NBS: Lagos had the highest of Nigeria’s 125,790 crime cases in 2016

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says that Lagos recorded 45,385 of the 125,790 cases of crime reported in Nigeria in 2016. 

The NBS made this known in a crime statistics report posted on its website on Tuesday.

The FCT and Delta followed closely with 10.48 per cent (13,181) and 6.25 per cent (7,867) of cases recorded respectively.

Katsina had the lowest percentage of total crime cases reported with 0.10 per cent constituting 120 cases followed by Abia and Zamfara who witnessed 0.29 per cent (364) and 0.38 per cent (483) cases.

The cases were categorised as offence against persons, offence against property, offence against lawful authority and offence against local acts.

It said the offence against property had the highest number of cases reported with 65,397.

This was followed by offence against persons which stood at 45,554 cases while offence against lawful authority and local acts recorded the least with 12,144 and 2,695 cases respectively.

A further breakdown of the crime cases in Lagos shows that out of the 45,385 reported the state, there were 15,426 cases of offence against persons; 22,885 cases of offence against property; 6,768 cases of offence against lawful authority and 306 cases of offence against offence local Acts.

Of the 13,181 cases witnessed in the FCT, 2,984 cases of them constituted offence against persons; 9,350 cases against property, 843 cases against lawful authority and four cases against local Acts.

The report defined offence against persons as those offences against human beings such as murder, manslaughter, infanticide, concealment of birth, rape and other physical abuse, etc.

“Offences against properties refer to those offences against human belonging: Properties of any kind like stealing, receiving stolen properties, obtaining property by false pretence, robbery, burglary and house breaking,” it further said.

“Offences against lawful authority are offences committed against any establishment of the law e.g. failure to pay tax to the appropriate authority.”

It explained that local acts are those laws that can’t be enforced outside Nigeria such as Liquor Act or Firearms Act.