Shinkafi to security agents: Don’t allow ‘illegal’ protests to escalate in Zamfara

From Ibrahim Sidi Muh’d, Gusau

In order to maintain the prevailing relative peace, a Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Zamfara State chapter, Sani Abdullahi Shinkafi, has called on security agencies to be very vigilante against any act of protests in the excuse of security challenges by some villagers in the state.

Shinkafi made the call at a press briefing on Thursday, in his Gusau residence, inside the Zamfara State capital, describing the recent protests by the teeming people of Fegin Mahe and other villages under Gusau and Jimrawa and other villages under Kaura Namoda local government area as politically motivated.

He explained that, economic and security experts have jointly studied the situation which finally revealed that, the vehicles been used in their large numbers to convey the hundreds of protesters all away from their remote villages down to the state capital remained questionable.

Shinkafi further expressed fear for criminals to take advantage of the protests to hide under with their nasty aims of igniting violence and chaos that would lead to breakdown of law and order especially in a state like Zamfara which is too fragile in terms of security.

According to him, experts had digested everything as regard to the cost of transportation, feeding and other incentives for hundreds of heads which obviously could not be affordable to a person or group of persons that struggle for what to eat after been dispersed by criminals.

He said: “The protesters are really been sponsored by some unpatriotic politicians whose aims were to take advantage of insecurity just to hit their political targets. For this, let me call on the State Governor and security agencies to arrest some of them in efforts to ascertain the identity of those sponsoring the illegal protests.

“It is against the law for citizens to stage whether any kind of demonstration without the consent and permission by the State Governor, and this is exactly what is going on especially in the state capital, that should not be taken for granted.

“Nigerian Public Order Act outlines the legal framework for managing public assemblies, meetings, and processions, including those that are peaceful demonstrations. It empowers the State Governor to prescribe routes and times for processions and allows police officers to stop or disperse assemblies that violate the Act or lack necessary permits.

“The Act allows the State Governor to direct the conduct of all assemblies, meetings, and processions on public roads or places of public resort, it also requires a permit or license for certain processions, and Police officers can stop or disperse those that violate the conditions of the permit or lack one”.