Kano judiciary probes looting of court as protest continues

CSOs query alleged killings

The Kano judiciary, yesterday, disclosed that it had launched an investigation to track and account for property vandalised and looted by hoodlums on August 1 during the national hunger protest in the state.

Spokesperson for Kano State High Court, Baba Ibrahim, who confirmed the development, assured that the court would make public the findings in due course.

He recalled that on Thursday, August 1, the rioters, who claimed to be #EndBadGovernmentInNigeria protesters, “broke into the premises of the High Court of Justice State Headquarters and stole an unspecified amount of money and guns seized from kidnappers and kept as exhibits in ongoing cases.”

He added: “Private and official vehicles parked at the premises of the court were razed, while some were vandalised by the protesters. Offices, including that of the Chief Judge and other judges in the court, were vandalised.

“The (protesters) destroyed the new and old case files and scattered everything in the buildings. The case exhibits, including guns kept in the court’s store, were also looted.”

Also, he explained that some of the burned vehicles parked at the court premises are exhibits in an ongoing case.

“This is the first time the Kano State Judiciary had witnessed such an incident, noting that vehicles parked at the court’s promises were also vandalised, and looted”, he said.

AMID presidential soothing, hundreds of protesters, yesterday, hit Kano streets in continuation of the ongoing nationwide protest against hunger and bad governance.

The protest came a few hours after President Bola Tinubu, in a nationwide broadcast, urged the youths to suspend the demonstration.

It was also followed on the heels of the relaxation of the 24-hour curfew by six hours (8am to 2pm) to ease its toll on residents.

The protesters, mostly youths, were said to have carried out the protest around Bakin Zuwo and Koki in Dala Local Council, Sharada in Kano Municipal and Gadon Kaya in Gwale council areas.

MEANWHILE, two civil society organisations, Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) and War Against Indiscipline (WAI), have called on the Federal Government to investigate the killing of protesters by police in the state.

About 24 demonstrators were allegedly killed by the police on Saturday in Karna, Rijiyar Lemon and Bachirawa areas in Kano. The ugly incident occurred when the security operatives deployed to maintain law and order dispersed the youths with teargas.

In a separate statement by CITAD’s Executive Director, Yunusa Ya’u and his WAI counterpart, Umar Ibrahim, yesterday, the CSOs condemned the killings.