(AhlulBayt News Agency) - To many critical minds, the ongoing war against El-Zakzaky and his Shia group viciously waged by state actors who happen to be members of the predominant Sunni Islam, the medium is the message. It is believed Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Umaru Yar’Adua and now Buhari under whose administrations El-Zakzaky and his Shia Islam group have experienced some form deprivations cannot be independent arbiters. There are just too many coincidences to invalidate such a conspiracy theory.
It is also debatable if El-Zakzaky is any more dangerous than Senator Ahmed Yerima, who as governor of Zamfara, one of the poorest and educationally backward states in the federation, assembled prominent northern Sunni Islam members along with ambassadors of Muslim nations who hailed him as he hilariously launched what President Obasanjo then described as ‘political Sharia that will soon fade away’. Yerima’s action was a direct assault on Nigeria constitution and a threat to the unity of the country as it led to massive demonstrations and killings of hundreds of people in Kano, Kaduna and a few other states in the north.
Perhaps what has made the argument of the state and its actors about protecting our nation from the teachings of El-Zakzaky and his Shia group more tenuous has been the various pronouncements by the judiciary since the travails of El-Zakzaky began during Babangida regime in the 90s, all of which contradicted the state claim that he constitutes a danger to society.
El-Zakzaky’s latest victory and the judicial pronouncement came after one year in detention without charges. Arrested by the military on December 14, 2015, and detained following a clash with the military during which about 347 members of his Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) were killed, he approached the court through his lawyer, Femi Falana to demand for his freedom. Rejecting submission by Tijjani Gazali, the SSS lawyer, that “decision to hold the Islamic cleric and his wife for their safety was not based on law,” Justice Gabriel Kolawole, ordered El-Zakzaky’s release saying, “I have not been shown any incident report or any complaint lodged by residents around the neighborhood that the applicant has become a nuisance to his neighborhood.”
Long before this victory, El-Zakzaky had back in 1996 after a protracted judicial battle secured another landmark judicial victory over General Abacha who had ordered his detention in February 1996 for causing public disaffection against his military junta.
And it is also on record that while the April 21, 1998, Muslim Brotherhood’s violent protest against the arrest of El-Zakzaky’s wife and children failed to secure their release, it was the court that later ordered the release of Zeenah, El-Zakzaky’s wife, her six children along with eight other women detained for insulting Abacha. Again when the Abdulsalami regime failed to extend the general amnesty enjoyed by many Abacha detainees to El-Zakzaky in August 27, 1998, following Abacha’s death, the judiciary ordered his release. It is safe to conclude from this string of judicial victories that contrary to the claim by the state, the judiciary does not consider El-Zakzaky a danger to society.
El-Zakzaky has not denied his preference for a more stringent application of Islamic legal system or indeed the establishment of a theocracy modeled after Iran, but he has insisted “Our weapon is positive reasoning, truth and good conduct. Guns are for the reckless and foolhardy. We have been conducting our affairs peacefully, calling people to the truth for the last 36 years… We save lives, not kill them.”
Since the judiciary has consistently insisted that El-Zakzaky and his Shia group are not a threat to the country’s security, the state has to provide proof to invalidate his thesis that he and his group are victims of religious intolerance that have come to define the once-celebrated ‘one north, one people’ since the assassination of Ahmadu Bello in 1966.
The prominent cleric and his wife were taken into custody on December 14, 2115, after deadly clashes between the supporters of the IMN movement and Nigerian troops. Nearly 350 members of the Shia movement were killed in the clashes. The sheikh was brutally injured and his house was reportedly destroyed by the army in the incident.
The judge said he had given 45 days for authorities to provide new accommodation for the Zakzaky family. The accommodation is to be in the town of Zaria, Kaduna state, where the family were detained, or in other parts of the state or alternatively any other part of northern Nigeria. Kolawole said the State Security Service would pay each of Sheikh Zakzaky and his wife $78,984 in compensation for the violation of their rights by being held in unlawful custody for nearly a year.
Nearly 100 IMN supporters were killed when Nigerian forces fired live rounds and tear gas at mourners during a peaceful march ahead of the Arbaeen mourning rituals, which mark 40 days after the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (AS), the third Shia Imam. Authorities also destroyed a number of buildings belonging to the IMN. he Nigerian government has stepped up its crackdown on the IMN since the December 2015 deadly incident.
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