Kaduna Government Official Shot By Soldiers Dies

LAGOS, February 19, (THEWILL) – Pastor Isua Kiforo, the Kaduna State Director of Finance and Administration in the Ministry of Information, who was shot last week by security forces at the gate of the Government House has died.

Kiforo was shot when he tried to ram his vehicle through the gate even though he had been told he would not be allowed entry into the governor’s compound, a police statement after the shooting said. The security men had feared he was a Boko Haram member on a suicide mission. The police however searched his vehicle after the shooting but did not find a bomb or anything to suggest that he was indeed a Boko Haram member.

The Boko Haram, a deadly terrorist group with operations mostly in northern Nigeria has claimed responsibility for several attacks including the bombing of a building housing the UN in Abuja. More than 400 persons have been killed since the group launched its attacks targeting security formations, churches and mosques and almost anything in sight.

The Kaduna State Commissioner for Information, Alhaji Saidu Adamu, told reporters that he died on Sunday morning inside the 44 Military Reference Hospital, where he was being treated.

Until his death, Kiforo was also a pastor at the Living Faith Church, Kakuri and Barnawa. He hailed from Zangon-Kataf in Southern Kaduna.

His family and congregation at the church say they doubt the official account of the shooting made public by the police in the state. They maintain that Kiforo was a victim of extra-judicial killing.

Family sources say he would be buried on Thursday.