“We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return!” What a calamity! 980 days have passed since when the tyrannical regime of the federal government is detaining the Leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, Sheikh IbraheemZakzaky, even though a federal High court has ordered for his release almost two years ago. Indeed any well-meaning Nigerian will begin to wonder what the federal government up to when it flagrantly disregard a valid court order to release the Sheikh and instituted some spurious charges against him recently.
Since 12th December, 2015, when the Nigerian Army brutally attacked Sheikh Zakzaky and his followers in Zaria, we have been staging peaceful protests from time to time on the streets, with rallies in mosques, showing our anger on the injustice being meted against us and the continued detention of our Leader, but to date the government is playing the Ostrich, pretending not to notice protestation.
Instead of even acceding to our demand for justice to the victims of the Army massacre in Zaria, we have been witnessing some unfortunate moves being made to sweep under the carpet the atrocities committed against us in Zaria. The most recent is the meeting held by some Wahabi scholars in Kaduna on Sunday 12/08/18, where a public presentation of a book authored by Prof. Umar Labdo titled ‘The fallacy of Shi’ites beliefs’ was done. They should know that we are aware of their diabolical ways from their Saudi sponsors to the federal and state governments doing their bidding to stop the rapid understanding of the Islamic Movement they flatly call the Shia.
Even before then, Kaduna state government has instituted some charges against Sheikh Zakzaky in a state high court falsely accusing him among others, of murder. For goodness sake how can there be justice when Sheikh Zakzaky is arraigned before a court, while his three children were killed before his eyes, his senior sister burnt alive, his house burnt and razed to ground, including his Islamic centre, and over a thousand of his followers killed, with many thousands injured during the Army’s killing spree in Zaria?
Where is thy justice, with the continued detention of the Sheikh that was shot several times, he and his wife, whom had it not been of the mercy of Allah upon them they would have been martyred by now, and who still harbor bullet wounds, having lost his eye and is on the verge of losing the other one due to lack of proper medical care? Any person of conscience, who believes in justice and peaceful coexistence among citizens, will agree that the present government has committed a monstrous crime in the continued detention of our Leader. And the only way out of this quagmire is his unconditional release from detention, along with hundreds others also in detention.
Even though few days ago the then Director general of DSS, Lawal Musa Daura was relieves of his duties, that doesn’t mean anything to us since our Leader is still illegally detained by the security agency. We are therefore calling on the acting Director general to expedite measures that will lead to the release of Sheikh Zakzaky, whose release from detention has been ordered by a competent court but LawalDaura contemptuously refused to obey. We expect what befell LawalDaura to serve as a lesson to his fellow travellers in crime who are still occupying high echelons of governance, whose hands are soiled with the blood of the innocent souls murdered in Zaria. By now they should realize that Allah can do and undo, for He is the ultimate arbiter among His creations.
Lastly we hereby reiterate our resolve to keep on coming out enmass during our peaceful protest, so that the general public will be more aware of the grand injustice suffered by our pious Leader Sheikh IbraheemZakzaky. We are once again calling on the federal government of MuhammaduBuhari to release him, his wife, MalamaZeenah Ibrahim and the hundreds currently detained in various detention centres across the nation, especially in the South.
SIGNED BY
SHEIKH ABDULHAMID BELLO ZARIA
17/08/18