Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, has sacked his media adviser, Salihu Tanko-Yakasai a.k.a Dawisu, a day after criticising President Muhammadu and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The state information commissioner, Muhammad Garba, said Tanko-Yakassai was relieved of his appointment for “unguarded comments and utterances.”
According to PremiumTimes, the “sack is with immediate effect.”
Garba said the aide had failed to differentiate between personal opinion and official stand on matters of public concern and therefore could not be allowed to continue to serve in a government he does not believe in.
“The governor also warned political appointees and public servants to guard against making statements capable of drawing superfluous controversy.”
Although a member of the APC, Tanko-Yakassai had on several occasions criticised the government. He was once suspended by Ganduje in October for two weeks for expressing solidarity with the #EndSARS protest across Nigeria against police brutality.
His recent criticism cost him his job and since been picked up and detained at the State Security Service (SSS) headquarters in Abuja after his arrest in Kano Friday evening.
His arrest and sack came hours after calling on President Buhari Muhammadu to check Nigeria’s worsening insecurity or resign.
“Clearly, we as APC government, at all levels, have failed Nigerians in the number 1 duty we were elected to do which is to secure lives & properties.
“Not a single day goes by without some sort of insecurity in this land. This is a shame! Deal with terrorists decisively or resign,” Mr Yakasai wrote in a tweet, reacting to the abduction of schoolgirls in Zamfara State on Friday.
317 girls were kidnapped from their school. The Zamfara raid made it the second abduction of students in less than a week in the northern part of the country.
An unidentified group last week carried out an overnight attack on a boarding school in Niger State and kidnapped 42 people, including 27 students. The hostages were released on Saturday.
More than 300 boys were kidnapped from a school in December in Kankara, in Katsina State, while the president, Muhammadu Buhari, was in the state for a visitation.
Following negotiations with government officials, the boys were set free.
The northern region has coincided with an increase in the use of armed groups leading to widespread and worsening security breakdowns.
On Wednesday, a group of bandits blamed its campaign of crimes and terror on the supposed inability of Buhari to solve the problems faced by their community, insisting that the president must physically come to dialogue with its members.
The group of bandits interviewed by Daily Trust also claimed it supported Buhari when he first became Nigeria’s president and that the president has not rewarded their gesture.
“We supported this administration and accepted dialogue because we thought Buhari will fix this country, but he won’t fix this country,” a masked bandit told Daily Trust.
“An agreement was reached, but you left that person in the forest with a gun and nothing to substitute. What do you expect? How do you want that person to survive? All the promises made to us none of it was fulfilled,” he said.
The bandit further criticised Buhari for not having allocation in the budget for the nomadic communities.
“During Abacha, there was allocation in the budget for the nomadic communities. There was no such thing again since Obasanjo became president. They stopped looking after the Fulanis. Their forests and grazing areas were taken over,” he said.
The country has continued to see a spike in insecurity recently. In the past few months, bandits have been carrying out series of attacks and kidnappings in northern Nigeria.
