Court orders Imams to sweep district head’s residence for lockdown violation

Two Imams in Kano have been found guilty by a mobile court for holding congregational prayers during the lockdown, and were ordered to sweep a district head’s residence for a week.

The spokesperson, Kano State Ministry of Justice, Baba Jibo-Ibrahim, in a statement, said the incident occurred at Minjibir Local Government Area of the state.

Mr Jibo-Ibrahim said the clerics were found guilty and the court ruled that they should sweep the residence of the district head of Minjibir for one week, as well as pay N10,000 fine.

During the period of the community service embarked upon by the imams, local officials were stationed at the district head’s residence to supervise the sweeping to ensure compliance, the spokesperson added.

Also, the official added further that the mobile courts, in three days, from May 3-5, convicted 717 lockdown defaulters across the state including those intercepted by the state’s governor, Abdullahi Ganduje.

Mr Ganduje himself intercepted six vehicles at Kwanan Dangora violating the lockdown order, each of the vehicles was fined N150,000 each by the lockdown mobile court, among others, the spokesperson said.

“Also, the mobile court convicted a woman for a week at correctional centre with punishment of sweeping the prison yard throughout her stay for exchange words and disrespectful to security personnel enforcing lockdown order

“Another defaulter who tore the uniform of a police sergeant on duty claiming to be a superior officer was later found to be a fake policeman. He was handed over to police headquarters in Kano for further investigation,” the spokesperson said.

Kano State has 482 confirmed cases of COVID-19.