The need for President Muhammadu Buhari’s Minister of Communications Minister, Isa Pantami to resign has reached new levels, as document linking him with an assassination plot against former Kaduna State Governor, Patrick Yakowa, has been uncovered.
The document uncovered by Peoples Gazzette on Wednesday, exposed how Pantami and other Muslim leaders plotted to assassinate former governor at a meeting in Bauchi.
Pantami allegedly chaired the July 13, 2010, meeting of Jama’atu Nasril Islam, JNI, a foremost Islamic body led by the Sultan of Sokoto Sa’ad Abubakar, where it was agreed that Yakowa and his family must be eliminated because he was a Christian leader leading a state in the Muslim-dominated North.
“We must either use the security or other means to eliminate the governor, his family and all those they perceive as supporting him,” Pantami and other leaders said in their communique adopted at the meeting held at Bauchi Central Mosque.
The meeting further complained that Yakowa was making moves to contest for governor again in 2011 with the backing of former President Goodluck Jonathan, a fellow Christian.
While it was unclear whether the conclusion of the Muslim leaders was responsible for the helicopter crash that killed Yakowa, the minister did not immediately return a request seeking comments from Peoples Gazette on Wednesday night.
Ex-governor Yakowa was the first Christian governor of Kaduna state which is divided between Muslim and Christians, although with a mostly Muslim population.
He became governor in 2010 after Jonathan appointed Namadi Sambo, then Kaduna governor, as his vice-president.
The late Yakowa contested in 2011 and won a substantive four-year term, but was killed in a helicopter crash barely a year later in 2012, alongside former national security adviser Owoeye Patrick Azazi.
The event had long been suspected to be more than just an accident, and investigation into what happened was never concluded or made public till date.
Pantami has come under fire to resign in recent times, following unravelling of his extremist position and ties with jihadists.
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