Calls for justice are growing in Bauchi State after police arrested Usman Sabo, a young member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), over Facebook posts criticizing Shira Local Government Chairman, Babangida Ishaq, also known as Maliya.
Sabo was picked up on Friday by officers from the GRA Police Division and taken to Bauchi after he accused the chairman of neglecting the local government’s football team and delaying workers’ salaries.
In a series of Facebook posts, Sabo faulted Ishaq for allegedly refusing to sponsor the Shira LG team in the Kaura Unity Cup and for attempting to evict staff from government quarters. He also condemned the delay in paying July salaries, questioning why workers should be denied wages during the rainy farming season.
“Power is transient,” Sabo wrote in one post. “Before you there were about five local government chairmen. After you many will come. It is wrong to oppress people just because we are their leaders.”
In another, he lamented: “God has afflicted us with a leader who does not do what is right.”
The arrest has triggered outrage, with lawyer Mukhtar Muhammad describing it as “oppression, plain and simple,” and accusing the police of acting as “attack dogs for corrupt leaders.” He claimed officers didn’t even read Sabo’s posts before detaining him.
But Chairman Ishaq insists Sabo’s posts were malicious falsehoods aimed at tarnishing his reputation. He said he had donated N500,000 to the football team and arranged transport, but the squad still failed to make the tournament.
On housing, Ishaq explained that some non-indigene directors were given two months to vacate quarters, with plans to provide them government-paid rent for two years. Regarding the salary delays, he maintained that payments were only withheld from ghost workers or staff who refused to report to work — including relatives of PDP politicians.
As Sabo remains in custody, the case has fueled debates on political intolerance, press freedom, and the use of police to silence dissent in local politics.
