The Islamic Movement in a commendation letter to the National Executive Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, for withdrawing its invitation to Governor Nasir el-Rufai to speak at the association’s annual general conference coming up later this month, said the withdrawal notice was timely.
The letter signed by the President of the Movement’s Media Forum, Ibrahim Musa, said El-Rufai has been an agent of impunity and division who supports extra-judicial killings and building of mass graves.
”He, in collaboration with officers of the Nigerian army, attacked members of the Islamic Movement, without recourse to law, leading to the gruesome extra-judicial murder of at least 347 members of the Movement (by the government’s own admission) in December 2015 and hurriedly buried them in mass graves.
“Despite the open confession by the Secretary to the Kaduna State Government, Alhaji Lawal Balarabe Abbas before a Judicial Commission of Inquiry, governor el-Rufai has refused to prosecute the criminal elements who perpetrated these crimes, but rather paradoxically filed charges of conspiracy and culpable homicide against over 250 members of the IMN at Kaduna state high courts.”
The NBA had withdrawn its invitation to the governor to speak at its annual conference following an avalanche of criticisms, protests and even threats of boycott from lawyers and others.