An unspecified number of victims were injured during Thursday’s (yesterday, August 1) hardship protest as hoodlums and thugs attempted to invade the Kano State Government House.
Witnesses said the hoodlums hiding under the cover of the hunger protests had arrived early enough and were able to mix up with the crowd of protesters that surged towards the Government House to lodge their petitions.
Said a witness in an interview with our correspondent: “This morning, the protesters were in hundreds and they came from different directions only to gather by the Government House roundabout.
“Instructively not only were they protesting, some of them were pushing to gain entry into the Government House. Several civil efforts were made to disperse them but were unsuccessful.
“Soon after they arrived, they started vandalizing any Government facility outside the premises that caught their eyes, including vehicles belonging to civilians.
“The security personnel threw tear gas at them but some of them are somehow immune to such crowd control measures as they would pick up the same tear gas and throw it back at the Government House security personnel.
“When it became obvious that the situation was getting worse, the security personnel at the Government House had to call for reinforcement resulting in the deployment of the military and officers from the Department of State Service.
“The soldiers, upon their arrival, mounted a pipe of warm water and attempted to use it to disperse the thugs; they would be pushed back only to resurface in seconds, still stoning the security personnel
“After several warnings that fell on deaf ears, I suspect that the security personnel engaged them in a more serious manner which brought the situation under control.”
” I am sure a number of victims were wounded arising from what happened here today but I don’t have the facts,” the eyewitness surmised.
