Co-tenants clash over electricity bill as DSS personnel in Kebbi slaps journalist, threatens to kill him

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By El-Yakub Dabai, Birnin Kebbi

An Officer of Department of State Security (DSS) attached to Kebbi State Command, identified as Dauda Auwalu Taura has slapped a Correspondent of Authority newspaper, Mallam Shuaibu Zubair, when the journalist asked him to pay up part of his electricity bill in the compound they shared.

Taura, who got angry because his co- tenants demanded that he only offered N4,000 out of the N5,000 he ought to have paid, suddenly got angry, slapped the Authority Newspaper Correspondent which led other tenants to confront him six times having said he could kill the journalist

While briefing newsmen about his ordeal, Mallam Shuaibu Zubair explained: “Taura is using two apartments and each apartment is to pay N2,500 monthly. We are gathering the monthly bill and all of us have contributed our money completely. All the money to be paid is N10,000. When we are calculating the collections, it was discovered that he was the one who did not complete his money. When we approached him,he suddenly got angry, slapped me six times unreplied in the presence of other tenants.

“After that,he said that: ‘you have received beating for nothing, you will die for nothing. It is today you will know that I am a DSS officer. If I kill you today, nothing will happen. The last thing you can do is to take me to the police station”, Zubair recounted.

The journalist who was still battling with eyes problem, said his slaps has aggravated the his health condition and was afraid to be living in the house.

When contacted, a neighbour, simply identified as Maryam Aminu confirmed that the DSS officer slapped the journalist twice in their presence, attempted strangulating him before they called for support from neighbours who eventually rescued the journalist from the DSS personnel.

According to her, “he slapped him in our presence two times. Jerked his cloth,trying to strangulate him. We even told them they are all elderly men, why must they be fighting over the electricity bill. So we rushed out to call other neighbours to come over to rescue him from the DSS man”.

Another neighbour, Mallam Haliru Usman when contacted, said he was in his room and he was called alongside other people to come over and intervene.

“After the whole issue, I asked them to make friends between themselves but the journalist insisted he has been cheated and he would take action about the incident. If I am called upon to testify anywhere as a Muslim,I will go and testify inline with the teaching of my religion because I witnessed what transpired between them.”

All efforts to reach out to Dauda Auwalu Taura up to the time of publishing this report proved abortive.