Tension In Kaduna As Protesting Youth Block Major Roads Over Appointment of LG Chair …5 Injured
Tension In Kaduna As Protesting Youth Block Major Roads Over Appointment of LG Chair
…5 Injured
By Alex Uangbaoje
Angry Youth of Chikun local government area of Kaduna state earlier today, blocked major roads leading to the Secretariat of the local government protesting the appointment of Haj. Hadiza Yahuza as Interim Management Committee Chairman.
Five persons including a young boy was allegedly shot by the security operatives deployed to the scene of the incidence.
Protesters, largely made up of christian Gbagyi youth and women equally accused the state governor Mallam Nasir El-Rufai of marginalisation and injustice against the people of Chikun LG who are predominantly Gbagyi.
The protesters led by the state chairman of Gbagyi youths, Amos Isah and another leader Yakubu Waziri had last week ambushed their member Honourable Markus Zarmai Yari at his residence and demanded explanation for what they described as a ‘slap on their faces by appointing an unpopular person as sole administration of their local government’.
The protest instantly sent bad signals across the state because it attracted heavy traffic jam in all the roads from town leading to the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical company (KRPC), and to town as workers were prevented from accessing the road to their work places.
According to some of the protesters who spoke to Newsweb Express, “El-Rufai messed up our people (Gwarawa) in Abuja and he is here to do same to us in Kaduna, we will resist it vehemently.
”The governors’ appointment of a non indigene of the state, a woman and a Muslim to our local government is deliberate and meant to anger us, why did he not send a Christian and a woman to Zaria, Makarfi or Sabon Gari as Chairman if he is sincere” they queried.
But heavily armed police men loaded in over 10 hilux vehicles were immediately deployed to the troubled area to disperse the angry youths.
The police upon reaching the scene of the protest, in an attempt to disperse the protesters used tear gas and live bullets to disperse the angry youths.
It was confirmed that one of the boys suffered bullet shot.
Newsweb Express also gathered that about 5 persons were shot by police according to eye witnesses, and rushed to an unknown hospital for treatment.
The eye witnesses also told Newsweb Express that some other persons sustained severe injuries, just as several vehicles where destroyed in the process.
It could be recalled that prior to the screening and confirmation of the local government interim management committee chairmen and their councillors on Friday last week, the youths had on Thursday last week protested to the state house of assembly against the appointment of Hajiya Yahuza who they said is not from their local government area and requested that their own be appointed instead.
Although the area was temporarily cleared by the police but no one could tell the next line of action of the protesting youths, but the heavily armed police men were still on ground as at the time of filing the report, apparently to ensure that there was no break down of law and order in the state.
As at the time of filing this report, no official statement has been issued by any government official in response to the protest.
