There
was confusion in some parts of Kakuri, in Kaduna South Local Government Area,
when a 41-year-old carpenter, Mr. Francis Emmanuel Francis, almost lost his
right eye on Tuesday following an attack on him by Muslim youths for not
observing the Ramadan fast.
This
is coming barely a week after a 74-year-old, Mrs Bridget Agbahime, was murdered
in Kano for allegedly blaspheming Prophet Mohammed.
An
eyewitness account had it that the carpenter courted trouble for himself when
he was spotted by some Muslim boys in the Sokoto Road area of Kakuri, at about
2.30pm, eating when others were supposed to be observing the fast. This drew
the ire of the youth who started beating him.
Emmanuel,
according to the eyewitness, was given the beating of his life and subsequently
rushed to the St. Gerard Catholic Hospital, where he is currently receiving
medical treatment.
He
was inflicted with deep machete cuts on his head and other parts of his body
during the incident.
Narrating
his ordeal to journalists from his hospital bed, Emmanuel said he was taking
his lunch when the boys, numbering about six, descended on him on the grounds
that he was not fasting.
He
said, “I went to buy wood to do some work. When I came back, I bought food to
eat.
As I was eating, about six Hausa boys came and asked me whether I was a Muslim
or a Christian.
I did not answer them. They asked me why I was not fasting. I
told them that I am not a Muslim.
“Before
I know it, one of them slapped me. As I stood up, the rest came and surrounded
me and started attacking me with knives. I didn’t know them. Nobody could come
to my aid because of the type of dangerous knives they were carrying.
“They
used cutlasses, scissors and knives. I became unconscious; I don’t even know
who brought me to the hospital.”
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Society