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A late-night fire has destroyed six houses, several shops and storage facilities at Kofar Wanbai Market in Kano State, with property worth millions of naira reportedly lost.

The fire broke out at about 9:43pm on Friday in the Babban Layi, Yan Robobi section of the market, according to the Kano State Fire Service.

The agency’s Public Relations Officer, Saminu Abdullahi, confirmed the incident in a statement issued on Saturday.

He said a distress call from a Principal Fire Superintendent, Usman Idris Fagge, prompted the immediate deployment of firefighting teams from the state headquarters and stations at Rijiyar Zaki, Sabon Gari, Government House and Bompai.

Abdullahi said firefighters arrived to find the blaze had engulfed parts of a two-storey building measuring about 120 by 125 feet and used mainly as plastic shops and storage facilities.

He identified the affected houses as Gidan Alhaji Sani, Gidan Sani Muhammad, Gidan Alhaji Kwa Kwa, Gidan Alhaji Shafi’u and Gidan Alhaji Sulaiman.

According to him, the fire started on the upper floor before spreading to two shops on the ground floor, two on the first floor, six permanent stores and four temporary units on the top floor.

Firefighters eventually brought the inferno under control and prevented it from spreading to adjoining sections of the busy market.

Preliminary findings by the fire service indicated that the blaze was caused by a faulty solar system installation.

The Director of the Kano State Fire Service, Sani Anas, urged traders and residents to observe fire safety measures, install smoke detectors and ensure that functional fire extinguishers are available in commercial and residential premises.

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A Kaduna-based man, Nasiru Musa Idris, has accused Islamic cleric Sheikh Ahmad Gumi of allegedly keeping his Moroccan wife away from him for about 11 months after he took her to the cleric for counselling.

Idris made the allegation in an interview with RFI Hausa, claiming he took his wife to Gumi after the cleric requested to counsel her because she was young.

According to him, his wife stopped responding to his calls after the meeting, while attempts to have security agencies investigate the matter were allegedly frustrated.

“For 11 months now, my wife has been in his hands through injustice and ill-treatment. He has no relationship with her; she had never known him. The only place they knew each other was through me,” Idris alleged.

Gumi, however, has denied the allegation, insisting that the Moroccan woman had already left Nigeria and was in Morocco with her parents.

The cleric, who declined to provide further details because the matter is before a court, also threatened to sue Idris for defamation.

“But I will take him to court for defamation against me. As for the issue of the girl, she has already left Nigeria and she is in Morocco happily with her parents,” Gumi said.

Idris said he first met Gumi at a pharmacy on Isa Kaita Road in Kaduna while he was with members of his family and later introduced his Moroccan wife to the cleric.

He said his wife had no prior connection with anyone in Nigeria before he travelled to Morocco to marry her, adding that the marriage was conducted with the approval of her parents and relevant authorities.

“The Moroccan girl had never known anyone in Nigeria and nobody knew her except through me. I went to seek her hand in marriage in her country, and we had an engagement with the approval of the embassy and the approval of her parents,” he said.

The dispute, according to Idris, escalated after Gumi allegedly asked him to obtain another marriage certificate from a Sharia Court despite the couple already having marriage documents issued in Morocco and Nigeria.

“I told him that I did not agree with the marriage certificate he told me to obtain. Later, he went to the Sharia Court in Malali and asked them to issue one to him,” Idris alleged.

He said he submitted several documents supporting the marriage, including papers from Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Nigerian embassy in Morocco, alongside other documents and a police character report.

Idris further alleged that Gumi later sought the dissolution of the marriage and interfered with efforts by security agencies to investigate the matter.

He urged the cleric to honour a police invitation and submit himself to questioning.

“My complaint is that he should come forward and answer the invitation of the police so that an investigation can be conducted. If he is right, there is nothing stopping him from going to the authorities to clear his name,” he said.

Idris also rejected claims that his wife’s mother travelled to Nigeria and took her daughter back to Morocco.

He maintained that he personally processed the documents that enabled his wife to travel to Nigeria, insisting that he only took her to Gumi because he trusted the cleric and believed he was seeking to help the young woman.

“Because I trusted him, I took her there. From then on, whenever I called, she did not answer the phone,” he alleged.

Meanwhile, Malam Nasiru Ayuba, popularly known as Dan Agaji, chairman of the Volunteers of Sultan Bello Mosque, Kaduna, and Gumi’s personal assistant on special assignment, denied that the cleric kept Idris’ wife in his house.

“The allegation that Malam kept his wife in his house is not true. It was the woman herself who went to Malam to ask him for help,” Ayuba said.

He claimed that the Moroccan woman approached Gumi over a personal matter and sought his intervention, after which the cleric took the matter to court.

“She brought the matter herself because she knew what she was going through. Th

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Today sons and daughters of Ikwerre LGA in Port Harcourt held a civic reception in his honour.

The message was as they declare that on election day, before 11 am, Rotimi Amaechi will tell his people to boycott the election because he knows there’s no way he’ll defeat us. If he wins his village, Ubima, then he has won the election. That’s if he will win his own polling unit.

Watch below: