By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer
    
Nigeria, it seems, is being run by a strange regime, which has no hesitation in killing its own citizens for protesting peacefully for recognition of their birthrights and release of compatriots, including respected religious leaders languishing in prison for no apparent fault.
On Tuesday in the capital Abuja, in front of the parliament, trigger-happy Nigerian soldiers shot down at least three demonstrators of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) for insisting that the group’s representatives be allowed to meet MPs personally to listen to their grievances and read the letter they have prepared for release of Ayatollah Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky.
The IMN Leader, who represents the country’s over twelve million followers of the jurisprudential school of the Ahl al-Bayt or Blessed Household of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) – also known as Shi’a Muslims – has been jailed, along with his wife and scores of party members, on trumped up charges since 15 December 2015, when the Nigerian army attacked the Hussainiyah Baqiatollah in the city of Zaria, massacring over thousand men, women, and children.
The Supreme Court of Nigeria found the venerable Sheikh innocent of all the charges levelled against him by the regime of President Muhammad Buhari, and ordered his immediately release, but Buhari, who unfortunately takes orders from Saudi Arabia and Israel, has refused to obey the apex court’s verdict.
It was expected that after his recent re-election as president, Buhari would release Shaikh Zakzaky, whose health is deteriorating due to lack of proper medical facilities – a fact that was confirmed earlier this year by a human rights delegation from Britian that was allowed to meet him.
The Sheikh’s only surviving son, who was lucky to escape the bloodbath in Zaria by the Nigerian military both in 2014 and 2015 that saw six of his brothers gunned down, has said that his father is unlikely to emerge alive from the dungeon and might be killed through slow poisoning, similar to the recent death in the courtroom of the former president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, who was a victim of the pro-Saudi and pro-Zionist regime of General Abdel-Fattah as-Sisi.
Buhari is also a former military general, which means he has been groomed by the Americans to further their vested interests in Nigeria, and that is the reason he freely consorts with the Wahhabis and the Zionists, while claiming to be a Muslim.
If Buhari was a Muslim at heart, his regime would never have subjected Sheikh Zakzaky and the followers of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt to such oppression.
Tuesday’s pathetic pictures of Nigerian Shi’a Muslims rolling in blood and dying in the arms of their fellow peaceful protestors, were a shocking spectacle for the civilized world.
These horrible scenes of bloodshed to suppress law abiding citizens, protesting within framework of their constitutional rights, have been denounced by Nigeria’s Sunni Muslims and also shocked the other non-Muslim half of the country’s 180 million population.
Statements have been released by human rights groups, as well as Sunni and Christian leaders and organisations, denouncing Tuesday’s bloodbath and calling for the release of Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky.
Amnesty International has also taken strong objection to the mistreatment of Shi’a Muslims in Nigeria, while NGOs worldwide have denounced the regime’s high-handed measures.
In Tehran, the Foreign Ministry recently summoned the Nigerian Ambassador to sound the Islamic Republic’s protest, and pressed for release of Sheikh Zakzaky.
Hopefully, the authorities in Abuja would heed these voices of concern and release the venerable Sheikh, whose death in captivity will certainly prove costly for the Nigerian regime, which should realize that it is wrong to imprison, torture, and kill its own loyal citizens on the orders of Washington, Riyadh, and Tel Aviv.