A violent clash erupted late Tuesday evening between youths of Sabon Gari area of Kano and officials of Kano State Hisbah Board, when the latter raided a shop selling alcoholic drinks in the area.
It was gathered that Hisbah officials had stormed Ballat Hughes by Court Road in the area to confiscate alcoholic drinks at a drinking joint operated by a woman but met with stiff resistance from youths in the area, a situation that degenerated into a violent clash.
The sale and consumption of alcoholic drinks in Kano State are prohibited under the state’s Sharia Law but the Sabon Gari area, where residents are majorly those from the southern part of the country, has always been an exemption to the implementation of the law.
The development was said to have been a departure from the normal operation of the Islamic police as it relates to jurisdiction.
The irate youths were said to have attacked the Hisbah officials and set bonfires and barricades across the road.
Residents of the area said the situation led to a stampede as hoodlums took advantage of the unrest to loot shops and rob passers-by.
The police were later deployed and normalcy was restored.
The spokesman of the police in the state, DSP Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa, told City News that the Commissioner of Police, Samaila Dikko, has ordered a full investigation into the situation, noting that two suspects have already been arrested.
Reacting, the Commander General of Kano Hisbah Board, Ustaz Haruna Sani Ibn Sina said the Kano State Hisbah Board Law 2004 as amended did not exclude any area of Kano from the enforcement on the ban on alcohol in the state.
He said the raid was based on information they received that “hundreds of Muslim youths, both male and female, were in the area to engage in prostitution, drinking beer and other intoxicants which resulted the youths to commit other social vices like phone snatching.”
“Drinking, transporting, distributing and selling of a beer is prohibited in the state under section 10 of Kano State Hisbah board law 2004 as amended. The law did not exclude any area in the state”
Meanwhile, the state governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje has warned the people not to capitalise on the situation to perpetrate violence capable of throwing the state into chaos.
In a statement by Muhammad Garba, the state’s commissioner for information, Ganduje called the people in the state to remain calm and desist from engaging in any act capable of shattering the prevailling peace government has long worked for in the state. (Daily Trust)
