Stop lying, you can’t place El-Zakzaky’s fate squarely in El-Rufai’s hands, IMN counters AGF

The Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), otherwise called Shiites, Sunday dismissed claims by the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), that it was only Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, that could order the release of its leader, Ibraheem El-Zakzaky and his wife.

The Head of the IMN Media Forum, Ibrahim Musa, disclosed this in a statement in Kano.

The AGF had said last week that it was only the Kaduna State government that could release the IMN leader since he was being prosecuted by the state government after his followers clashed with soldiers in the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, in Zaria in 2015.

Malami said the federal government does not interfere in cases prosecuted by state governments.

El-Zakzaky is standing trial at the Kaduna State High Court.

The group said its leader was arrested and detained by the Department of State Services (DSS) and arraigned at the Federal High Court, Abuja, which ordered his release from the custody of the secret police.

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The statement read:

“We wish to categorically repudiate the audacious insinuations by the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) that the fate of the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky and his wife, lies in the hands of the Kaduna State government and its governor, Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai. We are not deceived by any denial of complicity of General Buhari-led Federal Government.

“Firstly, the federal government’s criminal complicity in the heinous genocide in Zaria of December 2015 that led to the extrajudicial murder of over a thousand members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria and the subsequent arrest and detention of the Sheikh is beyond doubt.

“This much was accepted and testified to by the General himself in an interview he granted a Qatari Television Channel while on a visit there as early as March 2016. The Saudi Crown Prince’s self-confession during a visit to the US that the brutal and inhuman suppression and the continuing illegal detention of Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky was part of his major foreign policy achievements further confirm the federal government’s involvement, as foreign policy issues are in the exclusive list of the federal government.

“Was that not why the Saudi King was the first to call the General Buhari in December 2015, soon after the Zaria genocide, to congratulate him for what he called a victory against terrorism? Was that not also why General Buhari wanted to smuggle Nigeria into a Saudi-led military alliance at the time in the name of fighting terrorism? Was not the then Nigerian Defense Minister, Mansur Dan Ali accorded honor by the Saudi authorities on behalf of the federal government for the role the Nigerian military, an agent of the federal government, played?”

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