Zamfara State Governor Abdulaziz Yari said yesterday that false alarm led to the killing last weekend of eight people in Talata-Mafara.

He debunked insinuations that it was a religious clash in which Christians were killed.

According to him, those killed were Muslims. He promised to ensure that the killers are brought to book.

In a development that sent shockwaves across Nigeria and beyond, a student of Abdu Gusau Polytechnic and seven others were killed on Monday for alleged blasphemy against Islam.

A mob set fire to the house of a man who tried to rescue the student.

Speaking with reporters after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Yari described the killings as an act of the devil.

He said: “From the intelligence I had from the security agencies, there was a fight between two students and I think one of them injured the other and started shouting that the other person abused Prophet Muhammad.

“Other students came and beat up the other boy who is Yoruba from Kogi State. Some people are saying he was a Muslim and some say the boy was a Christian. They beat the student until he collapsed and thought he was dead.

“Then security personnel requested help from one shop owner who then took the boy to the hospital in his car. When the students heard that the boy was still alive and in the hospital, they went to the hospital. But the boy was rescued by soldiers in the hospital.

“Then the students went back to the polytechnic and burnt down the shop of the person who gave his car to rescue the boy.

“They went back to town again and, as you know, the police in the division don’t have enough men to contain the riot and before reinforcement came, the crowd threw tyre in the man’s house and burnt down the house.

“That was how everybody in the house was killed and all the people killed in the House were Muslims and not like the rumours going around in the social media that Christians are being killed in Zamfara.

“In fact, the mob wanted to go and burn churches and attack non-Muslims but the security forces stopped them. It’s my home town and that’s where I live.”

The governor said no arrest had been made at the time he left the state for Abuja.

The police and the Department of State Service (DSS), he said, were investigating the incident.

According to him, the authority shut down the school immediately the incident happened.

Yari said: “The government will not take this lightly, people taking laws into their hands. If you say the punishment of who abused Prophet should be killed, and you now kill innocent people, knowing there is a government, laws and courts in place.

“So why should someone take laws into his hands? So definitely all the culprits will be brought to book.”

•Adapted from The Nation report. Photo shows Governor Yari.