Six people have been reported killed while several others were injured in Utai village of Wudil Local Government Area of Kano State during the Saturday’s supplementary elections in the constituency.
The incident happened while election of the State House of Assembly which was earlier declared inconclusive was ongoing, leaving residents in fear as peaceful atmosphere of the village was disrupted.
According to eyewitnesses, violence erupted in the village after the commencement of the election in the only polling unit with less than 600 people, where some thugs suspected to be smuggled into the village attempted to disrupt the process.
The supplementary election was between the top two candidates, Nuhu Abdullahi of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Ali Abdullahi Manager of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), in which the NNPP candidate was later declared as the winner of the election.
Speaking to Daily Trust, DanAsabe Sulaiman, a resident, said most of the people killed were not from the village.
He said the villagers were aware of the plan by some politicians to deploy thugs to the area during the election and planned ahead of their coming, adding that about three vehicles were also burnt.
Another eyewitness, who did not want to be named, put the number of the people killed at nine.
According to him, three more people that got injured died while recieving treatment at a hospital, adding that one of them was slaughtered at the polling unit.
“They (the deceased) are more than six, so far I can count nine because three more people died in the hospital. They are many. They (the hoodlums) were brought here since Friday evening just to disrupt the election in only one polling unit.
“The violence started when an elderly man, not from this town, wanted to cause problem here, and immediately they stabbed him with a knife in his throat. That was the terrible part of it that I saw. The thugs and other people were all deployed from elsewhere; that is what we observed,” he said.
Another source told Daily Trust that there was similar violence in Garko, a neighboring LGA to Wudi where three vehicles were burnt by thugs.
“No life was lost here in Garko, but they burnt three vehicles, one belonged to the former LG chairman.”
Also, violence was reported in Fagge LGA where supplementary election for the LG’s Federal Constituency was conducted, and thugs were said to have destroyed a ballot box but no life was lost in the area.
The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, SP Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa, did not respond to calls and a tex message sent to him about the matter as at the time of filing this report.
However, the state Commissioner of Police, CP. Muhammed Gumel, was quoted to have confirmed the clash in the LGA but could not give details, stressing that the police were still making inquiries to determine the nature of the confrontation.
He added that at the moment, the police cannot confirm whether the clash was directly related to the ongoing supplementary election in the area or not. He, however, promised to provide the details of the clash in due course.
Daily Trust