TheCable

Abdulaziz Yari, governor of Zamfara state, has described the killing of eight people over alleged blasphemy against Prophet Mohammed as unnecessary and “an act of the devil”.

However, he clarified that the eight people burnt to death with the man accused of the crime were actually Muslims and not Christians as being reported.

Speaking with journalists on Wednesday after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, Yari said the government would not tolerate people taking laws into their hands.

“What happened is unnecessary and it’s not supposed to take place if not for the act of the devil,” he said.

“The government will not take this lightly, people taking laws into their hands. If you say the punishment for who abused the Prophet is to be killed, do you now kill innocent people?

“By the way, there is a government in place, there are laws and they are courts where Islamic laws are practised in Zamfara, so why should someone take laws into his hands? So, definitely, all the culprits will be brought to book.”

He said that the perpetrators of the crime would be caught and prosecuted.

Yari said based on the intelligence he got from the security agencies, trouble started when a student alleged that another had insulted Prophet Muhammed.

“There was a fight between two students and I think one of them injured the other and started shouting that he abused Prophet Muhammad and other students came and beat the other  boy who is Yoruba from Kogi state,” the governor said.

“Some people are saying he is a Muslim and some say the boy is a Christian, but they beat the student until he collapsed and thought he was dead. Security personnel requested help from one shop owner who then took the boy to the hospital in his car.

“Then the students heard that the boy was still alive and in the hospital, so they went to the hospital. However, the boy was rescued by the army in the hospital, but I don’t know if the boy is alive or dead now.

“Then the students went back to the polytechnic and burnt  the shop of the person who gave his car to rescue the boy and they came back to town again – the police in the division  didn’t have enough men to contain the riot – and before reinforcement came in, the crowd threw tyres into  the man’s house and burned it down.

“That was how everybody in the house was killed; and everybody 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.”