Written by Sani Babadoko, Kaduna
Monday, 30 July 2007

Jibrin, who spoke to our reporter on his hospital bed at Al-Mansour Hospital in Kaduna last night, said the robbers had first attacked his house at about 6.30pm on Saturday. He said they went to the children’s wing just behind the house, and his children shot one of the robbers, who died. The gang then returned to the house at 9, Coronation Crescent, Kaduna yesterday and announced that they came to seek revenge for their fallen comrade. They also said they must kill Jibrin because his

children killed one of their members. The heavily armed gang then entered the house and accosted the retired Airforce officer in his sitting room.

According to his own account, the robbers first asked him for money and pushed him at gunpoint into his bedroom. Once there, he said the robbers saw his own guns and they panicked, shot him in the left thigh and ran away without taking any-thing. Other members of the household said the robbers returned in the same grey Honda Accord 1989 model in which they came on Saturday.

At the Al-Mansur Hospital, the chief medical officer, Dr. Musliu Kolawole Odulola told Daily Trust that the former governor was in stable condition. Dozens of people flocked to the hospital last night when they heard of the shooting. Among those at the scene were Professor Musa Yakubu and Alhaji Muftau Baba-Ahmed.

Group Captain Usman Jibrin, a native of Nasarawa town in Nasarawa State, was appointed military governor of old Kaduna State by General Murtala Mohamed in 1975. Two years later, he was embroiled in a public dispute against the then Federal Commissioner for Informa-tion, Chief Ayo Ogunlade, over the government’s moves to stop the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria [FRCN], Kaduna from broadcasting on shortwave. As a result of that dispute, then military Head of State General Olusegun Obasanjo removed Jibrin as military governor and retired him from the Airforce. Ogunlade was also sacked from the cabinet. In the last two decades, Jibrin has become an important religious and community leader in Kaduna, and heads finance committees of the Jama’atu Nasril Islam. He also promotes an NGO that caters for the disabled.