By Festus Adedayo, PhD
Last Wednesday, popular political commentator, Ibrahim Khalil (aka Dan Shagamu) was brutally murdered in Kumbotso, Kano. He had his throat slit. Known for his scathing Hausa posts on Facebook and TikTok, Khalil was a fierce critic of the APC-led government, President Bola Tinubu and the military.
Kano Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf also frequently drew his ire, as he hit him hard with his spatula. The influencer constantly called out economic hardship, northern insecurity, and alleged army atrocities against Fulanis. Condemning his murder, Amnesty International Nigeria highlighted the growing threats facing government critics.
This tragedy mirrors the July 10, 1981 murder of 35-year-old Dr. Bala Mohammed in Kano. It was a defining political hit of the Second Republic. Decades apart, both killings point to a persistent menace: political thugs acting as ruthless enforcers for the ruling class, leaving a long-standing trail of violence, blood, and broken institutions across Nigeria.
Forty-five years before Dan Shagamu, Dr. Mohammed was equally mercilessly murdered in the same Kano. Often dubbed the Kano “July 10 Rampage,” Mohammed’s brutal killing remains one of Second Republic Nigeria’s most terrifying and defining political killings. The masterminds of that dark day were political thugs — the very same dangerous, rampaging breed that disrupted the peace of Benue State last week and who likely killed Dan Shagamu.
Like swarming wasps defending a rotten nest, political enforcers have long served as the blunt force instrument of Nigerian statecraft, leaving behind a trail of ashes, blood, and broken institutions.
Dr. Mohammed was murdered in a lethal convergence of traditional feudal allegiance, party rivalry, and federal-state power struggles. His killing illustrated the horrific mechanics of state-tolerated violence inflicted upon political oppositions. At the time, Bala served as the Special Adviser on Political Affairs to Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, the radical leftist People’s Redemption Party (PRP) governor of Kano State.
Though the next general elections were still two years away, political upheavals had already seized Kano by the throat, in preparation for the 1983 polls. President Shehu Shagari’s ruling party at the centre, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), which operated as an opposition party in Kano State, was in an intense, desperate campaign to capture the state’s massive voting population.
On the streets of Kano, violent rhetoric and inciting epigrams became as cheap and ubiquitous as tuwo masara.
