INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, His Family Burnt To Death In Kano

Alhaji Abdullahi Minkaila, the Kano state resident electoral
commissioner, was on Thursday, April 2, burnt to death with his
family.

The dead man was burnt along with his wife and two children in an
inferno when his house was engulfed by fire.

The late Mikaila and his family were hurried to the Murtala Mohammed
specialist hospital where they died on Friday morning.

Minkaila oversaw last Saturday's presidential and National Assembly
polls in the state.

The cause of the fire is yet to be determined at the time of this report.

A spokesperson of the Independent National Electoral Commission,
Mallam Garba, confirmed the incident.

Magaji Majiya, an assistant superintendent of police, said the fire
was supposed to have been caused by a spark in the family's generator
set at about 4a.m. Friday morning.

He said the fire later spread to other parts of the house and that the
INEC Commissioner and his family tried to escape through the window of
one of the toilets in the building but were barricaded by a burglary
barrier.

Majiya said the State Police Commissioner, Ibrahim Idris, and the
Deputy Police Commissioner in-charge of Criminal Investigation
Department, arrived the scene almost on time.

While the police said they are waiting for the result of a postmortem
on the remains of Mr. Abdullahi and his family, the spokesman for the
Kano state office of INEC, Garba Muhammed, said the bodies of the
victims were already being transported to his native Dutse, the Jigawa
state capital, for burial, in line with Islamic tradition.

Some neighbours, who rejected to be named in this story for fear they
might be harassed by the police, said the fire was strange, and
suggested the police should not believe the case an ordinary one.

They wondered why a spark from a generator would engulf an entire
building and kill its occupants so fast.

As was reported earlier Nigeria's presidential poll has been a
watershed: the first time that the most populous African nation is
has handed over power peacefully and democratically. Muhammadu
Buhari, the APC candidate won the election fairly, according to
election observers.