By Nasir Hashim, IMN
It is obvious that Wahhabists with the support of Kaduna state government, have formed an anti-Shia movement, and employed administrative principle of division of labour. Their pseudo –mullahs take the duty of hate preaches, false propaganda, and inciting slogans in their praying shops.
Public lectures on topics such as Shia: “Muslims or Infidels” has become the fashion of the day. Insults and dangerous accusations are the focus of their Friday sermons.
The computer literates among their youth make it easy for members of public to have access to such propaganda, slogans and accusations through their mobile phones.
There is also a programme aired on daily basis by the journalists few among them. Here, some miscreants in the society are hired to come and give false testimony against Sheikh El-Zakzaky and his followers, especially those living with him at Gyellesu quarters of Zaria. Although their remuneration is big, peace must be allowed to reign. And, they have to be careful in order not to lose contact with supper natural being.
If the situation necessitates seeking opinions, I suppose neutral, popular and respected individuals such as the village head of the area should be contacted. Why then should they be satisfied with the opinions of one side without balancing with that of the other. This is against the ethics of journalism. Daily Trust newspaper showed a good example to be followed. On the 18thDecember, 2015 (six days after Zaria incident) it carried a sample of some opinions of some residents of Gyellesu area. Some of them testified as follows: According to one Maikudi Shehu said, “The activities of some Shiites is uncivilized. However, one cannot deny the fact that many Shiites are humble. To start with, El-Zakzaky assists the less privileged, especially his neighbors. In the case of emergencies, Zakzaky would give the group’s ambulance for a sick to be taken to hospital, among many other humanitarian activities. But as you know, no matter the good you are doing a single egg render it useless”. Of course, some naturally hold contrary opinions. Such is human. One man’s meat is another man’s poison. You can’t expect Shiites live like angels; they are human beings like everyone.
However, Wahabbists with their eyes closed and brain shattered, they are not interested in nothing but falsehood and allegations. Is it possible in human nature to have a group of many people, and all of them thinking alike? This is what wahbbists seem to lead people to believe, i.e all people of Gyellesu had bad experience with Sheikh El-Zakzaky and Shiites his people. No a single person has good thing to say. Even if one is not opportune to go to school, common sense is there. One can think objectively and prospectively. We have to avoid the wahabbists’ kind of mindsets, who believed that Nigerian Army fought Jihad for them.
Talking about uncivilized activities of some Shiites at Gyellesu – the fact is many unfortunate incidents happened since Sheikh El-Zakzaky came to the area after his release from prison in 1998. For instance, there was a police raid in 1999 targeting Sheikh El-Zakzaky’s house for a reason only known to the police. As a result one woman lost her life. There was also a foiled murder attack by some suspected Salafists of Gyellesu. The Salafists first of all began raining abuses on Sheikh El-Zakzaky from their mosques to the extent that Sheikh asked, “what did I do to these to deserve their insults?” These were some of the reason s why the Hurases of Islamic Movement began to take some security measures in order to prevent unfortunate incident.
In 2007, Sheikh Jafar was murdered in the early morning of Friday while leading prayer. In 2014, Sheikh Auwal Al-Bani was also murdered when he just parked by a store for shopping. Recently in 2015, there was yet another assassination attempt by group thugs against Sheikh El-Zakzaky. These further triggered even more security action. Those who sold their houses and left Gyellesu area only did so either because they got socio-economic promotion or because they were not happy with the progress Shia progress but because of the alleged uncivilized activities of Shiites.
At this point in time, I regret to say religion has been politicized. Followers behave like politicians with all characteristic speeches and actions of oppositions. They divided the religion into something like PDP AND APC. One is using every mean available to have dominance over the other.(wahabbists dangerously struggle to defeat Shia). They forgot that religion belongs to Allah. Whatever the case may be, we Shiites are optimistic that finally victory is on our side. “ Walaqad katabna fizzaru minba’adath thikir annal arada yaruthuha min ibadunas saliheen”.
If PDP could not defeat APC in their presidential race despite hate speeches, allegations, false propaganda, intimidations etc. against Muhammad Buhari, Wahbbists too can never defeat Shia (Insha Allah). The same way as they did not heed to PDP’s allegations against Buhari, Nigerians will not judge El-Zakzaky and Shia by what our enemies say. Listening to public lectures, radio programmes, televisions etc are not enough. We urge people to read books in order to see the truth. Not everything people say is considered knowledge; knowledge is a statement of justifiable fact
Peace, blessing and protection of Allah be upon the rightly guided.
