January 25, 2022

The Kano State Government has revoked the licences of all private schools in the state following the abduction and gruesome murder of five-year-old Hanifa Abubakar by the proprietor of her school.

The government has also arraigned three suspects involved in the murder case.

The suspects – Tanko Abdulmalik Mohammed, the school proprietor; Ishiaku Hamisu; and Fatimah Jibril were arraigned at the Chief Magistrate Court 12, Gidan Murtala.

The court read out the charges of conspiracy, kidnapping, concealing/keeping in confinement a kidnapped person, and culpable homicide. They consented to all the charges.

The case was subsequently adjourned until February 2.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General of Kano State, Musa Abdulahi has assured Nigerians that justice will be served very soon. He promised no delay in the matter.

“What I will like to assure you is that the Ministry of Justice is going to, within the next three to four days, file a charge before the proper court.

“We intend to pursue this case vigorously and within the next month or two, we are going to finish with the prosecution of this case. Please stay calm, let the law take its course. We are a society of law-abiding citizens.

“We do know that it is very painful when these kinds of things happen, we tend to ask ourselves what is happening with our society but we should understand we are living peacefully because of the laws governing us.

“If not for those laws and security agencies, these suspects would not have been arrested within the shortest possible time.”

Hanifa was abducted by her teacher who demanded ransom of N6 million from her parents, collected the ransom but still killed her.

Meantime, the revocation of licences of private schools has created panic among parents and the school system in the state.

Some parents and school owners accused the government of being irrational with the sweeping decision and wondered whether the same government would have done the same if the incident had happened in a public school.

While they condemned the murder of Hanifa, they cautioned that government should lump all private schools together as evil schools.