NewsRescue
A Nigerian Newspaper, Premium Times reported the following news item under the heading “Kaduna Govt seek dead sentence for 50 Shiite members”:
“The Kaduna State Government on Thursday asked a Kaduna High Court to sentence 50 Shiite members to death for allegedly causing the death of a soldier. The government had filed a five-count charge against the accused before Justice David Wyom. It accused them of criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly, culpable homicide, disturbance of public peace and wrongful restrain. In the petition, the counsel to the government, Bayero Diri, said the offences are punishable under Sections 97, 221, 102, 106 and 225 of the Penal Code Law, Laws of Kaduna State 1991.”
The brutal Zaria massacre took place on the 12th to 14th December, 2015 when the Nigerian army launched a pre-planned and coordinated attacks on the members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) killing close to 1000 civilians that included men, women, children and the aged. Throughout this period the Nigerian army authorities in all their press conferences, press releases and press statements on the Zaria massacre did not announce that one of their soldier was killed in the Zaria massacre. The Nigerian Army Chief Buratai on his presentation at the Nigerian Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in February when asked about the number of casualties in the Zaria massacre answered that “only 7 Shiites were killed and 10 injured”. The question is did not the Nigerian Army Chief knows that one of his soldiers was killed?
If we can remember a Magistrate Court that sat in Kaduna Central Prison on 10th February, 2016 read out some charges against the 191 members of the #IMN that were languishing in jail for more than two months then. Among the charges were illegal assembly, causing bodily harm, public disturbances and possession of firearms. They were not charged with “culpable homicide” of killing a Nigerian soldier. The question is why were they not charged then with killing a soldier since “culpable homicide” is the most serious offence among all the charges?
The answers to all these questions raised lies in the fact that when the Nigerian Army Chief Buratai made his presentation to the Nigerian Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in February, the soldier “Yakubu Dankaduna” was not dead but alive and he was not killed by Shiites. And this is the same reason why the Kaduna state government and Governor Elrufai did not charged the 191 members of IMN on 10th February, 2016 with “culpable homicide”.
Another question of importance is that which criteria did the Kaduna state government uses in choosing the 50 Shiites it charged with “culpable homicide” out of the 191 Shiites that it earlier charged to court? And why select only 50 and why did they not charged the whole 191 with “culpable homicide”?
This new form of monumental fraud of fraudulently charging 50 Shiites with the killing of a manufactured “dead” soldier underlined the extreme wickedness and evilness of Governor Elrufai and the Northern Nigerian civilian-military cabal that masterminded and brutally executed the inhuman Zaria massacre. These people are no more less devils than the murderous #BokoHaram thugs they claimed to be fighting. It is the same mentality and the same mindset, this is the clear manifestation of the contamination of Sunni Islam by #Wahabism that removes love, compassion, mercy and tolerance from the heart of #Muslims and replace them with hate, intolerance, bigotry and terrorism.
It is important to note that the Lawyers of the 50 accused IMN members were not even notify of this new charge against their clients by the Kaduna state government. The 50 accused IMN members were just bundled into vans and dragged to the Kaduna High court under heavy security. And the plea of the 50 accused IMN members was not taken as the judge adjourned sitting till May 16.
Finally, all this diversionary tactics of Governor Elrufai and his fellow bloodthirsty war criminals will never save them from their eventual humiliation and prosecution for the brutal murder of close to 1000 defenseless and unarmed Nigerians in Zaria last December. What they committed was undoubtedly a war crime and the most recent report by the London – based International human rights organization, Amnesty International, titled “Unearthing The Truth” collaborated the position of IMN that the Nigerian regime unleashed heavily – armed soldiers on a civilian population.
Harun Elbinawi
elbinawi@yahoo.com
Elbinawi.wordpress.com