A picture of a repentant thug in Kano State, Nasiru Abdullahi, popularly known as Chile Maidoki, purportedly in the Police Training School has sparked controversy.
In trending pictures on X, Mr Abdullahi was seen fully kitted out in police uniform posing with the spokesperson of Kano State Police Command, Abdullahi Haruna-Kiyawa, and some senior police officers of the force.
The repentant criminal is reportedly among the 10,000 special police constabularies undergoing a six-month-long training exercise.
In August, Mr Abdullahi and two other notorious kingpins were declared wanted by the Kano State Command with a bounty of N100,000 each.
However, he turned himself in at the headquarters of the command a few days later.
According to a statement issued then by Mr Kiyawa, Mr Abdullahi reported himself to the commissioner of police, Mohammed Gumel, apologised and sought forgiveness for the heinous crimes he committed.
Although special constabulary is a voluntary organisation under the police supervision, some Nigerians who expressed reservations on the microblogging platform X on Tuesday, wondered why such a criminal would be allowed to join the service despite his ugly past.
Commenting under a post by one Chief Ikuoma, a user @PhilipCKO, wrote: “How on earth do you reward impunity, criminals and thugs with things like this.!?
@daniel_doola said: “I’m patiently waiting for the lies from the @PoliceNG about this.
Another user, @ Eniola Oroale said: “Surviving in this country can’t be emotional, you can’t afford that. It has to be strategic. The things constantly happening in this country are almost fictional. Funny, but you have to be creative about surviving.
@Ogunmusi said: “He took the legal route to become a criminal. Congratulations to him. He can finally get away with his crimes.
“He finally had the chance to work with his senior colleagues. Congratulations to you Chile”, @GariAkpos commented.
While justifying the purported employment, @admarmara said: “Sadly, no one here is from Kano to set the records straight!
“Nasiru Abdullahi is notorious only in gang fights and the police made a list of them asking them to repent or face the music. 13/15 repented, they have been reoriented to nw help d force as supervised constabularies”.
Meanwhile attempts to get the reaction of the spokesperson of the Kano State Police command, Haruna Abdullahi Kiyawa were unsuccessful as he didn’t pick calls nor respond to SMS sent to his line as at the time of filing this report.
