Protests by the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, IMN, escalated in Abuja last week, as members of the group, otherwise known as Shi’ites, insisted on the release of their leader, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky. El-Zakzaky has been in detention together with his wife, Zeenat since December 13, 2015.
Police fired guns and teargas to disperse the protesters, numbering hundreds, in the Federal Capital Territory last Thursday. The previous day, they had marched from the National Human Rights Commission at Maitama through Transcorp Hilton to Gana Street, chanting anti-government songs and defying the presence of the armed security agents who patrolled the city in search of the group.
There was also a confrontation between the Shi’ites and law enforcement agents at the National Assembly last Tuesday. The incident reportedly left two persons dead.
The IMN members reportedly began with a peaceful procession and went violent when tear-gassed by security operatives after they attempted to force their way into the National Assembly complex.
They allegedly overpowered policemen at the Assembly gate, snatched one of their guns and shot a policeman and a personnel of the National Security and Civil Defence Corps. Three vehicles were burnt and several others destroyed during the encounter. Forty members of the group were arrested in connection with the violent protest.
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The IMN members have vowed to continue the protest marches until their leader and his wife are freed.
The violent encounter at the National Assembly prompted the House of Representatives to pass a motion last Wednesday, asking the Federal Government to obey the court orders ordering the release of Ibrahim El-Zakzaky on bail.
The lawmakers expressed the concern that the Shi’ite group members might wreak more havoc, while calling on the government to respect the rule of law, by obeying the court orders, which admitted the Shi’ite leader to bail.
El-Zakzaky founded the IMN with its headquarters in Zaria, Kaduna State in the early 1980s. Members of the group have over the years been having clashes with law enforcement agents, but the latest conflict began on December 12, 2015, when they blocked the main road passing through the group’s headquarters for a religious event. The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai was to attend an event at the Army Depot, Zaria on that day and had to pass through the barricaded road. After appeals to the stick-wielding Shi’ite members to vacate the road failed, the soldiers forcibly dispersed them. Early morning the next day, soldiers returned to the group’s compound with fury. No fewer than 347 members of the group were shot dead, including three sons of the leader. El-Zakzaky had earlier lost three sons in another encounter with soldiers the previous year.
The IMN leader and his wife who were also shot during the soldiers’ raid were clamped into detention, where lawyers, Femi Falana and Festus Okoye, who were engaged by the group to sue government for the killings, detention and destruction of property, said he had lost an eye and was on the verge of losing the other.
The Federal Government initially said El-Zakzaky was being held in protective custody. Later, former minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed said he could not be released and resettled because nobody wanted to be neighbours to the Shi’ites.
The Judicial Commission of Inquiry set up by the Kaduna State Government to investigate the soldiers’ invasion of the IMN headquarters condemned the excessive use of force, which led to the death of 347 members of the group and recommended trial of the Army commanders who ordered the operation. The recommendation was not acted upon.
The Kaduna State Government instead arraigned El-Zakzaky on charges of culpable homicide, unlawful assembly and disruption of public peace.
At the last sitting on March 25, this year, Justice Gideon Kurada of the Kaduna State High Court, who is presiding over the trial of the IMN leader and wife, adjourned the matter indefinitely “following his appointment to serve as the judge in the Presidential and National Assembly Elections Petitions Tribunal in Yobe State.”
We are concerned about the dangerous turn the Shi’ite crisis has taken.
If military action and indefinite detention of the IMN leader was intended to whip the group into line, that strategy has failed.
While the blocking of a major road by the group to prevent the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff from passing through was totally wrong and condemnable, killing 347 citizens extra-judicially over that incident could not have been the right response in a democratic country.
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The argument against the Shi’ites has been that they do not recognise Nigerian laws, but the IMN has put a lie to such labelling by going to different courts over the plight of its members, and securing rulings against government, which are being fragrantly disobeyed.
Although the Buhari administration inherited the IMN members’ tendency to be unruly, it has, unfortunately, aggravated the situation by using military might to correct a problem, which civil law enforcement could resolve.
Government should note that it was the same mishandling of the Boko Haram crisis that snowballed into the terrorism war, which the nation is still grappling with more than a decade after it started, and that a change of strategy on the Shi’ite issue should be considered to ensure peace.
A way forward is: to release El-Zakzaky and his wife from detention; to compensate families of the victims of the December 13, 2015 massacre; resettle the group in an area where they will no longer pose nuisance to the public and to monitor the activities of the group to ensure they do not endanger the peace of the country. These, we believe, will end the protests and clashes between the group and law enforcement agents
