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Anti-Obasanjo Protest in Kano: Matters Arising

Mohammed Haruna

Last month this newspaper carried an exclusive front page story of the ill-treatment of some youths arrested by the Kano State Command of the Nigeria Police for their alleged participation in violent protests against President Olusegun Obasanjo during his three-day visit to the state towards the end of July. The youths were alleged to have booed and thrown stones at the president’s convoy close to the Emir of Kano’s Palace.

Our story tried to draw public attention to the police ill-treatment of the youths, many of whom were under-age. The young men had been transferred to Abuja in great discomfort and once they arrived there, they had been treated worse than criminals; they were denied food for days and were put in the same cells with, and were invariably molested by, more hardened alleged criminals.

To make an already bad enough case worse, one of the young men, Muntari Abba Kebara, 19, seems to have disappeared in the course of their movement between police stations in Kano. The young man’s father, Malam Garba Muhammad Kabara, has since petitioned the Inspector General of Police, (IGP), demanding the release or the trial of his son.

Kabara Snr.’s petition to the IGP had been preceeded by a search through several police stations where the arrested young men had been taken to. The search had ended at Murtala Muhammed Hospital mortuary, where the police, which had insisted that there were no casualties from its clash with the youth, had taken Kabara Snr. to in order to identify the body of a boy whose name the police claimed was Abba Uba Kabara. Kabara Snr. Had discovered that Abba was not his son.

Our primary concerns here are three. First we are concerned with the way young men, mostly unemployed, are used by politicians to score political points against each other. We believe the Kano incident can be blamed on politicians who do not like Obasanjo and were prepared to spare no expense to make Kano a no go area for the president. These opposition politicians may argue that the protests were prompted, not by themselves, but by the popular hatred of Obasanjo’s discriminatory policies against Kano citizens. Even if this were true, the fact is that the behaviour of people, is, in the long run, a function of how their leaders behave. If leaders condone, rather than condemn, violent behaviour against others, their followers will regard such behaviour as a legitimate weapon of protest. All too often, Nigerian politicians not only condone political violence, they actively encourage it.

In this respect, we must commend the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero, for his courage in apologizing to the president for the ill-mannered behaviour of those who stoned the president’s convoy close to his palace. As for the politicians, we can only hope that they will come to realize that political violence is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways. They must come to the realization that though they have a right to protest at policies they do not like, they do not have a right to make their domain a no-go area for their political rivals.

Our second concern about the fallout of the anti-Obasanjo protest in Kano, was the treatment of the youths arrested over the protest. Their ill-treatment by the police is simply unacceptable. Even more unacceptable is the apparent Nigeria Police policy of transferring such cases to Abuja. We find it difficult to understand why alleged offenders for crimes outside Abuja must be taken to Abuja for investigations. Commonsense dictates that unless an offence is cross-boarder, information for the offence should be found in the locality of the alleged crime. We believe the police habit of routinely transferring alleged offenders to Abuja, almost always in the greatest discomfort, is simply malevolent and it must stop.

Last, but by no means the least, we are completely at one with Kabara Snr. in his petition to the IGP over the disappearance of his son. The Kano State Commissioner of Polce, Mr. Kieran Diidari, has denied knowledge of the disappearance of Kabara Jnr, even though he has promised to investigate Kabara Snr.’s petition. This is simply not good enough. Kabara Jnr’s name had been entered in the police crime list at Jakara Police Station from where the arrested youths were moved to Police Headquarters in Bompai prior to their transfer to Abuja. Kabara Jnr. seems to have disappeared between Jakara and Bompai. The police must be held fully responsible for his disappearance.