After a youngster scaled the well-known Kofar Nasarawa flyover bridge on Friday and allegedly threatened to kill himself if President Muhammadu Buhari did not step down, there were differing reactions in Kano.
InsightnaijaTV reports that the young man, whose identity has been confirmed as Hamza Yahaya, drew a crowd on the busy street as many stopped to implore him to reconsider.
According to reports, the state fire service personnel raced to the situation and saved Hamza from the bridge’s pavement.
Abdullahi Madugu, an eyewitness and a resident of Kofar Nasarawa, who confirmed the news to Vanguard, claimed the man stormed the scene of the event while his route to Friday Juma’at prayers.
“I was rushing to attend the Juma’at prayers around 1:30 pm when I saw a large crowd of people gathered watching a boy who climbed the bridge (popular Kofar Nasarawa bridge) and threatened to commit suicide or President Muhammadu resign.
“They (people around and even the firemen) pacified him to come down but he insisted that he would not come down. I heard him saying this with my own ears. He is not a small boy. This may be as a result of the situation of day-to-day activities.
“It was one Malam Musa (who move about selling clothes) that drew the attention of the fire service who deployed their men and rescued the boy,” Vanguard quoted Madugu as saying.
According to information obtained by InsightnaijaTV Saminu Yusif, the spokesperson for the Kano State Fire Service, disputed rumors that the man had attempted suicide due to financial difficulty or that he would continue to live until the President resigned.
According to Yusif, the agency received a distress call at 1:40 pm regarding the young man who was discovered on a bridge’s pavement.
“He told us he doesn’t know how he got in there. He told us he is a resident of Sharada area of the state and that he ran away from their house to the area some three months ago because their neighbour sent him on an errand with N4,000 and he spent the money.
“He is about 15 years old and can’t say such (commit suicide or President Buhari resigns) but the claims were by people around who coined the story along that line giving previous experiences.
“Our men deployed tactics and safely rescued the boy from the pavement. We handed him over to one SP Rabiu Tale at the Kwalli Police Division to investigate the matter,” Yusif explained.
The state police command is however yet to make any official statement regarding the incident as of reporting time.
