IN continued display of barefaced violence, gunmen suspected to be Islamic extremists opened fire on the convoy of the influential Emir of Kano on Saturday, killing four people, including his driver and 3 other personal aides.
The Emir himself, Alhaji Ado Bayero was unhurt in the attack which bore the hallmark of a failed assassination attempt.
Alhaji Bayero, who is the 19th Emir of the historic city, was on his way back from a religious function at a major mosque in the city when attackers took advantage of the opportunity of a traditional gun salute by palace guards to stage their attack.
“What followed were sporadic shots, which led everyone to run for cover,” said a bystander who preferred to remain anonymous for safety reasons.
Other eyewitnesses say that the attackers rode in on motorbikes, from which they fired shots with automatic rifles at the Emir’s convoy.
The bravery of the royal guards attached to the Emir, who blocked access to the Emir and returned fire before they were felled, may have saved the Emir’s life.
Following the incident, the Joint Task Force cordoned off the area and intensified security throughout the ancient city.
The largest city north of the Niger, Kano has witnessed an uptick of violence in recent months, with attacks staged by violent Islamist sect Boko Haram targeting security forces almost on a daily basis.
The Emir of Kano is one of the two most senior Islamic traditional leaders in Nigeria, the other being the Sultan of Sokoto. The current emir has been on the throne for half a
century.
Saturday’s attack occurred almost exactly a year after a coordinated series of attacks by Boko Haram in the same city of Kano left almost 185 people dead, shocking the Emir who made an emotional appeal to a visiting President Goodluck Jonathan to do something to protect people from violent religious fundamentalists.
Practicing a strict Wahabist brand of Islam modeled on the Afghan Taliban, Boko Haram are fiercely anti-establishment and often attack Islamic clerics, many of whom they regard as corrupt, self serving and insufficiently strict in their interpretation of the Koran.
However, most of the victims of the group are innocent Muslims and Christians, among who are hundreds of Christians who have been targeted and massacred at their places of worship in different locations in the northern part of Nigeria.