Let Zakzaky go!

I know the animal I’m dealing with …Outlawing them is the only solution we see and anybody with a different view should tell us”, said Governor Nasir el Rufai of Kaduna State in reaction to criticisms trailing the iron-fisted treatment of Shiite leader, Ibrahim el-Zakzaky.

I have a different view. I think we should not be paddling furiously in a raging storm. Let the canoe glide.

When the freedom of one human being is denied unjustly, the rest of us are also in chains by proxy. It does not matter if the victim is a plebeian or a prince, a Jesu Oyingbo or a Zakzaky.

I have myself witnessed the excesses of some Shiite adherents in Zaria several years ago. They routinely shut the city down when processing. No one dared cross them. To avoid trouble, people usually took detours if a Shiite procession was along their route. The religious zealots seemed to be in a world all their own.

Ibrahim el-Zakzaky did not just materialise from thin air. He first came to the attention of the authorities during the military era when, as a Muslim student activist, he was accused of promoting an extreme, fundamentalist strain of Islam and propagating doctrines which the mainstream Sunni Muslim adherents considered blasphemous. It was alleged, too that he canvassed disrespect for constituted authority, including government in whatever shape or form.

Expulsion from the Ahmadu Bello University obviously did not cure him for he returned after his sojourn abroad to revive the Shiite movement and take the religious firmament by storm. One stone of public discontent rolled over another and a pile of disgruntlement against Zakzaky and his Shiite movement built up over the years.

It was but a matter of time for them to overreach themselves, which they did when they blocked the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff from passing through a major highway. A very illadvised move. So, Zakzaky and his followers were made to pay a stiff price in the 348 deaths recorded, including three of the Shiite leader’s sons. Since that time two years ago, Zakzaky has been a guest of the Directorate of State Security, DSS, despite several judicial pronouncements granting him bail.

Last year, Governor el-Rufai explained his opposition to Zakzaky’s group: “In Kaduna, there are two other Shi’ite organisations that don’t protest, they don’t block high ways … we don’t have a problem with them. The one that we have problems with is the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, IMN, headed by El-Zakzaky. They don’t recognise the President of Nigeria; they don’t recognise me as governor. Their allegiance is to another country and their objective is to turn Nigeria into an Islamic republic.”

Sentiments aside, whatever may be Zakzaky’s perceived excesses or alleged crimes, he deserves his day in court like the rest of us. He has been largely defanged and humiliated. To refuse to obey the court orders granting him bail does no credit to Nigeria. There are ways of covertly monitoring even certified dangerous men and women. To hold him extra-judicially suggests a resort to the rule of man, not the rule of law.

His counsel, Femi Falana SAN, is not amused at all. He pointed out that, “In two separate suits, the Kano and Sokoto judicial divisions of the federal high court have upheld the fundamental rights of the members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria to life, freedom of religion and freedom of expression including the right to engage in peaceful processions. But in utter contempt of the federal high court, the Federal Government has refused to release Sheik El -Zakzaky and his wife from illegal custody”.

Falana has now taken the battle to the Human Rights Commission where he hopes that, “a full-scale inquiry into the gross violations of the fundamental rights of the Shiites”, would be carried out.

The sight of Zakzaky’s followers engaged in an unequal battle with security forces on the streets of Abuja diminishes us as a nation. It may be silly to throw stones in exchange for hot lead; it may be stupid to attempt breaching a military checkpoint; but is killing them gruesomely the answer?

Irritating as it is, I would rather have the Shiites demonstrating openly everyday than have them go underground as Mohammed Yusuf’s followers did before announcing their coming of age as Boko Haram, now the second most bestial terrorist organisation in the world.

We still have a chance to trim and shape this acorn before it becomes an unwieldy oak.

Since the detention of Sheikh Zakzaky, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has reportedly called on President Muhammadu Buhari to investigate the killing of Shiites in Nigeria. Iran has also summoned the head of the Nigerian diplomatic mission in Tehran to protest against the clashes and ask that Shiite Muslims be protected.

Peaceful protests to condemn the killing of Shia Muslims in Nigeria were held in different cities of India, including Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad. Demonstrations were also held in Tehran and Mashhad in Iran. The agitation is increasingly taking an international dimension. (Does anyone remember what happened to the reported seizure of sophisticated arms and ammunition imported through the ports allegedly from Iran a while ago? Whatever happened to that case?)

Nigeria should not be turned to a proxy war theatre on either side of the Iran-Saudi Arabia muscle-flexing.

And whose idea of a joke was the revelation that government was spending N3.5 million to feed Zakzaky and wife monthly? Has the man become an industry?