Zakzaky’s Detention: Cruelty Looms Large

Amidst our long-drawn-out and seemingly never-ending dirge in the wake of the horrendous massacre in Zaria last year, there came a heartrending missive through the primogeniture and the one and only surviving son of the leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria,

Sayyid Muhammad Ibraheem courtesy of their visit – of late – to his father, Allamah Zakzaky [h].

By virtue of the rigours of the vicious slaughter of more than a thousand defenceless, unarmed Nigerian citizens at large in seventeen months, his six consanguineous brothers inclusive but in threes and on two different occasions, July 25, 2014 and December 14, 2015, and; to crown it all, the continuous but unlawful incarceration of his parents, Sayyed Muhammad alludes to what devolves upon revolutionary brothers and sisters and people of conscience in an earnest quest for Allamah Zakzaky’s [h] release for effective treatment in any place of his choice and his being freed unconditionally from the ferocious, savage and cruel hostage he has since been illegally taken to and insidiously held in.

That Saturday, December 12 attack on the iconic Hussainiyya and subsequent, enormous onslaughts on Gyallesu, Dar al-Rahma, Fudiyyah Islamic Centre, Jushi Area of the tomb of Allamah Zakzaky’s [h] mother, and beyond must be classified as the saddest and most sadistic and one without equal in the annals of Nigerian army’s violation of human rights – and that should also be the last. Hundreds of families have been distressed: hundreds of widows, orphans and bereaved persons are yet grieving in unbroken mourning, sad laments and abject discomfort.

The brutish killing of people, particularly, women, children and the aged and the hurling of their corpses all in a mass grave is as most senselessly iniquitous and felonious as it was not based on any acceptable, fitting rationalization or any law of the land. After the entire bombing and arson spree, binge killings, ruthless cremation of dead bodies and some people alive and the orgy of destructions of both movable and immovable property which all amounts to crime against humanity as well as war crime, the fielded soldiers arrayed themselves and lavished their ammunitions on Allamah Zakzaky [h] and his wife and yet abducted both of them.

Ever since then, despite the multiple gunshot wounds he sustained, he was maliciously denied access to his doctors and there has not been specialized medical attention assigned to him in spite of the urgent need and his health condition is deteriorating and failing day by day; hitherto, they remain mute. Nevertheless, taking care of one’s health is his bounden duty to fix and Allamah Zakzaky [h] has aptly said it all to Comrade Femi Falana [SAN] on April 1, 2016: “They say they are looking after my health. Am I to look after my health or those that ordered for me to be killed?”

Humanity is said to have known no boundary – except the superposition of ignorance over it owing to insolent nuisance of an ignoramus or the exaggeratedly amenable supersedence of an extremist through inordinate intolerance. But, that accommodating altar is being compromised as hardened criminals walk the earth with utmost impunity whereas the extremely oppressed Allamah Zakzaky [h] is slowly going blind, partially sighted, and crippled in both arm and leg under the illicit detention of DSS.

Perhaps the perpetrators of the massacre, those who had preplanned, coordinated and executed it are really known full well but yet sheltered. Is it the oppressor or the oppressed that is supposed to be under “protective” or otherwise custody? The most primary of the fabrics binding all human communities throughout the world has been, on a sustained basis, of the security of life and of its means. In stark contrast, there is almost absolute pervasion of such provisions in Nigeria as there is downright leeway to those often employed for national security that are every so often being deployed to either silence or kill victims of their ferocity at will, and there is deliberate miscarriage of justice everywhere.

One of the most important facts but largely neglected by previous and contemporary governments is that Allamah Zakzaky [h] has long become an “Ummah”; for, he has built and consolidated one on fairness, justice and dignity. And it is evident that he has torn the curtain of sectarianism and overwhelmed its custodians and stands tall among all school of thoughts. As the eminent leader of the blazed trail, he had conquered the loathsome forces of bigotry and ripped their blinkers down and has been and still is manifestly in the vanguard for unity and peaceful co-existence.

In this ocean of turbulent and decadent morality, Allamah Zakzaky’s [h] unshakable faith in Allah [swt] has brought into being a revolutionary island of integrated emancipation, peace, equanimity, decorum and sorts of Islamic chivalry that no tidal tornadoes can sweep away to cronyism. He is a much loved, charismatic leader in and outside Nigeria and also has the admiration and support of people across all faiths – something the so-called, however, dubious primus-inter-pares could not even consider let alone to mull over.

Though a government would prefer that its people remained so soaked in ignorance of its intricate artifice and be steeped in dissemination of its mysterious bundle of evilness and the entrenchment of hostility to one another so that it exploits their schism, dissension and acrimony, even so mawkishly. And this was the clear-cut outlook of the colonial enterprise of yore; though, it is in spite of everything inspired through Zionism and the interference of the Great Satan, the USA from coasts to coasts across continents. This disgusting source of global arrogance, irrationalism and violence is always out to pit a state against a portion of its citizenry and is not bothered by those running the gauntlet.

At the jaws of their ruthlessly wicked savagery in Zaria, the Chief of Army Staff [COAS] Lt-Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai has snatched a haunting defeat, and there is a sudden off-the-cuff reaction. His relentless and vicious sponsored propaganda and smear campaigns of calumny in his attempt to demonize the Islamic Movement in Nigeria are no more than crying shame. Several efforts to want to nip their atrocities in the sophist bud of outrageous allegations of “assassination attempt”, “road blockade”, “creating a state within a state”, etc. were remarkably exposed as camouflage of hatred in sophistry.

All these enmity and fabrications of distasteful pretexts are, no doubt, the result of the straight defiance and open noncooperation of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria and its leadership to succumb to injustice and oppression against humanity altogether. Then, the masses – even with their nauseating disposition of enslavement – would want to know the government’s lookout that has since loosened its tongue without frankness and honesty.

While this is going on at this point in time, it is indeed our bounden responsibility to protest the illegal detention of our leader in a bold, open but civilized manner and to demonstrate in addition, from every nook to every cranny and yonder, our strong disapproval of the unceasing violation of Allamah Zakzaky’s [h] basic and fundamental human rights. Because, failure of our collective reaction to the great injustice that has been meted out against him may most likely result to having ourselves to blame in time to come soon.

By Mukhtar Abdul-Rahman

Source: www.islamicmovement.org