NewsRescue
The growing severe divide between the Nigerian army and Kaduna governor Nasir el-Rufai is being seen in a host of recent sponsored articles by the army accusing the Kaduna government of making false claims of the numbers buried in the mass grave at Mando cemetery.
At least 1000 members of the Islamic movement are either killed or in the possession of the Nigerian army since the December 2015 massacre in Zaria. NewsRescue first exposed the mass grave at Mando in February.
The army was apparently startled by the confession of the Kaduna government and had planned to hide the Mando mass grave permanently. Buratai had submitted that the army killed only 7 Muslims. Thus the army is promoting series of articles discrediting the revelations in the Kaduna confession and accusing the Kaduna governor of political mischief for a 2019 Presidency ambition against Buhari. Another sponsored article “who is afraid of Buratai,” that appeared in the Vanguard had likewise condemned the testimony of the Kaduna government.
The latest is a piece by HURIWA in Leadership: Army/Shiites Clash: HURIWA Faults Amnesty International On Probe
by Olugbenga Soyele
Two civil society groups, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) and Association of African Writers on Human and Peoples Right (AFRIRIGHT) has faulted Amnesty International’s demand for probe of the number of casualties involved the recent Army/Shiites clash in Zaria, Kaduna State.
According to the group, a coalition of over 26 civil society groups, Nigerians and other organisations must exercise restraint and let the National Human Rights Commission probe panel and the Kaduna State judicial panel conclude their investigation before any further action is taken on the incident.
The Civil Society groups in a press statement issued in Abuja through its National Coordinator and Country Director Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf said accused the Kaduna State governor Malam Nassir El Ruffai exploiting the incident for political again.
It states, “El Ruffai is stoking the embers of hatred and incitement of gullible Nigerians against the Nigerian Army by juggling and bandying unsubstantiated and a politically inflated number of casualties of the Shiites/Army clash without any shred of scientifically provable evidence to back up such sensationally high number.
“We suspect that the jostling for who runs for presidency in 2019 general elections may be the ultimate reason for this sensationalism from the officials affiliated to the office of the Kaduna State governor who may have issued that figure before the Kaduna State judicial probe panel to rubbish any human rights record the current President may flaunt or advertise whether now or in the nearest future within and outside of our shores. The target is President Muhammadu Buhari.”
“Nigerians should disregard the hasty conclusions already drawn by the London based global rights forum- Amnesty International which had called for a probe on the high figure of casualties even when it is a known logical fact that both the panels set up on that sad Shiites/Army clash are yet to wind up the exercises nor have they issued their respective reports of their investigative activities,” The group stated.
Civil right commentator Harun Elbinawi had this to say:
“I will not join issues with them for castigating Governor Elrufai as he was one of them from the beginning and he later “betrayed” them to save his neck by confessing to the whole world of the part he played in burying 347 Nigerians that included women and children that were brutally killed by the Nigerian Army in a single mass grave. But I will join issues with them for insulting Justice – seeking Nigerians as “gullible” for the real gullible are those who saw facts and truth and trampled on them!
“Their next drunken tirade against Governor Elrufai underlined the deep division that has emerged in the civilian-military alliance that masterminded and brutally executed the Zaria massacre: ‘We suspect that the jostling for who runs for presidency in 2019 general elections may be the ultimate reason for this sensationalism from the officials affiliated to the office of the Kaduna State governor who may have issued that figure before the Kaduna State judicial probe panel to rubbish any human rights record the current President may flaunt or advertise whether now or in the nearest future within and outside of our shores. The target is President Muhammadu Buhari.’
“As Nigerians will say it ‘that one na their palava’; let them wash their dirty laundry in the market place. This is just the beginning of their ignoble end and eventual humiliation, the blood of the close to 1000 men, women, children and the aged that they brutally killed in the Zaria massacre will haunt them forever.
“Then finally the faceless sponsored groups unmasked their ugly faces: ‘Nigerians should disregard the hasty conclusions already drawn by the London based global rights forum- Amnesty International which had called for a probe on the high figure of casualties even when it is a known logical fact that both the panels set up on that sad Shiites/Army clash are yet to wind up the exercises nor have they issued their respective reports of their investigative activities.’”
“They are frightened by the call for an independent and impartial probe because they want their war crimes buried just like how they buried those they mercilessly killed, burnt alive and buried alive. For their information the 347 figure is less than half the number of those missing since after the Zaria massacre and there are credible information that at least one more mass grave exists as a result of the Zaria massacre.
“Finally, the Zaria massacre was undoubtedly a heinous war crime that can never be buried by anyone. Nigerians were brutally slaughtered in the most inhuman manner and wickedly dumped in mass Graves by the bloodthirsty war criminals at night to bury the evidences.”
