Hundreds of Hausa youths in Ogun State, on Tuesday staged a protest over what they described as injustice in Kano State Governorship poll.
The youths who were mostly commercial motorcyclists, joined by some teenagers took to the streets of Sagamu to express concern over growing tension in Kano ahead of the Supreme Court judgement on the legal battle challenging Governor Abba Yusuf’s election.
It would be recalled that the Supreme Court had fixed Thursday for hearing on the disputed Kano election.
Last month, the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja upheld the sack of Governor Yusuf, of the NNPP, and declared Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna, the governorship candidate of the APC as the duly elected governor of the state.
In a unanimous judgment of a three-member panel delivered by Justice Moore Adumein, the appellate court dismissed the appeal filed by the Kano Governor against the judgment of the State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which declared Gawuna, as the winner of the state’s governorship election held on March 18.
However, there is palpable tension in the state over possible outcome of the apex court’s judgement.
The two major political parties in the state, the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), last week signed another peace accord to maintain decorum ahead of the last leg of the legal battle.
Just on Saturday, Hausa leaders in the Southwest met in Abeokuta, Ogun state, where they expressed concerns on the building tension in Kano State.
On Tuesday, Northern youths residing in Sagamu, Ogun State, joined the call for caution in handling Kano Gov’ship crisis to avoid bloodshed.
The youths armed with placards with different inscriptions said if violence breaks out in Kano as a result of the disputed poll, it would spread to the South.
Some of the inscriptions read “Avoid bloodshed! Ensure justice for Kano; “Safe today but tomorrow”; “the Kano problem may spread to south”; “We are behind our mandate”; “We are safe in the South but injustice in Kano may spread violence”, among others.
Speaking to journalists, one of the protesters, Nasir Sarkin, an indigene of Kano, said “Most of us here are northerns from various states, but we are concern about happenings in Kano State.
“The people of Kano State voted for Governor Abba Yusuf and some people are there plotting against the mandate. We are here to protest and demand for justice in Kano and justice for Governor Abba Yusuf.”
He called President Bola Tinubu to intervene in the legal battle in order to avoid mayhem in Kano.
Another protester, Tijani Jubril , called on the judiciary to validate Yusuf’s mandate as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the March 18 election.
