Zamfara's Governor Abdulaziz Yari says all those killed in recent attack were Muslims

ZAMFARA State governor Abdulaziz Yari has debunked claims that the recent murder of eight people at the Abdu Gusau Polytechnic in Talata Mafara was a religious clash as all those killed in the incident were Muslims.

 

On Monday, on a gruesome mass lynching, eight people were killed in the town after a male student was alleged to have committed blasphemy during an exchange of words with his friend. His disagreement with the Muslim adherent caused tension in the school, which attracted large mobs of die-hard fanatics, who stormed a building he fled to and murder all eight people within it.

 

Widely condemned as another religious attack in which Muslims butchered innocent Christians, the incident has even led to President Muhammadu Buhari promising that the perpetuators will be punished. However, dispelling the notion that it was a religious clash, Governor Yari debunked insinuations that it was a religious clash in which Christians were killed.

 

According to the governor, all those killed were Muslims and he promised to ensure that the killers are brought to book. Speaking after meeting with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Governor Yari described the killings as an act of the devil.

 

Governor Yari said: “From the intelligence I had from the security agencies, there was a fight between two students and I think one of them injured the other and started shouting that the other person abused Prophet Muhammad. Other students came and beat up the other boy who is Yoruba from Kogi State.

 

"Some people are saying he was a Muslim and some say the boy was a Christian but they beat the student until he collapsed and thought he was dead. Then security personnel requested help from one shop owner who then took the boy to the hospital in his car but when the students heard that the boy was still alive and in the hospital, they went to the hospital but he was rescued by soldiers in the hospital."

 

According to the governor, the students then went back to the polytechnic and burnt down the shop of the person who gave his car to rescue the boy. He added that they went back to town again but the police in the division did not have enough men to contain the riot and before reinforcements came, the crowd threw a tyre in the man’s house and burnt it to the ground.

 

“That was how everybody in the house was killed and all the people killed in the house were Muslims and not like the rumours going around in the social media that Christians are being killed in Zamfara. In fact, the mob wanted to go and burn churches and attack non-Muslims but the security forces stopped them," Governor Yari added.