By Khalid I. Doya
Brothers and sisters of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria under the stewardship of Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky on today Sunday 2 January 2016 have staged a peaceful protest in Bauchi to condemn the provocative execution of the prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr by the accursed Saudi regime.
The demonstration also called for the immediate release of Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, wife and hundreds of followers are being held unjustifiably by the Nigerian government. The protests which spanned various streets in Bauchi city showed sympathisers carrying the
placards "we are all Nimr" and " FREE ZAKZAKY" are meant to condemn the continued persecution of Shias in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Nigeria.
The protesters derided the execution as a plot to worsen a sectarian tension in the Muslim world which is already already enmeshed in the
war of attrition in countries like Bahrain, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. Malam Ahmad Yashi who led the peaceful demonstration has called the execution ‘provocative and barbaric’.
In his closing remark, he excoriated the Saudi royal families for playing politics with the lives of Shia dissents whose only faults are
calling for an end to Shia marginalisation in the country and demanding the release of their detained members who are languishing in
various jails across the country. He said Saudi Arabia has surreptitiously connived with the Western powers to cripple the rise
of Shias in the world.
He finally concluded by saying that who thinks killing Shias will suppress its growing acceptance has got it all wrong.