The Islamic Movement in Nigeria has said that Shi’ites wounded in military raids are dying in detention because they are being denied medical care.
Shi’ites staged a protest in Lafia, Nasarawa state, over El-Zakzaky’s detention, Ibrahim Musa, the spokesman of the movement, made a statement on Monday, accusing the Kaduna state government of destroying property of the sect, which has millions of followers.
He said that a school and a shrine were bulldozed on Monday.
Although it is impossible to say how many people died in Zaria as the military sealed the area for days, Musa alleged that soldiers
buried bodies in mass graves to hide the true toll.
According to the statement, two wounded members of the movement died in detention on Sunday, December 20, and at least 40 wounded members are still detained without medical care.
For The Sect, Musa again stressed that those detained include Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, who started Nigeria’s Shi’ite movement 37 years ago.
The spokesman revealed that police handed the movement the bodies of 12 detained members who were wounded in a protest in
Kaduna city on December 15.
Meanwhile, Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar of Sokoto warned the federal government against actions that could radicalize other
Muslims in a country that already has lost about 20,000 lives to the Boko Haram Islamic uprising.
“The history of the circumstances that engendered the outbreak of militant insurgency in the past, with cataclysmic consequences that Nigeria is yet to recover from, should not be allowed to repeat itself,” he said.
It would be recalled that the Boko Haram sect re-emerged as a much more violent entity in 2009 after security forces attacked their
mosque and compound and killed about 700 people.
Efforts to reach the Nigerian Army spokesperson, Col Sani Usman was abortive and text message sent to him for his response was also not responded to.