The violent incident of last Tuesday at the entrance to the National Assembly, Abuja, in which some protesting members of the Shi’ite Islamic sect snatched a gun from a security personnel and used same to shoot a policeman and an operative of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, has once again brought to the fore the danger posed to the nation by the delay in dispensing justice in the case of the Leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky.
El-Zakzaky, alongside his wife, Zeena, has been in the custody of the Department of State Services since 2015. The couple was arrested in Zaria, Kaduna, after soldiers killed over 300 members of the sect, including three of their sons, for allegedly pelting the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Tukur Buratai, with stones, an act declared by the Army to be an assassination attempt.
After the invasion of their home, the couple was arrested and imprisoned without any formal court charges until they were arraigned in court in May 2018. Zakzaky himself is now facing charges of culpable homicide, unlawful assembly, and disruption of public peace.
Before their arraignment, an earlier ruling in December 2016 by a Federal High Court in Abuja had granted them bail, but the DSS refused to let go of them. The court had ordered that El-Zakzaky and his wife ‘must’ be released from detention into an accommodation that must be provided for them within 45 days. Almost two years after that pronouncement by the court, the couple was still languishing in DSS custody until they were arraigned in court last year.
And despite several calls made earlier by both local and international human rights organisations, the government refused to set free the Islamic cleric and his wife. The couple are still being held in custody.
The couple’s continued detention led to several violent protests by members of Zakzaky’s Shi’ite sect, resulting in some loss of lives. Since then the Shi’ites have been on the rampage, especially in Abuja, the country’s capital.
In November 2018, El-Zakzaky, and his wife, Zeenah, were formally denied bail by a Kaduna State High Court. The presiding judge, Justice Gideon Kurada, said the accused persons failed to show any substantial medical evidence to grant them bail in their written application. Kurada, thereafter, adjourned the case to January 22, 2019, for further hearing. On March 25, 2019, Justice Kurada, however, adjourned the continuation of El-Zakzaky’s trial and bail indefinitely! The court had earlier in its January 22 sitting adjourned further hearing on the IMN leader’s bail application. But in the resumed hearing during which El-Zakzaky’s lawyers were to argue his bail application, the court adjourned the whole suit sine die. The bail sought by counsel to the IMN leader was to enable him to travel abroad for medical attention. The indefinite adjournment of the case followed the appointment of the presiding judge, Justice Kurada as the chairman of the Presidential and National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal for Yobe State. El-Zakzaky’s lead counsel, Mr. Femi Falana, who had earlier prayed the court to give a mandatory order that his client be flown abroad for proper medical attention, told journalists after the court proceedings that El-Zakzaky and his wife had yet to access any form of medical attention since their detention, even after the court had ordered they should be treated.
Last Tuesday’s unleashing of violence on security agents and other innocent Nigerians at the National Assembly complex by protesting IMN members was, no doubt, a continuation of their series of protests against the continued ‘detention’ of their leader and his wife.
Penultimate Thursday, hundreds of IMN members had staged a protest in front of the gate of the National Assembly, where the House Leader, Hon. Alhassan Ado Doguwa, who addressed them, had said that their message would be delivered to the appropriate quarters.
But on Tuesday, angry members of IMN stormed the NASS complex while the House of Representatives was in session, destroying cars and other property. They also shot and injured two security men in the process. The incident forced the lawmakers to abruptly adjourn sitting. It’s clear that the Shi’ites’ rampage was to further protest what they’ve perceived as the unjust continued detention of their leader, El-Zakzaky. Since then, protesting Shi’ites members have been on the rampage in Abuja, clashing violently with security agents. Even in Lagos, IMN members protested peacefully on Thursday in the Ikeja area, demanding the release of their detained leader.
Although the government can claim that the IMN leader is being held legitimately on the orders of a competent court of jurisdiction, before the Kaduna State High Court legitimised his detention, the Federal Government had consistently disobeyed court orders on his release.
It is clear that the initial cruel illegal detention of El-Zakzaky and his wife, before the Kaduna High Court order validating his being held in custody, has continued to escalate the violence now being visited on innocent citizens and security agents by impudent IMN members. Although the couple had been arraigned and the court refused them bail, it is disheartening that ever since then the IMN members have upped their violent actions against the state, with many innocent Nigerians caught in the cross-fire between Shi’ite members and security agents.
Therefore, with the violence unleashed on Nigerians at the National Assembly complex last Tuesday and elsewhere in the FCT in subsequent days, Nigerians are getting more worried that the Shi’ites are becoming more daring in their protests for the release of their leader.
No sane society condones violence in any form. It must be unconditionally condemned by all. Those at the helm of affairs of the IMN in the absence of Sheikh El-Zakzaky, should know and make it clear to their members that their continued violent disposition would not only compound, but also spoil their detained leader’s case in court. They should desist from visiting further violence on innocent citizens. They should know that religious groups should only exercise their right to freedom of worship within the confines of the country’s laws. It’s time Shi’ites in Nigeria shed this notorious toga of belligerence.
This is a matter that the government itself can resolve. It should urgently do something to disabuse the minds of the Shi’ite sect and erase the impression that there is more to the seeming dithering by the court on dispensing justice in El-Zakzaky’s case. The government can initiate some dialogue with the sect with a view to ensuring and achieving peace.
The government may not be comfortable with El-Zakzaky’s brand of Islam, but the constitution guarantees secularism, giving every Nigerian the right to practise any religion of his choice.
The FG cannot continue to unwittingly add more fronts to the ongoing asymmetric war against insurgency, banditry and kidnapping. The government cannot afford to, by its action or inaction, take steps that would result in making the Shi’ites more militant and rabidly radicalised. Utmost care must be taken not to drive them underground. The improper handling of the Boko Haram uprising, ab initio, resulted in the current insurgency that has since become a problem threatening to consume the whole of the North East geo-political zone of the country.
The court should speed up the dispensation of justice in El-Zakzaky’s case, at least, to erase the impression amongst the Shi’ites and other sympathetic Nigerians that the IMN leader is just being unnecessarily kept in detention by those in the corridors of power, who do not like his brand of Islam.
We think it’s about time the authorities took decisive action on the case of the IMN leader so that Abuja residents and other Nigerians can have some respite from the series of occasional violence visited on them.
It won’t be out of place if the FG heeds the advice of the House of Representatives that the Presidency should obey court orders and release the IMN leader, at least, in the interest of national peace and security. It is imperative that the country takes every cautious step to avoid a repeat of the circumstances that led to the emergence of the now violent and obdurate Boko Haram insurgent group, which it has since been battling to exterminate in the past ten years.
The government cannot afford to keep adding adversaries to the seemingly intractable war against the three key causes of insecurity in Nigeria-insurgency, banditry and
kidnapping.