By Ibrahim Usman
Following the statement by Sheikh Zakzaky on the series of failed attempts at his life and attack on his convoy in Zaria, the DHQ swiftly reacted to the statement through its Twitter handle authored by its spokesman, Brigadier General Christopher Olukolade.
Sheikh Zakzaky had last week Wednesday exposed the series of planned onslaught on his convoy since the death of 33 people, including 3 of his children during the Quds Day in Zaria. A leaked memo by State Security Service (SSS) was also exposed by the Islamic Movement as part of the plan.
At the end of Nahjul Balagha study held at the Hussainiyyah Baqiyyatullah, Monday (September 1, 2014), Sheikh Zakzaky read out the DHQ’s response before teeming audience, which he described as ridiculous.
He dismissed as baseless statement by the DHQ that those with no plan to cause violence have no cause to fear: “We want to know, what offence have we committed that on the last Friday of Ramadan 28, equivalent to July 25, 2014, soldiers opened fire on us in broad daylight? Was is not the military that did the shooting? Yet the person that masterminded the operation, Lt. Colonel S.O. OKu is still going about freely as the Commanding Officer of FER military battalion in Basawa Barrack. He killed my sons with his own hands, while his boys stabbed them with knives in public glare. We are not that foolish to accuse the whole military of the offence, it was executed by special a group of soldiers”.
He therefore said, with what happened people must have cause to fear from military onslaught: “Where is it written in the Nigerian constitution that a person in military uniform has the license to kill people at will and go free? These soldiers killed people at will, and they (Nigerian military) could not refute or deny this obvious fact”.
Sheikh Zakzaky further said, the number of the dead from the Zaria incident has now risen to 34, as another man shot dead, hitherto unknown, was recently discovered to have been buried by his people, while the number of the injured has reached 106.
“If the military wants to free itself from blame, let the murderers be punished. It is then we will know that soldiers are not murderers, and that the law did not give the military the license to kill at will. Lt. Col. S.O. Oku Had committed murder in broad daylight, and even confessed that he was given list of people to assassinate; that he has on the list 13 more people to be killed. Part of his job is to kill the leader of the people he killed and also demolish the Hussainiyyah”.
According him, after the Zaria killings soldiers were stationed in the house of his eldest son Muhammad with the intention of killing him, but instead found some people in the house and chased them out.
“If the military can allow such a murderer to go free, then we can say it is done with the consent of the Nigerian military and the military are murderers”.