Update: Kano INEC Commissioner Resident , wife, children killed in “strange” fire

Aftermath of the presidential decisions a weekend ago, Kano State’s Electoral Commissioner, Alhaji Abdullahi Minkaila has been executed in a strange flame episode.

The deceased was smoldered alongside his wife and two youngsters, in a flame scene , which happened Thursday night.

The late Minkaila and his family were raced to the Murtala Mohammed master clinic where they gave up the ghost at the beginning of today. Representative of the Independent Electoral Commission, Mallam Garba affirmed the scene says they couldn’t discover the genuine reason for the inferno.

Update:

The Resident Commissioner for the Independent National Electoral Commissioner in Kano, Mikaila Abdulahi, has died, a PREMIUM TIMES correspondent in Kano has said.

He quoted some neighbours as describing the fire incident as “strange”. Mr. Mikaila, who oversaw last Saturday’s presidential and national assembly elections in the state, reportedly died in a strange fire incident at his residence on Friday morning.

Our correspondent said Mr. Mikaila’s wife, Zulaiha, and two daughters, Aisha and Asmau, were also killed in the incident.

The spokesperson of the Kano state Command of the Police confirmed the incident to our reporter. Magaji Majiya, an assistant superintendent of police, said the INEC commissioner and his family died as they tried to escape through the window of their apartment.

He said the fire was suspected 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 blocked by a burglary barrier.

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

They later rushed the INEC commissioner and his family to Murtala Muhammad Hospital, where they were confirmed dead, the police spokesperson said.  While the police said they are waiting for the result of an autopsy on the remains of Mr. Abdullahi and his family, the spokesperson for the Kano state office of INEC, Garba Muhammed, said the bodies of the victims were already being conveyed to his native Dutse, the Jigawa state capital, for burial, in line with Islamic tradition.

Some neighbours, who declined 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 consider the incident an ordinary one.  They wondered why a spark from a generator would engulf an entire building and kill its occupants so fast.