Press Statement by Islamic Movement in Nigeria
On Friday October 7,
2016 the Kaduna state Governor, Nasir Ahmad el-Rufa’i issued out an
order declaring the Islamic Movement in Nigeria as an unlawful society,
with even a penalty of seven years in jail on its members. He claimed
the executive council of Kaduna state arrived at the decision based on
the already discredited recommendations of the Judicial Commission of
Inquiry into the Zaria massacre carried out by the Army in Zaria last
December.
The Islamic Movement
in Nigeria (IMN) wishes to categorically make it clear to the general
public that we vehemently reject such an order and declare it a flagrant
infringement on our basic rights as citizens of this country to hold an
opinion, associate freely without molestation. This is nothing but
plot by Governor Elrufa’i to further its diabolic agenda of the massacre
of innocent citizens having failed to accomplish it in December 2015.
All the sections
cited to premise this decision are wrong. It is noteworthy that the
state government based its dubious stance on the so-called
recommendations of JCI while conveniently keeping mute on obvious gross
violations of rights reported by the same JCI such as extrajudicial
murder of 347 people and secretly burying them in mass graves without
the consent of their relatives. Why didn’t it also talk of prosecuting
the Nigerian Army Generals that were fingered out by the Commission as
perpetrators of the genocide in Zaria? We cannot be deceived by the
hypocritical stance of Governor Elrufa’i.
The government is fretting having failed to justify the
continued detention of our leader and having failed to show any rational
basis for the whole attack and are left with no option but to resort to
absurdity. We wish to draw the attention of those behind such an
illegal order that IMN is not an association or a society but a global
concept that cannot be banned by fiat. We are not therefore distracted
by this baseless move. Clearly reason, logic, the law and Constitution,
conscience and propriety are all on the side of the Islamic Movement.
Nothing can take away our right of as individuals or groups to worship
and associate.
We will like to assure the general public that the state
government will not distract our attention with its ban, into taking the
path of violence, which it craves for. We will challenge this using
all known peaceful and legal means in the ways and manner we have done
for the last four decades. We will keep on demanding that justice be
done with respect to Zaria massacre through lawful and peaceful means.
SIGNED BYIBRAHIM MUSA
PRESIDENT MEDIA FORUM OF IMN
0805 078 6093
08/10/16
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