ will advise on the security challenges in the state. What we expect, by the time we gather these people, is for them to proffer solutions on how best they believe they themselves, the people, can address the security challenges in Kano State.
Many Kano residents are complaining of unjustified police harassment. Is anything being done to curb this?
You see this issue of harassment, I remember I have had meetings with the citizens of this state at the various forums I told you, I have met with the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the chief securities of universities, the leaders of market associations. I normally have these meetings with various segments of the society and I always try to make them understand that if you look at it after the attack on the 20th of January, our checkpoints were everywhere but as the situation relaxes and the incidence of attacks lessen and through our intelligence and operations, we neutralise the threats and we analysed that the treats are becoming less and less. You see that is how we are reducing the check points. The more the situation improves, the more we will reduce the checkpoints.
Nobody wants to put their men on the streets. But when a situation develops to that level that they have to be deployed, the government has no alternative because one of the basic responsibilities of the government is to provide its citizens with security. They cannot fold its arms and allow miscreants and armed men to take over the streets. But as we go out and we neutralise threats, we are reducing these checkpoints which have become a source of friction between us and the public.
If you ask the public, we always respond to the actions made by our men. We subject some of them to our internal disciplinary procedures; sometimes we reduce them in rank, some of them get dismissed, depending on the complaint. I’m sure you have read in the paper that there was a lady who stopped a Keke NAPEP in front of a bank, though there was a no parking sign there but then the responding officer unprofessionally slapped her. We took the appropriate disciplinary measures and I think everyone was happy with it. I think this shows that we are very firm with indiscipline.
So you believe that the treat level in Kano is reducing and this will lead to a reduction in the checkpoints around the state?
We assess the threat level and as it goes down, we relax. We also readjust our deployment according to the direction of the threat. But generally, I think the threat level in Kano is gradually coming down. And except if an incident makes us stand on the road, we ask our men to stand on the side of the road.
Schools have become the recent targets of many attacks in Kano. What are the police doing to tighten security in these areas?
For the past two months, I have been meeting with the chief security officers of the higher institutions of this state because I am sure you are aware of the threat we have in some of these places such as BUK. I think it is because of these sensitization meetings that is why we have been succeeding in trying to demobilise some of these explosives that are found in these higher institutions. By protocol, we don’t go into universities or higher institutions. We only go in when the institutions invite the security because every institution has a security department that takes care of its own internal security.
What we advise is most of the security in this state must improve on the perimeter fencing of their universities, they need to recruit more personnel so that they have more personnel to cover all these entrances and exits and so that they can check who goes in and out. By this monitoring, they can be able to tackle these incidences where people smuggle explosives into the campuses. The VC of BUK has called me and he promised that he is going to effect all of the recommendations we wrote to him and we have the same thing in other higher institutions, the University of Technology in Wudil and CAS because those are the places we’ve moved in to demobilise these devices.
Are the Kano police getting sufficient support from the federal government or can it be improved?
You see, I have been in the United Nations for 7 years and I just returned last year. There is no police service in the whole world that can say there have sufficient personnel or equipment. The essence of management or leadership is to be able to utilize what you have available and to optimise the gains of whatever your objectives are. I think the government is doing a lot by the provision of logistics and the state government is doing a lot. I think I have to use this opportunity to thank the state government; they have given us some vehicles last year, about 50 vehicles. Just a few days ago, they gave us 21 white Hillux vehicles. They have continued to provide this support to not only the police but also the military and the SSS who are involved in this internal security. Some of the allowances of some of our officers are paid by the state government.
How do you think Kano State will be affected by this escalated rate of insecurity in the long run?
Like I said, the insecurity is not escalating, it is deescalating. In fact, the situation is improving very fast. In a very short time everything is going to be normal.
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