Kaduna state has convicted 311 culprits who violated the Quarantine Law, which stipulates restriction of movement, out of the 373 people that were apprehended in two days, Commissioner of Justice and Attorney General Aisha Dikko has disclosed.
In a press statement issued on Wednesday, the Commissioner said that the ‘’convictions were made by the eight mobile courts that were set up last week to try residents who flout the restriction of movement order and other Covid-19 Protocol violations.’’
The Attorney General said that “most of the culprits violated the stay at home order, failed to wear facemasks and violated other traffic laws,” adding that ‘’over N1 million was realised as fines from Monday to Tuesday.’’
According to Aisha Dikko, some offenders were merely warned by the courts and others were given community service to perform for their infractions.
It will be recalled that Kaduna state had set up mobile courts on April 24 to summarily try curfew violators, in its efforts to preserve public safety, following the State Executive Council’s directive.
Earlier, the Deputy Governor of Kaduna State, Dr Hadiza Balarabe, had imposed a lockdown on the state on March 26, by invoking the 1999 Constitution, sections 2 and 8 of the Quarantine Act of 1926 and Kaduna State Public Health Law of 1917.
Giving a breakdown of the offenders, Aisha Dikko said that “Tuesday had the highest number of convictions with 208 offenders, adding that Gabasawa topped the list with 36 convictions while Mararaban Rido had the least number with 10.”
The Commissioner further said that ‘’Rigachikun mobile court however collected the highest amount of fine with N267,500, in spite of the fact that it had 31 convictions, five convicts less than Gabasawa. ‘’
The statement said that “Monday had 103 convictions out of 139 violations across the eight court locations of Kakuri, Kawo, Magajin Gari, Rigasa, Sabon Tasha, Mararaban Rido and Rigachukun.’’
‘’Out of that number, Sabon Tasha area had 24 culprits, the highest number of offenders, while Mararaban Rido had eight, representing the lowest number of violators on Monday when the mobile courts began operating,’’ she said.
The Commissioner also said that 29 offenders were asked to perform community service on Monday and Sabon Tasha topped the list with 20 people on Tuesday, while Kawo and Mararaban Rido had one offender each.
‘’Similarly, 18 people were given community service and Sabo Tasha again came tops on Tuesday with 10 offenders while Magajin Gari had two culprits,” the Attorney General added.
