Outrage trails arrest of undergraduate by first lady

Outrage has trailed the arrest of a student of Federal University Dutse (FUD), Aminu Adamu Mohammed, over a Twitter post he made against Mrs Aisha Buhari, the wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, where he wrote in Hausa language “Su mama Anchi Kudin Talakawa an koshi”, meaning “Mama has fed fat on poor people’s money”.

Mohammed, from Azare, Bauchi State, is a final year student at the Department of Environmental Management of the university.

He was said to have been arrested by plainclothes policemen and tortured. The person who leaked the arrest was equally reported to have been arrested and beaten into coma.

The critics have accused Mrs Buhari of being responsible for the arrest after the father of Aminu, who received a call from his son, said he told him he was beaten and taken to the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

In an interview with BBC Hausa, the parents of Mohammed asked the first lady to forgive their son.

Shehu Baba Azare, a younger brother of Aminu Adamu’s father, told the BBC Hausa that they needed their son to be released to them.

He said, “We were not aware of it until five days later, when Aminu’s friend called my brother (Aminu’s father) and told him that he hadn’t seen Aminu for the past five days.

“The next day, Aminu called his father and told him that he was arrested and taken to Aisha Buhari at the Presidential Villa and that he was beaten and detained. He said one of the securitymen gave him his phone to make the call.

“Adamu (Aminu’s father) also told me that he was called from the university informing him that his son was arrested but without their knowledge. We are begging the First Lady; please forgive him, you are a mother.”

According to BBC Hausa, the source said the arrest has caused a lot of concern in the university and also among parents considering the security situation in the country.