One person was shot dead while two others were injured by a vigilante member on Sunday afternoon in Yadin Kukuwa Village, Gujba Local Government Area of Yobe State.
An eyewitness told SaharaReporters that the incident occurred when the All Progressives Congress (APC) campaign team went to the village for campaign ahead of March 11, 2023 governorship and State House of Assembly elections.
The eyewitness who preferred anonymous identity for security reasons said that the people of the village were not APC supporters, hence, when the campaign team in the company of the local government chairman, commissioner for humanitarian affairs and other top party officials arrived at the village and tried to talk to them, the people shouted in rejection until the campaign team left the village.
It was gathered that the shooting happened when the crowd followed the campaign team shouting "we are not in support of you" till the team crossed one of the rivers close to the village, where the vigilante member suddenly fired shots, killing one and injuring two others.
The eyewitness said, "Yesterday around 4p.m a group of APC members campaigning for the House of Assembly in the company of the local government chairman, Hon. Dala Mala Bukar and the Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs, Dr. Garba Iyah. Also among them was a SEMA boss, Dr. Goje.
"When they reached Kukuwa, actually the villagers are not supporting APC and so when they gathered at the palace of the village head and started discussing, the people did not allow them to say what they wanted to say. Anything they said, the people would say they are not in support of it. And so nothing reasonable happened in terms of campaign.
"They just gave up with the village and decided to go out but the crowd was too much with a loud shout of "we don't want you!" The crowd followed them out of the town and after they crossed one of the rivers close to the town, the next we heard was that among the vigilante members who escorted the APC campaigners shot one of our boys to death and shot another one in the head but he did not die and we rushed him to the hospital in Buni Yadin.
"When they left, we tried to investigate to find out what happened that caused the shooting because nobody stoned them. They entered the town and apart from shouting that we are not in support of their party, nothing was done to them to warrant the shooting."
When contacted, the Yobe State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Dungus Abdulkarim, confirmed the incident.
He said that one person was killed while two others were injured but noted the vigilante member who fired the shot had been arrested and investigation was ongoing.