The Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC) has question the ground upon which President Muhammadu Buhari led government declared the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) popularly known as Shiites as terrorists group.
The Executive Director, RULAAC, Mr. Okechukwu Nwanguma who issued the query in a statement in Lagos on Saturday recalled that in 2015, army officers opened fire on a procession of members of the Shiites/Islamic Movement in Zaria killing several of them adding that three of El-Zakzaky’s children who were students were killed in one day while a fourth one was seriously injured claiming that the group blocked the way preventing the passage of the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff.
Nwanguma further recalled that later on the same day, the army reinforced and invaded the house of Sheik Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, attacked the occupants, killed several more members of the movement, injured many others including El-Zakzaky and his wife and took many of them to the army barracks in Zaria where they were brutally tortured and executed.
He added that a government judicial panel of inquiry in 2015 found that the military under Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai massacred nearly 400 members of the movement – gratuitously and buried them in mass graves noting that the panel of inquiry, among other recommendations, ordered that the military officers responsible for that mass atrocity should be subjected to criminal trial, an order he said government had failed to obey till date.
According to him,” Government, instead, arrested the leader of the group, together with his wife who were both grievously injured during the brutal attack by the military and have held them incommunicado, indefinitely since 2015 in utter disregard of a court order that the man and wife be released and resettled after their houses were destroyed rendering them homeless. The government has also refused to obey the court orders.
“In response to the sustained peaceful protests by members of the group demanding the release of their leader and wife, in compliance with court orders, government has deployed brutal and disproportionate force to quell their protests. This has resulted to hundreds of the protesters, including children, women and the old being grievously injured, or murdered while many are held in detention, tortured and subjected to dehumanizing treatment. Many of those detained have been shot, starved, denied medical and legal representation and abandoned to bleed to death.
“Yesterday, a video was released showing two young female members of the group identified as Ummu Kulthum Isma’il, a 200 level Microbiology student at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria and Fatima Dasuki, a Dentist who were allegedly shot by the police on Monday July 22, 2019 in front of the Office of Head of Service, Federal Secretariat Abuja. They are currently detained in SARS Abuja without any medical treatment.”
The Executive Director observed that following the unfortunate death of the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of Operations at the FCT Police command, DCP Usman Umar and the claims and counter claims between the police who claimed that the officer was killed by members of the Shiites and the Shiites who denied this insisting that they don’t bear arms, government was expected to empanel an inquiry (including pathological and ballistic examinations)to ascertain the actual cause of death of the DCP, in particular to clear the air about who fired the bullet that killed him.
He pointed out that while government was yet to carry out this basic obligation of ensuring impartial and credible investigation into the cause of death, it rushed to court to procure an Ex Parte order declaring a group that says it’s not armed a terrorist group.
“It is shocking that while this same government that has looked away and done nothing while armed herdsmen repeatedly unleash violence on helpless citizens on daily basis (killing, destroying, raping, looting and kidnapping for ransom), could summon the shameless courage to declare a group terrorist merely for exercising their fundamental rights under the constitution- to peacefully protest and demand that government should act in accordance with the rule of law and release their leader from unlawful detention.
“Only justice can guarantee peace. Peace cannot be decreed or enforced no matter the amount of violence or force of arms. Force of arm has never defeated force of conviction. Abuse of governmental power and impunity promotes lawlessness, resistance and violence and creates or deepens instability. History is replete with instances where otherwise peaceful groups became radicalized and resorted to armed violence. While government has woefully failed to contain Boko Haram, it is by its ill-informed and wrong-headed response tending towards radicalizing and driving the Shiites underground and transforming them into another intractable security threat. This will worsen the state of insecurity already compounded by the terrorist activities of the herdsmen.
“Declaring the Shiites terrorist is counterproductive. It is not the appropriate response to the problem at hand- which is government’s contempt for the rule of law and the authority of the courts. Government should comply with the order of courts and release El-Zakzaky and his wife and bring to account, all those responsible for mass atrocities”, he stated.
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