Many Nigerians on social media have condemned the arrest of the Kano State governor’s Special Adviser on Media, Salihu Tanko Yakasai hours after criticising President Muhammadu Buhari over the rise in school kidnappings.
Recall that Kano State governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, relieved his Special Adviser on Media, Salihu Tanko Yakasai, of his appointment.
In the wake of the schoolgirl’s abduction in Zamfara State, Tanko-Yakasai, on Friday via his Twitter handle, had described the APC government as failure. Since posting the comment on Twitter however, Tanko-Yakasai had gone missing, a situation that created insinuations that he was arrested by the operatives of the State Security Service, (SSS).
In a swift reaction, however, the Kano State Director of the SSS, Muhammad Alhassan, denied arresting Tanko-Yakasai. However, hours after the SSS denial, the State governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje has sacked the media aide.
The State’s Commissioner for Information, Muhammad Garba, who conveyed the governors directive in a statement today, said the sacking followed Tanko-Yakasais continued unguarded comments and utterances which are deemed contrary to the stand of the APC, a government which he is serving. According to him, the sack is with immediate effect.
Citing the reason behind its decision, he said the aide had failed to differentiate between personal opinion and official stand on matters of public concern and, therefore, could not be allowed to continue to serve in a government he does not believe.
Speaking with newsmen yesterday, the father of the governors aide and a founding member of Arewa Consultative Forum, (ACF), and elder statesman, Alhaji Tanko Yakasai, said his son was arrested on Friday on his way to a barbing salon.
Though the DSS in Kano State denied arresting the younger Yakasai, it was gathered that he might have been taken to the DSS headquarters in Abuja.
The embattled media aide was sometimes 2020 suspended from office for several weeks having earlier criticised Buhari over his failure to tackle the security challenges bedeviling the country.
Reacting, some tweets argued that though Ganduje has the right to sack Yakasai, it was wrong for the aide to be arrested.
