Sayyid Zakzaky’s closing speech at Resource Forum Conference.
The leader of the Islamic Movement Sayyid Ibraheem Zakzaky, after normal salutation, started
his speech by lamenting on media bias when it comes to reports about Islamic Movement,..
Sayyid Zakzaky’s closing speech at Resource Forum Conference on Sunday the 16th of October 2011, at Baqiyyatullah Husainiyyah, Zaria.
The leader of the Islamic Movement Sayyid Ibraheem Zakzaky, after normal salutation, started his speech by lamenting on media bias when it comes to reports about Islamic Movementespecially by giving all sorts of names to the Movement. Sometimes, he said, they used words like radical or shites just to create unnecessary barrier between the Movement and the general public.
He added that even the general public don’t want be to be associated with Movement, although, they passed positive comments on our activities as they did during the post election crises. The public commented that only Members of the Movement remained unconfused during the crises. Whereas, we have never become confused about anything ever. Only few understand us, while we really understand the people.
There are also some people who understand our mission-establishing Islamic system, yet they are waiting to be liberated from the yoke of injustice. These people are dangerous as they may turn against the Movement after achieving victory or sabotage it.
While in the case of government and its security, they are always thinking on how to sabotage the movement or to bring it to naught. The security findings about the Movement say the following: 1. Members of the movement are Shiites. 2. They have people’s sympathy and 3. They are consistent.
Based on this they opined to use excessive force against the movement, but before that, they will have to remove Public’s sympathy towards the Members. Not only that, they also wanted to stop the publications of Al-Mizan news paper as it carries the Movement’s messages to the Public . Forgetting that it is the Movement which made the paper and not vice versa.
Now, they are more desperate and their thinking is on how to kill. This should not be a surprise as it is the precedence of the enemies of Islam during the holy prophet. The enemies hatched plots against the Prophet even after the conquest of Makka, all in vain. When they became disappointed they joined Islam to work against it from within; while some of them joined Islam out of fear, others embraced it for want of positions to perpetuate their agenda. Similar things happened after the success of Islamic Revolution in Iran.
So, whoever chooses God’s path must know that his enemies will not spare him and will continue to work against him.
Regarding the general public, it is the matter of intellectual maturity which is low among them. Members of the Movement have already attained high level of maturity. Whereas, the level of maturity of the Public has to be raised through awareness campaign before achieving anything as the level of backwardness even among the elite is worse. A retired officer for example, when conferred with a traditional title and surrounded by shallow thinking people and mob , thinks also like them while taking pride in it. This is terrible.
A case of retired general suffices, who after serving as Nigerian ambassador in Japan, was conferred with a traditional tile in his village, he was found to be involved in tribal crises and even shoot members of other tribes. So, an elite behaved in a rubbish manner what of a common man.!!! So, in Nigeria everything-intellect and even infrastructure, is going backward by the day. Even Government own companies like Nigerian Airway and the Communication Company have disappeared while these are booming in other countries which are less rich as Nigeria!!! Everything is getting worse including security. Military check points littered Nigerian roads causing inconvenience to people.
When speaking about Nigeria’s formation as a country, the revered leader expressed that the Colonialist established Nigeria and called it a nation according to their term for their benefit only. They formed it to take away resources and that is why they made Lagos or Lagoon as the nation’s Headquarter for easy transportation of resources to West. So, Nigeria’s existing is not a thing of pride.
Nowadays, No one is thinking on what to do for progress except selfish interest . However, we have something to be proud of which is Islam. It is only the ideology which can and even brought people together at all time in history. Warring parties were bonded together during the time of the holy Prophet(AS). Even during Hutu and Tus fighting in Rwanda, there was no fighting in areas occupied by Muslims Huts and Tus who were living together. It is only Islam that can bring them together to live in peace with one another.
On the issue of Solution to Nigeria’s problems the Leader said that we are not looking for way out as we have Islam and Shari’ah. We have solution what remains is working towards the solution. And the question still remains-who will work towards the solution.
The enemies believe that Islam is possible in Nigeria and that is why they are disturbed. Our problem is that everyone is waiting for others to do the job, whereas it is a collective responsibility.
On the members of the Movement, the Leader expressed that each of the member has to inculcate good habit if we want bring about change and progress. We have to reach standard in everything so that others will have model to copy when they join. There is hope and we have to continue with the struggle.
May Allah grant the Ummah awareness so that we can achieve a positive change.