DSS statement recklesss, says IMN – TheNigerialawyer

The Islamic Movement of Nigeria, the umbrella group for the
endangered Shiite sect, has strongly disagreed with Friday’s
statement by the Public Relations Officer of the Department of
State Services, DSS, Peter Afunanya over why its leader Sheikh
Ibraheem El-Zakzaky remains in detention.

A spokesman for the IMN, Ibrahim Musa, who heads the group’s
media forum, said Afunanya misdirected the Nigerian public into
believing that the illegal detention of Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky,
Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd) and Omoyele Sowore was based on their
choices.

Musa said Afunanya’s statement was reckless and an act of
mischief.

“Indeed the time tested axiom of Sheikh Usman Fodio that
“conscience is an open wound and only the truth can heal it,” does
not fit the statement issued by the DSS, for indeed falsehood can
never heal the wound of conscience. We challenge the DSS to allow
the Sheikh to speak to the public on whether he chose to stay with
them or not. It is pure deceit for them to speak on his behalf”,
Musa said.

Read IMN’s full statement:

“In response to this act of mischief and deliberate blackmail,
the Movement hereby wishes to put the points straight as regards
the detention of Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky.

“We outrightly refute this false and reckless accusation against
the illegally detained leader of the Islamic Movement Sheikh
Zakzaky.

“Following the attack on the Islamic Movement by the Muhammadu
Buhari regime in December 2015 in Zaria, Kaduna state, where over
1000 unarmed men, women and children members of the Movement were
extra judicially killed by the Nigerian Army, seeking for redress
in the most civil manner, the Islamic Movement sued for the
enforcement of the rights of Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky (H) who was
shot severally, abducted and detained by the DSS. The case was
heard by Justice Gabriel Kolawale and lasted a year, while the DSS
made efforts to justify the illegal detention but all to no
avail.

“On the 16th of December 2016, the Federal High Court in Abuja
issued a judgement enforcing the fundamental rights of the revered
leader of the Islamic Movement Sheikh Zakzaky (H) in which the DSS,
also a respondent in the case, was instructed by the court to
unconditionally release the revered Sheikh to which it acted in
total contempt of court and blatantly disregarded the court’s
judgement.

“He was continuously held in illegal detention by the DSS,
disallowed access to medical treatment and fed poison. This gave
birth to a regime of peaceful protests within and outside Nigeria
calling on Nigerian government to respect the court and release the
revered leader. Several peaceful protesters were killed in their
hundreds by police, army and DSS on different occasions on the
streets of Nigeria.

“This act of disregard to law and order grossly affected the
image of the Buhari regime which is tagged as tyrannical and
undemocratic by a lot of concerned individuals, groups and
governments.

“In trying to justify the continued illegal detention of the
Sheikh, the government concocted cropped up charges and instituted
a new case against Sheikh Zakzaky (H) in a Kaduna High court. The
charges were the same made against Islamic movement members out of
which almost about a hundred were earlier discharged and acquitted
by the Kaduna High Court.

“The revered Sheikh was then transferred from Abuja DSS
detention facility to Kaduna DSS detention facility using it as
alibi for the continued illegal detention.

“Due to the Sheikh’s deteriorating health condition as confirmed
by government doctors, the Kaduna High Court granted an order
allowing the Sheikh to sponsor himself for medical treatment in
India with the government only inspecting and not interfering. Here
too, the government set up vendetta and scuttled the medical trip
insisting that he must allow himself to be treated in India by
doctors he had never seen or known and had no confidence in. It was
only logical that he refused to be treated by doctors provided by
those plotting to kill him back home in Nigeria lest they kill him
in India and frame a fake story as they have always done. It is
better to return to Nigeria and die in their detention for the
world to know exactly who killed him.

“Against this background we wish to reiterate that the actions
of the DSS are contrary to the laws establishing them because they
have turned themselves into machinery used in implementing the
whims and caprices of suppressive leaders instead of the interest
of the country whose tax payers pay their bills.

“Indeed the time tested axiom of Sheikh Usman Fodio that
“conscience is an open wound and only the truth can heal it,” does
not fit the statement issued by the DSS, for indeed falsehood can
never heal the wound of conscience. We challenge the DSS to allow
the Sheikh to speak to the public on whether he chose to stay with
them or not. It is pure deceit for them to speak on his behalf!

“At this juncture, we also challenge the DSS to prove us wrong
by simply respecting and obeying court orders and judgment and not
the whims of those in authority by simply releasing those the
courts have ordered to be released. The level of disregard to law
and order the DSS is seen to have attained is totally alien to
their rules of engagement and to the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria. It is therefore pertinent that fairness and
justice be allowed to reign and this can only be attained through
obedience to law and order”.

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