Kaduna Islamic Centre: I’m Opposed to Criminality, Says Buhari

Omololu Ogunmade in Abuja

President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday in Abuja condemned what he described as child-theft racket and fake correctional homes in Northern Nigeria, saying he was opposed to such acts of criminality.

The president was reacting to the recent discoveries of Islamic centres in Kano, Kaduna and Katsina States where children and adults were chained and subjected to all manners of dehumanisation.

A statement by presidential spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu, said the president commended the police and urged them to sustain the good efforts in exposing such centres of cruelty across the country.

Shehu said the president noted that such arrests of operators of the centres were in line with his commitment to human rights and dignity of the citizens regardless of their age, religion and ethnicity.

According to him, Buhari will not support criminality under any guise, including the abduction of children and selling them off illegally.

He also said Buhari noted that no responsible democratic government would tolerate the existence of what he described as the torture chambers and physical abuses of inmates in the name of rehabilitation of the victims.

“The President, therefore, lauds the efforts of the police in exposing these human rights abuses by individuals and criminal groups, and is optimistic that these efforts will be sustained to check illegal activities of this nature.
“The President appeals to members of the general public to remain vigilant and assist security agencies in crime prevention and control by reporting the existence of criminal activities around their communities.

“The sharing of human intelligence is everybody’s responsibility in order to make our society safe and this government is ever committed to supporting the police to be more effective in the performance of its duties through proper funding and motivation of its personnel,” the statement added.