A crisis is rocking the Langel village in Tofa Local Government Area of Kano State over who becomes its next village head.
It was gathered that the crisis, which started a few days ago, resulted in a clash among the residents of the community leaving many of them injured.
The decision of the former Village Head of the area, Alhaji Mahmuda Langel, to step down due to his old age after spending over 50 years on the throne was said to be the genesis of the crisis.
The former village head anointed his eldest son, Alhaji Abubakar Langel, to take over from him but some members of the community refused to accept the decision.
According to those who supported the endorsement, Alhaji Abubakar was doing exceptionally well even before his father stepped down and the majority of residents in the community had decided to support him to succeed his father.
A source in the community, who asked not to be named, said those that were against the monarch’s decision nominated two other candidates to contest the seat through an election process.
The election held last Sunday returned one Alhaji Umaru as the winner and, therefore, the next village head of the community.
But those who are supporting the anointed candidate of the former village head argued that the election process was not fair and called on the Bichi Emirate to annul it.
“According to the succession plan of the Langel Community, there are 23 people who are eligible to vote in the election of the village head. The eligible voters are Sarkin Noma, Sarkin Aska, Sarkin Fawa, Sarkin Fulani, Sarkin Kasuwa, Sankira, 13 ward heads of the community, two Imams and two community elders. However, many people were brought in from outside the community to vote in the exercise they called an election,” Hussaini Sankira, one of those supposed to be eligible to vote in the election, said.
“When we noticed that people were brought in from outside, we complained to our District Head, Alhaji Isyaku Umar Tofa (Makaman Bichi), and he told us that he was not there to conduct an election but was only there to advise the community members on the issue. Later, he started asking people for the best candidate. After this, he made the announcement that based on the interview he conducted, Alhaji Umaru is the best candidate for the position and he was eventually declared the new village head.”
He said the election was wrongly conducted, adding that, “We are suspecting that the whole issue is being plotted to impose the man on us. We don’t want this person to lead us as he knows nothing about our community. He lives in Kano city. He does not even mingle with us.
“We are calling on the Emir of Bichi, Alhaji Nasiru Ado Bayero, as a matter of urgency, to look into the matter and do justice to us by conducting a free and fair election.”
Sankira noted that after the announcement of the winner in the election, some of the community members around started shouting “ba ma yi”, (meaning we don’t want) and some security personnel on ground started “attacking and intimidating the villagers”.
A victim of the fracas, Dauda Fegin Langel said that he was beaten up by the security men, saying one of them used his gun to hit him severally leaving him with serious injuries on his face and head.
The former village head also called on the Bichi Emirate Council to intervene and do justice to the community.
But reacting, the District Head of Tofa, Alhaji Isyaku Umar Tofa (Makaman Bichi) said there is no iota of truth in all the allegations, noting that it was obvious for a loser of any election to complain fin order to get sympathy from the people.
“We don’t normally conduct elections for the position of village head. What we do is to advise the community on the issue. So this is exactly what happened in Langel. Three people contested for the position. We gathered 45 people for the exercise. When we asked them about their views on these three contestants, 34 people chose Alhaji Umaru, eight people chose Alhaji Abubakar while the other contestant, Alhaji Haruna did not get any vote. The other people did not choose any one of the three contestants.”
He insisted that after the process, community members were celebrating and happy for the new village head.
The district head also said that he is not aware of the tradition of the community on setting 23 eligible voters for the election of village head position, insisting that all those that participated in the process are qualified members of the community.
He, therefore, called on the aggrieved community members to embrace what Allah has destined to them as all of them are from one family.
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