El-Zakzaky: on sunday Nigerian Shiites issue warning to Buhari

The Islamic Movement in Nigeria (Shiites) has warned President Muhammadu Buhari to stop claiming that the fate of its leader, Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, lies with the courts not the federal government.

A statement on Sunday signed by the President Media Forum of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, Ibrahim Musa wondered how the presidency would make such a claim, when since December 2016, a federal high court in Abuja, presided by Justice Kolawole freed Sheikh El-Zakzaky.

He said: “In December 2016 the Federal High Court in Abuja freed Sheikh Zakzaky from the illegal detention, ordered that he, along with his wife, be compensated to the tune of N50m, a house be provided for him in any part of the country he desires and security be provided for his protection.

“The Buhari government deliberately acted in contempt of court and refused to respect the judiciary. So which court is the presidency talking about that will decide the fate of our leader?”

The IMN further declared that the fresh court case instituted by the Kaduna state government was a mischievous plot to keep its leader in perpetual detention.

“That the government mischievously concocted a new case in Kaduna, three years after the Zaria massacre, accusing the leader of the movement whose wife was shot, three children were killed, elder sister and nephew were burned alive and he was also shot severally, of abetting homicide.

“This was followed by a case in which over 100 members of the movement were freed by the High Court in Kaduna with a ‘No Case Submission’ implying that the case was only a mischief of keeping the revered leader in illegal detention,” the statement added.