President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered an investigation into the killing of a student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, Deborah Samuel on Thursday.
Deborah, a 200-level student of the institution, was killed and set ablaze on the campus of the college for allegedly blaspheming the name of the Prophet Mohammed.
A video that has since gone viral shows the students of the college stoning Deborah until she fell, even as they continued stoning her, with some hitting her motionless body with sticks. Thereafter, they set her body ablaze with the aid of disused motor tyres.
Buhari, in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, condemned the killing of the student and condemned the practice of people taking the laws into their hands.
“President Muhammadu Buhari strongly condemns the resort to self-help by the mob in Sokoto, resulting in violence, destruction, and killing of a second-year student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, Deborah Samuel, following an allegation that she had blasphemed Muhammad (SAW), the Prophet of Islam, on Thursday,” the statement said.
“President Buhari said the news of the killing of the young lady by fellow students was a matter of concern and demanded an impartial, extensive probe into all that happened before and during the incident.
“The President noted that Muslims all over the world demand respect for the Holy Prophets, including Isah (Alaihissalaam, Jesus Christ) and Muhammad (SAW), but where transgressions occur, as alleged to be the case in this instance, the law does not allow anyone to take matters into their hands.
“Moreover, religious leaders preach that it is not for the believer to judge the actions of another person. The constituted authority must be allowed to deal with such matters when they arise,” the statement said.
The president declared that “no person has the right to take the law in his or her own hands in this country. Violence has and never will solve any problem.”
He therefore ordered the Ministries of Information and Culture, Police Affairs and of Communications and Digital Economy to work with GSM providers and tech companies to help contain the spread of false and inflammatory information through social media.
And in its reaction to the killing, the Christian Association of Nigeria called for the arrest and prosecution of Deborah’s killers.
CAN in a statement by its General Secretary, Joseph Daramola, said the unlawful and dastardly action of the student’s killers must not only be condemned by all right-thinking people, but security operatives must also fish them out and prosecute them.
“We also call on all teachers and preachers of religious intolerance, extremism, and terrorism to repent before the wrath of God descends on them if the state failed to bring them to book. They are agents of death amidst us.
“We recall the provocative and demeaning advertisement of Sterling Bank where the bank compared the Resurrection of Jesus Christ to “Agege bread”, up till now, nobody was attacked and even the CAN leadership has accepted the apology tendered by its Chief Executive, Abubakar Suleiman.
“Killing for any God in the name of blasphemy is ungodly, satanic, foolish, reprehensible and totally unacceptable. This is not a Stone Age and Nigeria is not a Banana Republic.
“Nigeria remains a non-religious state where no religion is supreme to the other.
“We acknowledge and commend the restraint of the Christian students of the college who refused to embrace self-help and reprisal attacks on those who murdered their colleague.
“It is our prayers that those vampires in religious garments will not push the country into a religious war.
“This is why both the government and the security agencies must stop treating them with kid gloves. Enough is enough.”
However, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in a surprise move on Friday deleted posts in his name on both Facebook and Twitter that condemned Deborah’s killing.
Atiku, one of the contenders for the presidential ticket for the People’s Democratic Party, deleted the statements following attacks on him, following threats from Islamic fanatics who said he had lost their votes for his sympathy for the late student.
