Shinkafi petitions US, UK, EU, seeks revocation of Yari’s visa
The Governorship candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) in Zamfara State in the 2019 general election, Alhaji Sani Shinkafi, has written to the Embassies of the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union asking them to revoke the visa of former Governor of the state, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari, for allegedly sponsoring militia groups terrorising the state in the last eight years.
In the letter which was also copied to the Embassies of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, Shinkafi stated that Yari has been stoking the embers of violence and inciting his supporters to violence and destabilising the administration of the state.
Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari, the immediate past governor of Zamfara State and his party, All Progressives Congress (APC) lost the governorship, National Assembly seats including three seats at the Senate, one of which he contested due to faulty primary that was nullified by the Supreme Court.
Shinkafi stated that “the former Governor since his ouster as the Governor of Zamfara State has been heard making some unguarded and provocative statements inciting members of his faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to move against the State Government and make the state insecure and unsafe for citizens.”
”I am writing to demand for the prudential revocation of visa of the former Governor of Zamfara State, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari for stoking the embers of violence and sponsoring kidnapping and other acts of terrorism against the citizens of Zamfara State.
“It is on record that about 8500 Private militia popularly called Yansakai were recruited illegally by the past administration of Abdulaziz Yari in all the seventeen (17) Councils through the former Commissioner for Local and Chieftaincy Affairs, Hon Bello Dankande Gamji, without the backing of any law enacted by State House Assembly,” Shinkafi stated in the letter.
He further stated that the vigilante service group, Yansakai, established had no legal backing governing recruitment and its operations.
“It is still fresh in our memory and reports made to security agencies of the arrests, abductions, tortures and killings of innocent citizens in the markets, streets, and with bodies lying on the streets and nobody could stop them from the jungle justice that went on in the whole of Zamfara State during the Yari-led administration,” he added.
Shinkafi, who is also the Secretary of the Board of Trustees of APGA, noted that “Abdulaziz Yari has been seen publicly inciting his factional APC members not to recognise the administration of His Excellency Bello Muhammad Matawalle as the Executive Governor of Zamfara State but insisted that they called him a sole administrator.
“Severally, he has rejected the 24th May 2019 Judgment of the Supreme Court of Nigeria painting the eminent jurists of the Apex court with all kinds of names”, Shinkafi alleged.
“There are weighty allegations that the former Governor is planning with these unrepentant armed bandits to disrupt the peace accord in the state.
The volunteer vigilante groups Yansakai loyal to Yari have refused to embrace the disarmaments and arms control programme of the State government to augment the accord initiated by Governor Matawalle”.
He pointed out that “there are intelligence reports that Yansakai recruited in Gummi had concluded plans to attack some Fulani settlements to ignite another security breach in the state and set the state on fire again.
“It is on record that the Zamfara State Police Command had on September 24th, 2019 following intelligence reports that Boko Haram was planning to attack and bomb some places in the state like the Central Mosque Gusau, Maradum, Anka, Talata Marafa, Kauran Namoda and Tsafe and the planned assasination of the Deputy Governor and the Speaker of the State House of Assembly banned all forms of political rallies, meetings and processions”.
He said that inspite of the restriction on political rallies, meetings and processions by the Zamfara State Police Command, the former Governor, Abdulaziz Yari still went about inciting his supporters to revolt against the state government with the sole aim of making the state ungovernable for the Matawalle-led government.
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Shinkafi said that Yari’s disregard for the rule of law enshrined in the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended was unfortunate and such a person should not be entitled to enjoy any dividend of democracy in other climes when he is working against the enthronement of democracy in his own state of Zamfara.
According to him, former Governor Yari was heard asking his supporters to resist the Zamfara State Urban and Regional planning Board (ZUREPB) the Enforcement of Town Planning Law, Cap 130 and Zamfara State Edict No 2 of 1996 for building approval permission by the agency of government with the last drop of their blood.
