Two killed as Kaduna youths continue attacks on Shiites

Reports from Kaduna indicate that attacks on Members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, IMN, also known as Shiites, that started earlier in the week in some towns in the North, continued on Saturday, as two members of the movement were killed.

According to reports, the two Shiite members were killed and ten others injured when youths attacked them while rebuilding their school that was destroyed in the first attack near Zango Road in the Tudun Wada area of Kaduna metropolis.

The attack caused panic for residents of Tudun Wada, Ungwan Muazu and Kinkinau who remained indoors while those caught outside their homes ran for safety.

According to witnesses, the Special Adviser to the State Governor on Youths, Awwal Maikyau, was said to have been attacked when he attempted to intervene and calm the youths.

Speaking on the attack on them, a member of the movement said they were attacked as they tried to rebuild the sect’s school that was attacked on Tuesday.

“This is the danger behind playing politics with religion,” the member said.

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The Shia, in its reaction to attacks on its members, said it was wrong for Governor El-Rufai to condemn the attacks on its members becuase he is behind them. The Shia group also said the condemnation was a mere afterthought.

A statement, signed by its President, Ibrahim Musa, insisted that the Kaduna State Government is quilty of orchestrating the attacks on the Shia movement.

“Clearly, this is nothing but an afterthought. What happened in the wake of our peaceful Ashura mourning procession was a carefully planned plot, meticulously executed with all machinery of government. The government had all along tried to give their brutal clampdown on Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) members a semblance of an altercation between IMN and the masses.

“Kaduna state governor, Nasiru ElRufai alluded to this right from the outset of the attacks in December, 2015 in his infamous state-wide broadcast. His utterances and body language since then left no one in doubt his disdain for IMN members. Using all the tools of governance at his disposal, in private and openly, often in total disregard to reason, sanity or law, he exhibited extreme hate for IMN”.

He also said, “We have it on record how certain individuals and hate preachers took to the media and the podium respectively calling on the masses to join the government of El-Rufai in what they termed an “all-out war on Shia.

“The government and El-Rufai has neither refuted that nor call the perpetrators to order or better still arrest and punish the culprits, since they are well known and the actions were done in broad daylight. Simply put, El-Rufai is very much culpable,” the statement said.

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