By Aliyu Saleh
On Monday (20/10/2014) three out of the six Brothers of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria under His Eminence Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky unjustifiably sentenced to death by a court in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State 16 years ago regained freedom.
The Brothers incarcerated in Kaduna prison were sentenced to death and later reduced to life sentence, when in a mob action people from Kaldi and Randale in Birnin Kebbi Local Government lynched and killed a man accused of blasphemous statement against Prophet Muhammad (S). The release of the Brothers was part of the amnesty programme of the government on the nation’s 54th anniversary commemoration.
The three Brothers, obviously unhappy with leaving their other colleagues back in prison, were taken to Kaduna Markaz, where Ameer of the Kaduna zone of the Islamic Movement, Malam Mukhtar Sahabi addressed them.
He told them that, what befell them was part of Allah’s test to His pious servants, which if they passed He uplifts their status to the highest position He desires.
He prayed to Allah to avenge their unjustified incarceration saying, “We will rather be killed than bow down to tyranny and tyrants. On this cause we remain steadfast forever”.
One of the Brothers freed, Malam Sulaiman Muhammad, 47, thanked Allah for the unexpected freedom after 16 years.
Narrating how he was arrested, Malam Sulaiman Muhammad said: “I was arrested when the people of Kaldi and Randale got angry and killed one man accused of blasphemous statement against the Holy Prophet (S). The man lived in a faraway village from us, but when he committed the blasphemy and he was being hunted he ran to our village where his friend gave him shelter. He was not safe there either, as some people traced and killed him there. Because the authorities had targeted us as Islamic activists and a threat, the police came and arrested 21 people. They later release all except six of us, all students of Sheikh Zakzaky, and took us to court where we were sentenced to death. Now Allah Has granted us freedom”.
He further stated that, their incarceration has nothing to do with the mob action or killing the man who committed a blasphemy. “We later came to know that, even the sentence handed out to us was from a directive from the government house, because we are members of the Islamic Movement. This is why only six of us were sentenced to death, the rest were released”, Muhammad added.
Another released Brother, Malam Muhammad Sani, 61, also alleg