By Abdulmumin Giwa
Nasir El-Rufai the Kaduna state Governor is not planning only another massacre but a general chaos in the state as he engages his Wahhabi brothers in his personal war against Shiites in Kaduna.
Some of these sponsored clerics in Zaria and some parts of Kaduna were heard saying they were working hand-in-hand with the state Governor to eliminate the rival Shiite sect.
One of the mosques Imam in Zaria was reported to have said that they have already concluded all arrangements to finish with Shiites and Shiism while he also advised the Governor to extend the ban to the Tarika order as well because they are all infidels according to him.
The Imam also added that their youths are ready to start attacking the IMN women and molesting them in the streets. The Wahhabis are full of praises for El-Rufai describing him as a hero of Sunna who has finished with Shiism.
There are even pictures of him with one of the anti-Shiites activists that paid him a visit that has gone viral in the social media just a few days before he banned the IMN.
One would wonder how a state governor would engage his state in a deliberate anarchy by banning a religion he feels is rivaling his own religion and personal opinion.
Meanwhile the IMN members remain undaunted as they condemn the senseless law banning them by simply continuing with their activities as usual.
Nigerian police in Kaduna were seen attacking a daily Ashura procession by the IMN members with teargas and beating them with sticks. Several women and children were among those arrested by the police as they trekked to the center where they conduct their activities.
The IMN members only see El-Rufai’s intimidations as a simple milestone they shall cross having faced a killing spree10 months ago perpetrated by the Nigerian Army in Zaria. They were mercilessly killed by the Nigerian Army while protecting the leader of the Movement Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky (H). This terror has never changed the IMN from what it has been.
The police were also spotted in Kudan attacking homes of the Shiites and destroying posters, flags and other symbols of the Shiites. They were also at the Fudiyya School in Zaria city while women and children were commemorating a special Ashura session for babies. The police went there with trucks loads of personnel and ambulance.
Meanwhile the Governor and his team of war-against-Shiism have made a list of some key IMN members that they want to make sure are arrested in order to stop the outcry for the release of the IMN leader. The IMN spokesman Ibrahim Musa is the top on the list and the Governor dramatically declared him wanted for identifying with IMN after he had banned it.
He described his wanted person as the spokesperson of the unlawful society whereas Ibrahim Musa does not belong to any unlawful society but the Islamic Movement to which he is the President of the Media Forum.
Maybe that unlawful society El-Rufai is referring to is that society of politicians contracted by foreigners to kill their people for them.
It is worth mentioning that if the IMN members could shed their blood protecting their leader it will definitely be stupid of the Governor to assume that he can ban them from protecting the grand symbol of Shi’ism and grandson of the holy Prophet, Imam Husain (AS) by stopping them from commemorating Ashura.
It is in commemoration of his martyrdom that the Ashura activities are taking place and El-Rufai would have to kill all the Shi’ites in the state to stop them from practicing that symbol of Islam.
Women of the IMN were seen during the Imam Husain mourning session in Kaduna on the day of the arrests by raising their babies up calling on El-Rufai to slaughter them for Hussain (AS) to send him a message of no-going-back. This implies that El-Rufai has started something he can never finish in his life which might cost lives if he insists and would also destroy him at the end. If they could be killed and burned alive in defense of their leader what more of the symbol of their religion Imam Husain AS.
IMN members are Nigerians like any other Nigerian but El-Rufai is using his office with impunity to achieve his personal whims and sectarian dreams of suppressing them and claiming to be working in the interest of the people of the state.
El-Rufai has reduced so low to have lost his sense of intellect that he is pursuing a mirage by using brute force to fight an ideology instead of a superior ideology. He has lost focus of the fact that his actions would only lead to the growth of the ideology he is fighting. As the saying goes, “to get people to read a book, ban it”.
I thought when he said he made consultations on the IMN issue somebody might have warned him of the dangers of using brute force on an ideologically inclined people. The one and only existing terrorist state in the world, the illegal state of Israel has been using brute force on the Palestinians for the past sixty years but have not achieved its aim of domination and total control. They have succeeded in hardening the Palestinians and making them more radical and committed to their course. A young boy of 10 years can face heavy artillery tanks throwing pebbles at it and having the dream of being a martyr one day.
The same would be repeated by El-Rufai in Kaduna and the situation would be very unfriendly for everybody in the stat in particular and the country at large. It is the duty of right-thinking people in the state to call him to order and save the situation.
The IMN has been in existence for almost 40 years without any records of initiating any form of lawlessness or violence even though they have been victims of such. It is only of recent that lies were concocted by the El-Rufai and his Wahhabi brothers in attempt to blackmail the IMN.
Definitely, one of the two must give way to the other in the end. Either El-Rufai observes restraint and withdraw from his lost battle despite availability of state resources with him or face the shame of not achieving his objective. The IMN members have proven to be revolutionary in their dispensation seeking only one of the two choices of victory or martyrdom but no turning back.