The Media Parade Of Sheikh El-Zazaky
A few days ago, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), Sheikh El-Zazaky, was brought before the media and a battery of television cameras in what seemed like a parade of a “criminal” before the media eyes, ostensibly to squelch the rumors of his death in custody that made the rounds in the social media.
Two things, following the media parade of Sheikh El-Zazaky, which bore down the minds of Nigerians, who watched the insipid mobilization of state power against an individual who has not been found guilty for offences against the Nigerian state, as we presume, were: one, the flattening of the fundamental rights of a citizen, whose home and place of religious worship were leveled to the ground by rampaging men and women of the Nigerian Army, aided by personages of the Nigerian State, whose children were murdered in cold blood, presumably buried in unmarked hearths of Kaduna state that the Amnesty International revealed a few months ago.
What is obsequious in this flattening of fundamental rights is that it is happening in an era in which the current government, at the eve of its inauguration, a little over two years ago, promised to be an era in which rights, thoughts and deeds of all citizens would flourish like flowers. The flattening of rights should not be happening in a democracy, or in half-a-democracy, but it is happening, and the parade of Sheikh El-Zazaky, whatever his keepers intended, merely achieved this objective: that the keepers of El-Zazaky are bounty hunters intent on transgressing the rights of citizens taken as prized bounties. Two, that the actions of his keepers mock competent courts that have ordered his release, and it has become so clear that their actions can no longer be ignored by well-meaning Nigerians.
Whatever the Nigerian state intends to achieve with the detention without trial of Sheikh El-Zazaky, it should be reminded that a trifle parade before media eyes doesn’t serve as a relief to the grim story of assault on the liberty of a defenceless and helpless citizen. There is nothing positive in parading a man shackled by power, circumstances and conditions imposed on him by a tyrannical government. Ours is a country governed by the basic law- The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (with Amendments) and Sheikh El-Zazaky’s Rights to Liberty, guaranteed by section 35, Right to the Dignity of His person, guaranteed by section 34, and Right to Private and Family life, also guaranteed by section 37 of the Constitution must be respected.
The place of all free citizens is not in the sink hole of tyranny; we call on the government to respect the rights of Sheikh El-Zazaky and release him, without conditions, from the clutches of its tyranny or charge him to a court of competent Jurisdiction if it has any case against him.
–
Abdul Mahmud, ESQ
President
Public Interest Lawyers League
(PILL)
15 January, 2018
