AFTER a few incidents of killings inspired by the federal government against members and leaders of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), from Zaria in Kaduna State to Abuja, the federal capital city, and with obviously no end in sight given the obstinacy of the Shiites and the intransigence of the government, the Muhammadu Buhari presidency has, it seems, finally found a clever and judicious way out of the impasse. It has consented to the application by the IMN leader, Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, and his wife, Zeenat, to be granted leave to undertake a medical trip to India for treatment for their ‘war’ wounds. It is not clear why they had not been treated before now, other than that IMN lawyers’ had insisted that Nigeria lacked the equipment and personnel to handle the grave injuries suffered by Sheikh El-Zakzaky and his wife.
Seizing upon the small window of calm occasioned by the ban placed on the IMN, not to say the court ruling in Kaduna that granted the IMN leader and his wife leave to seek medical attention in India, the Department of State Service (DSS) promptly acquiesced to the court order and declared its preparedness to comply. It appeared the federal government, despite its high-handedness, was more sensitive to the security implications of further denying the IMN leaders’ bid to travel abroad for treatment. Should he die in custody, the consequences would be unpredictable. And should he be denied his medical trip, no one could tell just what texture of flare-ups to expect from the movement’s boisterous and increasingly apocalyptic members.
Inexplicably, the Kaduna State government, which does not bear responsibility for the peace of the country, and which very often carries itself as an Island responsible to no one, not even to God, has sought to hedge the Kaduna court ruling with incendiary caveats, seven of which are as provocative as they are insensitive. It will be strange indeed if the court, to which Kaduna has returned to seek curious reliefs, were to entertain the overindulged state government. It should be in the interest of the federal and state governments to quickly allow the Shiite leader and his wife seek medical care abroad. And it is a shame that what ailed the Shiite leaders could not be handled in Nigeria, a testament to the continuing, appalling and for now deplorable state of healthcare in Nigeria. The federal government is not known to be too restrained about many things; but under Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, the Kaduna State government is even less restrained and less scrupulous.
Sheikh El-Zakzaky and his wife will travel abroad for treatment whether under favourable conditions or under hostile Kaduna State-induced circumscriptions. Nigeria must hope that the sheikh, particularly, should survive the ordeal he has gone through in the past few years. Should he not survive it, IMN and other independent exponents of democracy and the rule of law would attribute his fate to the federal and state governments’ pussyfooting, if not deliberate orchestration. Both the federal and state governments may feign indifference, but given the many deaths they have authored against the IMN, which deaths no one or institution has been held accountable for, the general conclusions would be that the government is wholly responsible. Should he survive it, and resume his trial, the state of tension would resume in full, and with other predisposing anarchic conditions in the country, could at any time take a turn for the worse.
The deadly Nigerian Shiite conundrum is, sadly, the making of the government. That the IMN grew into the menace the government and the sect’s Zaria neighbours have alleged is largely due to the incompetence or connivance of security and law enforcement agencies. Over the years, they had watched as the sect expanded its operations and began muscling its neighbours and other road users. In its early years, had law enforcement courageously and intelligently handled the sect’s obstreperous tendencies, the situation would not have gone out of hand. Instead, politicians and other government officials handled the sect with kid gloves, pandered to their whims, and glossed dangerously over the dichotomy and subterranean struggles between the minority Shia and majority Sunni. Even when security agents embarked on spasmodic response to the so-called IMN menace, they invariably preferred high-handed, simplistic and short-termist approach in tackling what is evidently a complex problem.
In addition, by killing more than 300 IMN members in December 2015 in a bid to tame them, the government simply muddied the waters and complicated the crisis thereby raising all sorts of intractable human rights and constitutional issues. The government will of course still be held accountable for the 2015 massacre. But the problems triggered by that explosive rage of December 12-14, 2015 will last far longer than the lifespan of this government. The crackdown on protesting IMN members demanding the release of Sheikh El-Zakzaky last year and early this year leading to the killing of scores of IMN members and disruption of peace in Abuja, the federal capital city, indicates quite clearly the futility of deploying force to tackle a problem that is both religious and ideological. Furthermore, it is hard to see how beliefs, whether mainstream Shia or not, can be legislated away or juridically extirpated.
The federal government may already have begun to sense the hopelessness of the situation, and may warily be reconsidering the foolish tactics of killing more IMN members simply to pacify the revolt and restore normality. Not only that, the ban on IMN is as misplaced and simplistic as the mindless killing of its members is ineffective and counterproductive. The IMN may be a noisy and unruly neighbour, but the answer cannot definitely be extermination, as the Kaduna governor seems disturbingly enamoured of. All over Nigeria, sects, tribes and socio-economic groups have constituted themselves into unruly neighbours to one another. Stereotyping them, not to say massacring them, is as dangerous and criminal as the offence committed originally by the intransigent groups.
What is even worse for the federal and state governments are the campaigns and propaganda they have authored against the IMN. The IMN is the largest Shia group in Nigeria. The government has tried to paint them as a minority within the minority. Furthermore, they have tried to justify the many crackdowns and massacres visited on the sect, suggesting that they could be guilty of futuristic crimes, such as their supposed capacity to replicate the debilitating insurgency practiced by Boko Haram. In addition, the government has lied against the IMN leaders, who were shot outside the epicentre of the clash in Zaria, and denied them justice based on contrived legal rigmarole. Sheikh El-Zakzaky got a judgement against the government in December 2016, a judgement disdained by the federal government. It was not until May 2018 that the Kaduna State government filed a murder charge against the IMN leader and his wife, a charge that indicates pure governmental mendacity and oppressiveness. The government then turned round to use the 2018 murder charge to justify the prolonged detention of the IMN leader and his wife since 2015.
The El-Zakzaky case is a reflection of the complicated and difficult approach the government has adopted to rein in dissent and protests. To them, there is no midway between desirable passivity and undesirable agitation, nor a better law enforcement approach than the application of force. However, what is really at play is the lack of understanding of what modern governance entails, including how to project law enforcement tactics within constitutional ambits, and what democracy demands from leaders and the led alike. As long as the government is unable to safely navigate this treacherous terrain between war and peace, as long as they reason predominantly in terms of military rather than civil tactics, they will continue to instigate more societal conundrums, and groups like the IMN will remain damned if they do anything, and damned if they don’t do anything. Both instinct and history should remind the rulers of today the ephemerality of power and the karmic possibility of falling prey to their own tactics, policies and laws. The IMN, despite their follies and foibles, will survive long after President Buhari and Governor el-Rufai have left office. This should tell them something, if they are capable of embracing the lessons of history.
Leave a Reply