Across the country, there is an emerging dangerous trend involving mostly young people who violently attack innocent members of the public to dispossess them of their phones. In some cases, these attackers end up taking the lives of their victims. On the surface, a story of a stolen cellphone may not attract the attention of even a rookie reporter scrounging for byline.
That was before human lives began to be at risk as a result of the inanities of street urchins who, in reprehensible desperation, feel no qualm of conscience in killing just to steal mobile phones. In April this year, just after the supplementary polls conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission, a journalist, Aliyu was attacked by phone snatchers. They got away with the phone but also left him with a hand injury. Other victims have been less fortunate.
A few months ago, in the Jabi area of the Federal Capital Territory, a man was attacked by hoodlums who wanted to steal his phone in the middle of the night. Neighbours heard him shouting for help and thought the problem had been solved when he later fell silent. In the morning, however, they found his body on the road covered in blood and with multiple knife wounds. In a different part of the FCT, a federal civil servant, was stabbed to death and his phone snatched as he was jogging outside a residential area in Idu-Karmo district.
More recently, last weekend to be precise, an undergraduate of the University of Lagos, who was only identified by his first name, Adekunle, was shot and killed by phone snatchers in the Yaba, Lagos. He was apparently chasing after a thief who had just stolen the mobile phone of his colleague in a bus heading to the University of Lagos, only for him to be shot and killed by one of the hoodlums suspected to be working with the fleeing suspect.
For a first-time visitor to the commercial city of Onitsha, on alighting from the vehicle, those who know the town will warn you to put your phone in your pocket or bag. This is not to say that phone snatching is a problem peculiar to cities in Nigeria. According to official figures, a phone is reported stolen in London, the United Kingdom, every six minutes. In the United States of America, 113 phones are lost or swiped every minute. According to data quoted by BBC there were 91,000 reports of phone theft in London in 2022, an average of 248 a day. Two per cent of these reported thefts concluded with the recovery of the device. The Metropolitan Police in the UK says policing the crime is difficult and that daily operations continue to take place.
To the extent that this act has assumed criminal proportion in Nigeria and many cases results in loss of lives, makes it a problem that demands the attention of political leaders. In his inauguration speech, the Kano governor, Yusuf Kabir Abba announced plans to set up mobile courts for the prosecution of phone snatchers in the state. Days after the May 29 inauguration, he followed up on his promise and actually approved the setting up of the mobile courts. The mobile courts will work in collaboration with a Special Joint Task Force to try people caught in the act.
The announcement, however, came with blames directed at the previous administration alleged to have left major streets in the city in darkness at night. The return of street lights will, hopefully, help tackle robbery, phone snatching and other criminal activities in metropolitan Kano. We commend the efforts of the governor as his attempts to enforce the law and also prevent crime could be life-saving for many people. It might, however, take a lot more than streets lights and mobile courts to contain the threats. The whole point of the mobile courts will be defeated if there is no way of tracking and arresting the thieves. State governments and law enforcement agencies need to deploy phone-tracking technology at a wider scale to catch cell phone robbers.
Commuters and people out on the streets also need to take precautions on how they use their phones in public. A majority of Nigerians are living in difficult conditions. Yet, many Nigerians walk around with expensive phones without a thought for their safety. In today’s world, both the law professor and the hoodlums on the street are on the same social media platform. One flaunting one’s life-style and the other resenting it. Citizens should pay more attention to their surroundings when talking or texting in public. They need to be vigilant about using cell phones when alone and in unsecured locations.
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