Nigerian Senator: Sheikh Zakzaky a model for consistency & resolve / leader of who believes in fight against injustice, tyranny

(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Senator Shehu Sani: “You see, I am not a member of the Islamic Movement but, there is something, I am a human rights activist and a leftist revolutionary.

But, what ever belief you share, there is a lot you can never run away from; what ever belief you share you cannot run away from the influence, prestige and condor of Malam Ibraheem Zakzaky.

I’ve always said it that as an activist who has been involved in activism for a very long time, each time I feel depressed and I feel weakened and I feel as if demoralized, as a human being, in the sense that all what we have been struggling for, for a new society, for a change in our society has not been able to materialize; each time I have this emotional depression I take it upon my self to visit Malam Zakzaky and by the time I see him I have a lot of strength.

Because he is such a person that is full of energy and he is such a person that is a model for consistency and resolve. I so much admire him more than any other person you can ever see in this country.

There is no Islamic scholar with a popular broad achievement and with a very strong support from his own followers in the whole of this country if not the whole of this West African sub-region like Malam Ibraheem Zakzaky.

If Umaru Musa Yar’adua today wants to gather a crowd and address them, what will happen is that he governors will have to be involved, the minister will be involved and then there will be people to rent crowds and people to attend and listen to the speech and be paid.

But the spiritual significance of Malam as far as his ability to hold on to his belief and the movement which he has led right from late 70s to date is unbelievable.

He is such a man that symbolizes principle and struggle and change. He is a strong advocate of revolutionary change in the society.

People who will admire Malam are far beyond people who are even members of the Islamic Movement because the very fact remains that today he still remains a reference point.

He is somebody you can die for and he is somebody you can defend at any time because you know he is not going to sell you over.

He is somebody whose life epitomizes what he believes in and he is somebody who has for all this period and the persecution he has undergone that which I have seen, has never bulged even for an ounce.

I become highly impressed as an activist that all the prisons I have been taken to as a prisoner, each time I am there I hear that Malam Zakzaky was also there at a certain time and in the years gone by.

I can say it very well that Malam Zakzaky is not a leader of Islamic Movement but he is a leader of any person who believes in the change of a society, who believes in the fight against injustice, tyranny and repression.

He is a leader whom if every Nigerian recognizes and knew very well, he can also die for him. There is nothing required from a leader… first of all he is someone who is not going to betray you and he. has already displayed that.

In all these years we have seen the rise and fall of Islamic clerics and how most of them will come out like a wave and suddenly they will fizzle out but he has remained firm and consistent. He is a Dutch fighter and he is a model for every kind of struggle not only that of the Islamic Movement.”



/129