NewsRescue
The Nigerian Army summoned to court Today, Wednesday the 10th, in the case of about 200 extrajudicially detained members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, failed to provide evidence that the members had weapons as they listed in their defense.
The courts had brought the members who had for two months been denied legal rights of charge, visitation and bail, to court for the December 2015 case with the Nigerian army that saw as many as 1000 members killed, properties destroyed and their graves exhumed.
While the Nigerian Army alleged that the members were armed, when asked to provide evidence of the arms including pictorial, the Nigerian Army submitted that the weapons “were in Lagos.”
The Islamic movement has raised an alarm, describing as very dangerous the ploy of the Nigerian army to frame its members being detained illegally with trumped-up charges.
It has queried why as is standard procedure, if such weapons were found, why they were not paraded since the over 60 days of the incident. The movement asked why the alleged weapons would be in Lagos; asserting that the Army was cooking up evidence to frame its members with weapons probably seized from armed robbers that it plans to bring from Lagos.
Harun Elbinawi of the movement further asked that if rag-tag Boko Haram, Niger Delta militants and Fulani militants are able to kill soldiers with guns, had the movement’s members been armed, how come their highly educated class of professionals were unable to kill a single soldier?
The Nigerian Army has been accused of pursuing a sectarian agenda against a large minority Muslim group in Nigeria.
It has been noted that shortly after the Zaria massacre, the Saudi run Islamic development bank promised to give northern governors led by the implicated Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai, $100 million.
It would be dangerous for Nigeria to make itself a puppet of global strife that has led to continuous blood-shed and losses of innocent lives across the Muslim world.
