Nigerian state electoral commissioner Mukaila Abdullah and family die in house fire one week after election
Posted Friday 4/4/2015, at 9:55am
The
electoral commissioner for Nigeria's Kano state, the nation's
second-most populous, has died in a house fire with his wife and two
children.
"It
is true we lost our commissioner to a fire outbreak in his house," said
Lawan Garba, spokesman for the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) in Kano.
Resident electoral commissioner Mukaila Abdullah presided over polls last weekend in which opposition presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari won overwhelming support in the northern state.
Mr Buhari's All Progressives Congress (APC) also took all available seats in the parliamentary vote held at the same time.
The fire broke out in the early hours of the morning at Mr Abdullah's house in the upmarket Nassarawa area of Kano.
The state's police spokesman, Musa Magaji Majia, said the fire began in the living room's air conditioning unit.
Attempts
were made to break inside the house, and when police and security
guards managed to enter, the family was found unconscious on the floor
of the bathroom.
"They
quickly removed them to Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital, where the
doctor confirmed them dead ... from inhalation of hot and black smoke,"
Mr Majia said.
An investigation had been launched, he added.
The
spokesman for the electoral office said the bodies have been moved to
the commissioner's home town, Dutse, where he will be buried after
Friday prayers.
Nigeria had been on edge in fear of a repeat of politically motivated post-poll violence, but it failed to materialise.
Who is Muhammadu Buhari?
Defeated
candidate president Goodluck Jonathan was credited with defusing
tensions by conceding to Mr Buhari even before all results were
declared.
In 2011, Kano state was hit by two days of rioting after Mr Jonathan's Peoples Democratic Party won the state.
Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso later defected to the APC.
New
president-elect, Mr Buhari, headed a military government in the 1980s
and is a former governor of the old Northeastern State, which includes
modern-day Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states hit by fighting with Boko
Haram rebels.
The
72-year-old, a northern Muslim, has criticised Boko Haram's radical
brand of Islam, and last year escaped with his life after an attack
blamed by some on the militants.
Mr
Jonathan, a Christian from the south, was widely perceived in the north
to have been indifferent to the insurgency and its devastating effects.
No comments:
Post a Comment