* He’s on verge of death – Daughter
Barely three days after he left Nigeria for medicare in an
Indian hospital, the embattled leader of the Islamic Movement of
Nigeria (IMN), Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, is back in the country.
Sources inside the movement confirmed to Daily Sun, Not
TheNigerialawyer that the Shi’ite leader and his wife left Delhi at
5pm Nigerian time. With the flight time of six hours, they touched
down at theNnamdi Azikiwe Internation Airport by midnight.
This was confirmed in a statement by Ibrahim Musa, spokesman of
the movement, who accused the Federal Government of frustrating the
treatment of the IMN leader.
“Following lack of a breakthrough in the impasse that ensued in
the treatment in New Delhi of Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky, it is now
confirmed that the Sheikh is on his way back to Abuja,” the
statement said.
“In a video message sent through his office, the Sheikh said it
was decided that they will be taken to the airport to be flown back
to Nigeria. He has left Delhi by 17:00 Nigerian time. He prayed
that that may be the best option in the circumstances.
“The Nigerian government’s interference and scuttling of the
whole process rather than supervision as ordered by the court is
the direct cause of the impasse. The government never wanted the
medical leave in the first place, and did whatever to stop it by
all means possible.”
In an exclusive interview with Daily Sun in Kaduna, yesterday,
another staunch member of IMN, Dr. Shuaibu Musa, described the
return of their leader without getting what he traveled for as a
“very bad development.”
“The crux of the matter is that the government never wanted him
to go for the treatment in the first place. If you recall, they
opposed the application in court and that failed, they said they
were going on appeal. Again, when that was not going to be
favourable to them, they then put conditions they thought should be
able to prevent Sheikh from going.
“After all that failed, they then took another step which was to
go there and interfere with the treatment to scuttle rather than
supervise it
“It is a well known fact that every patient is autonomous and
has the right to chose the doctor he or she wants and that was why
if you come to the hospital, there is what we call consent, which
means people have their consent on treatment and you cannot impose
treatment on anybody.
“They went there to ensure that the hospital does not admit,
accept or treat him to the point that they arranged doctor for him
to see.
“So, Sheikh then decided that, rather than face all that there,
he should come back home and whatever is going to happen should
happen at home. That is just what is going on.”
The IMN leader had earlier raised the alarm over the situation
in India, saying it was worse than what he and his wife experienced
in Nigeria.
In an audio tape that went viral on Wednesday, he had said he
was being held under heavy security, expressing the desire to
return home.
El-Zakzaky complaimed that he was not given access to his
preferred doctors, adding that he did not trust those they asked to
examine him.
But the Federal Government had dismissed his claim, accusing him
of not complying with the terms of the Kaduna high court, which
granted him medical leave.
In a statement, Grace Gekpe, permanent secretary, ministry of
information,had said the IMN leader demanded to have his passport
and sought free movement. She added that he wanted to receive
visitors and also made a request to be checked into a 5-star
hotel.
She said he had behaved so badly that the Indian authorities
were willing to return him to Nigeria.
The Shi’ite’s leader’s daughter, Suhaila had also raised the
alarm that his father is suffering from lead poisoning which could
result to his death.
“I am really worried… especially because of the lead and cadmium
poisoning,” she said.
“His doctors say if he gets to a certain level his organs could
start failing and that’s really scary because that means he could
just die at any moment,” she said in an interview with BBC.
While noting that the embattled cleric deserves to get proper
medical attention, Suhaila said her father told her that he was
unhappy with the heavy presence of security operatives at the
Medanta Hospital.
El-Zakzaky, in a viral video, said him and his wife were placed
under security and treated like criminals, a development he claimed
could affect his psychology worse than the infamous Kirikiri
maximum prison would do to him.
“All what we have seen here, have shown us that there is no
trust, they just brought us here for another detention. I have been
in detention for about thirteen years but I’ve never seen this kind
of security that I’m seeing here, even at the door of my hospital
room, there are many security personnel waiting, heavily armed,” he
said.
“They didn’t even allow me to go to the next room, I started
asking myself, all these while I’ve been in detention, I’ve never
seen this type. Even if I’m in the cell, they usually lock us up
around 9 p.m. and open the cell around 7 a.m. and they allow us to
go anywhere we want in the area we are.
“Even Kirikiri prison will not affect me psychologically like
this one. It will not be possible for us to come out of detention
just to get medical attention and now find ourself in another form
of detention”
He further said he could not trust the Indian authorities,
citing Malaysia, Indonesia and Turkey as preferred
destinations.
“We won’t submit ourselves to people we don’t trust. There is a
need for us to go back home since it has been agreed that we should
travel out to get medical attention and India is not a place we can
trust,” he said.
“There are other countries that have volunteered to take care of
our treatment, some are Malaysia, Indonesia and Turkey. We can
choose from amongst these three.”
The Federal Government had dismissed the cleric’s claim,
accusing him of making unreasonable demands, including wanting to
check into a 5-star hotel.
Subscribe ToNairalaw News!
Read more just-in-el-zakzaky-returns-to-nigeria/