Recall that different courts had granted Sheikh El Zakzaky bail in the past, but the government continued detaining him, thereby pushing his followers into an endless protest.
On Sunday, 29th October, the IMN embarked on a trek to mark Arbaeen (fortieth day), which is a mourning period in Islam to mark and commemorate 40 days after Ashura, the tragic day that Tyrant Yazid bn Muawiyyah killed Imam Hussain ibn Ali (AS).
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During the trek, they (Shiites) clashed with the Nigerian army and some of them were killed, also the following day, some also embarked on a protest to demand the release of their leader, Sheikh El Zakzaky, they were also killed by the army.
Speaking with Nigerian Tribune, one of the leaders of the IMN Abdullahi Musa said that they were burying a total of 23 of their members murdered by the Nigerian army during their protest in Abuja.
He alleged that their members were killed by Guard Brigade in Abuja when he claimed to take order from President Muhammadu Buhari, and some corpses of their murdered members were still in police custody.
According to him “they are 23 in number, we are burying them in Maraba, Nasawara state. Everybody is feeling bad, when they kill your people, you have to be sad, nobody is happy with what happened, but all I know is that this killing can not stop us, it will only give us courage to do what we are doing because it’s what we believe, and there is no constitutional back up for what they army did, and it was Guard Brigade that killed our members, and people are supposed to know that Guard Brigade are only answerable to Mr President, so people should analyse and know who ordered the killing of innocent citizens in Nigeria here.
“We have been seeking for justice for the freedom of our leader, and we are yet to seek justice over the killing of our brothers and sisters, therefore we will continue seeking for justice until justice is done.
“We have followed all other options, but the government fail to respect it, even a competent court of law has ordered the freedom of our leader but they refused, they disobeyed the court orders and yet they keep telling people that he has committed no offense and they keep him in their custody without proper medication”.
He said that they would continue protesting and keep demanding for the release of their leader, Sheikh El Zakzaky until he is freed, despite the continued killing of their members by the army.
“I think the option we have is to come out and protest, and it’s out constitutional right, so if anybody feel he can violate the constitution, violate the law of the land and kill people, disrespect human life and kill people, should go ahead and keep on killing us, but we know there is a day that justice will work on this country”, he said.
While calling on the international communities to come to their aid, he said they reason why they were killed by the government was to instill fear in Nigerians who are been oppressed so that they can’t stand to faced their oppressors.
“To the Nigerian citizens in particular, they should know that government is killing us to insert fear in the masses so that whenever the masses are oppressed, they should not come and challenge the oppressors.
“And it is because we are oppressed and we come out to challenge the oppressors, that is why the oppressors are killing us in order to insert fear in other citizens so that whenever anybody is oppressed, nobody comes out to challenge them.
“The international communities and other human rights activists, am calling on them to come see what is happening in Nigeria, this government has killed a lot of people, but they said they killed only three”.
Explaining how their members where killed, Musa said “today (Wednesday) we have about 48 corpses, 9 corpses are still with the government, they have distributed them to various places in Abuja, there are three corpses of our members in Gwagwalada (University of Abuja Teaching Hospital), we went there and we saw them.
“Yesterday (Tuesday), they opened fired on us and killed a lot of people, 6 people were killed, and we have two corpses with us, the police went away with 4 so about 6 people were confirmed dead yesterday (Tuesday), and this attacked of yesterday (Tuesday), happened inside the city of Abuja”.
Addressing the issue of their members attacking the army, Musa said “if they said we attacked them at the Check Point, it is funny, how can a group of people attack an army that are fully armed, if someone want to attack army, that person should be armed, we are unarmed and we are together with women and children, so it is very funny for the authority to say that we attacked them, and they told they whole world that they killed only 3, and now we have 24 dead bodies with us.
“So the international bodies should come into Nigeria and watch how this administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is brutalizing citizens that are unarmed, just because we say no to injustice, we protested against the illegal detention of our leader”.
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