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IMN wants government to take responsibility for El-Zakzaky’s detention

By Saxone Akhaine, Northern Bureau Chief
14 August 2016   |   3:39 am
The Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), wants the Federal Government to take responsibility for the continued detention of their leader, Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky.
Zakzaky

Zakzaky

The Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), wants the Federal Government to take responsibility for the continued detention of their leader, Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky.

In fact, the group said passing the buck to the Kaduna State government cannot clear the administration of alleged human rights abuses meted to El-Zakzaky and other members of the group.

The group was reacting to comments credited to presidential spokesman, Alhaji Garba Shehu, who said that President Muhammadu Buhari, was not responsible for the detention of El-Zakzaky, after the bloody clash between soldiers and the Islamic group in Zaria, in December 2015.

In a statement by the Secretary of the Media Forum of the IMN, Mallam Abdulmumin Giwa, yesterday, the group contended that; “Following a press conference by the Free El-Zakzaky Campaign Committee in Kaduna, where a sixteen-page statement was read to newsmen by the chairman, Malam Abdurrahman A Yola, in which the contradictions and discrepancies contained in the report of the Judicial Commission of
Inquiry were enumerated, the Presidency has decided to absolve itself of having anything to do with the Zaria massacre.”

Giwa at the conference said Garba Shehu absolved Buhari of complicity in the detention of El-Zakzaky, and described the clash as being under the purview of the Kaduna State government.

According to Giwa; “Journalists present at the conference wanted clarification on the issue with some of them asking whether there was something personal between President Buhari and the revered Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky…”

“The chairman of the Free Zakzaky Campaign Committee explained to newsmen that when President Muhammadu Buhari was forced to speak on the Zaria massacre after a long, but deliberate silence from the Presidency, the President gave his reason for attacking the IMN as running a government within a government.”

“The President further repeated the same statement that the IMN was running a government within a government and that was why we were attacked, in an interview he had with Al-Arabiyya TV station in Qatar.

“Does this still not tally with commonsense that the President is fully involved in the Zaria massacre of innocent unarmed civilians?” Giwa questioned.

He argued that “It was clear that the Judicial Commission of Inquiry (JCI) stayed away from pointing accusing fingers at the Presidency when it became clear to them that the massacre was ordered by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, as required by the Nigerian Constitution.”

“The IMN speaks against this injustice and unfairness and calls for the prosecution of everyone involved in the crime as the constitution is expected to be above the presidency and not otherwise.”

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