It was on a day like this, 12th December 2015, just a few months after the swearing-in of a new regime led by Muhammadu Buhari, that an extrajudicial mass murder was launched on a minority group of Muslims, the Shi’ites in Zaria.
About 1000 unarmed men women and children were killed by the Nigerian Army for a purported crime of blocking the way for the Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Yusuf Buratai and his convoy.
Deadly weapons that include bombs and live ammunition were used in murdering those women and children with the army shouting, celebrating, and chanting “No more Shi’a”.
They spent three days persistently killing and burning down the property of innocent citizens. They burned human beings alive because they were only armed with the chant of “Allah is great”. The army violated all known rules of engagement by putting together the dead bodies of those they killed and allowing rogues to scavenge the bodies and steal their wallets and other belongings.
There were incidences of some of those backed by the soldiers cutting off the fingers of the dead to steal the rings on the fingers. It was indeed terrifying.
The Kaduna state Governor then, Nasiru Elrufai and his cohorts used the media and all machinery within their reach to justify their crime of murdering innocent unarmed women and children for the crime of belonging to a religious denomination different from the one they belong to.
Elrufai announced burying about 370 in a mask grave at Mando after it was identified by Amnesty International that there was a mask grave there.
Reports of the mass burial done in the middle of the night showed that some of them were buried alive. They were only injured but were heartlessly dumped in the mas grave crying of pains, shouting “kill us before burying us” as the wicked pushed earth over them to join those of them already dead.
All sorts of madness were stated by the Governor that the members of that group do not believe in the constitution, they do not see him as the Governor of the state, they do not see the president as their president, all to justify why they were murdered in cold blood.
They bribed the so-called Islamic Clerics to justify that crime which they did with enthusiasm. Those who claim they are Sunni were meant to believe that their government was Godly for killing Shi’ites. In fact they even refer to Gen Buratai as Ayatullah Buratai to mock the Shi’ites.
They used sectarian sentiment as well as the blind sentiment of supporting the failed Buhari who was then seen as a hero by most of those in the North, to justify the mass murder of innocent Muslims.
Nobody stood by them as they fought on for their rights against all odds. They never resorted to arms but sorted redress from the court.
The Court of the land disgraced the then Nigerian government for violating the rights of its citizens and was instructed to pay damages. But it was a government led by terrorists who don’t have any regard for rule of law nor do they respect court orders, and they never heeded.
The animal governing Kaduna was quick to put in place a Judicial Commission of Inquiry (JCI) in which members of the victims did not participate. But yet the JCI found no reason for murdering innocent citizens. Yet the animal went along and issued a white paper declaring the Islamic Movement an unlawful society in the state.
This is nothing but an act of state terrorism committed by terrorists in power who are fanatical about their views and could kill innocent people who are not on the same page as them.
12th December 2015 will forever be remembered by those who survived the state terrorism perpetrated by Buhari, Elrufai, Buratai, and co. They have turned women into widows, children into orphans, and even wiped away several families completely.
With such a bloodletting crime by the state, definitely the end of the regime went in shambles and everyone suffered and is still suffering and will continue to suffer until all come to realize that they were placed in hell by the terrorists that ruled them.
Genocide, mass murder, extrajudicial killings, ethnic cleansing, and violation of fundamental human rights are all features of the terrorists in government as exhibited on this Black 12th December Day of 2015.