It sounded strange when Shi’a Islamic group leader, El Zakzaky declared that the Federal Government of Nigeria was complicit in a gang-up against Muslims after 23 of his faithful followers were blown to bits in a bomb blast in Dakasoye village in Kano.

The Sheikh’s claim was surprising simply because the man at the helm of the country’s affairs is also Muslim, a staunch one so to speak.

The Commander-In-Chief would not even shake his own female ministers because he wanted to avoid haram, why then would he want to wipe out a religion he so apparently cherishes?

As million-dollarish as the question might appear the answer lies in the journey to the past, as the thespians would call it- a flashback.

The answer to the question might lie in remembering that before Buhari became president of the nation, back in 2014, precisely on July 25, over 34 members of the religious sect were killed by the Nigerian Army in a violent clash- and Goodluck Jonathan was the president then.

The leader of the group and renowned Shi’a scholar, Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky reportedly lost three of his biological sons in the clash and rejected the apology from Jonathan who empathized with his loss.

It would have made a lot of sense to accuse the ex-president of trying to wipe out Muslims back then owing to the president’s strong Christian background and fan the flames of religious violence that the nation seems to be very familiar with.

Or maybe it would have sounded like the blabbing of an angry and paranoid cleric considering Jonathan’s constant lamb-to-the-slaughter demeanor.

Jonathan never looked like he had the steel to curb the nation’s excesses not to talk of plan and order an organised genocide.

But who knows?

The president of the nation right now is a devout Muslim, yet, the cleric accused Buhari of this great conspiracy to wipe out the religion.

Zakzaky maintained that the Department of State Services was aware and involved in the bombing of the members of the group during their recent procession march to Zaria to listen to their leader’s lecture.

His statement indicts the President, and unlike Jonathan who appears to be the lamb of Otuoke, Buhari has in the brief stint of his democratic service, seemingly donned a witch-hunter cloak.

The president has, in his demeanor, his track record and his statements over the years set a tone that borders on radicalism and vindictiveness which now, in a time when peace is elusive in the North of the country gives credence to the claims of an angry and violent Shi’a cleric.

While the allegations made by El-Zakzaky might not be anywhere near the truth, a question to ask is why would the presidency want to suppress and subjugate this sect of Muslims?

The Shi’a sect in Islam, right from inception has always embraced violence and preached a message of hatred against other religions and even fellow Muslims who follow the teachings of the Sunni.

The sect started in Medina when the third Caliph Uthman was murdered by a group led by Abdullah ibn Saba after sponsoring a rebellion that asked for the Caliph’s resignation.

Since then, the message of violence and hatred has continually flourished in the teachings of the sect against the ‘outsiders’ around the world predominantly taking root in Iran.

The movement came to Nigeria through El Zakzaky who banked on the gullibility of some Muslim youth. They were readily misled by chants of ‘Islamic revolution’ and ‘establishment of an Islamic state’ in organized lectures and several demonstrations that have now become annual events for the sect.

It is now known as the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, with the aim to establish an Islamic state, in a region where over 80% of Muslims are Sunni and not Shi’a. The movement has strong funding ties with Iran.

Back in the 1990s, members of the Shi’a terrorized citizens of Kaduna state in unimaginable ways. Any preacher, Islamic or otherwise who dared to speak up against Zakzaky was accosted and beaten mercilessly in the presence of his wife and children.

The notorious nature of the religious sect led Col Hameed Ali, who was in charge of Kano state at that time to crackdown on the members of the sect. A large section of their leaders were arrested and prosecuted.

Residents of Kano have also on multitudes of occasion lamented the impunity of the members of the Shi’a Islamic sect in the North of Nigeria. The members are however obliged by security forces to avoid the mob mentality and violence that would result from accosting just one of the sect’s members.

The mob mentality of the sect is typified in the multitude of arm-less followers who rose against the armed-to-the-teeth Army in the purported attack against their leader, Zakzaky’s home.

The Army’s claims that members of the sect attempted to murder the Chief of Army Staff when they blocked his convoy leading to soldiers opening fire on the crowd, going by the reputation of the Shi’ites for violence and mob actions, is very plausible.

On the other hand, the sect leader’s claims that his members, over 17 million people, are victims of a targeted genocide and extinction plan by the government is a bit unlikely.

In a time when the government is battling with the massive rip in the fabric of national unity, the Biafra agitation which has culminated into several protests where civilians have been killed by the security agents as well as the terrible Boko Haram terrorist group that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Nigerians- curbing the radical nature and perpetual affinity for violence and bloodshed of the Shi’a Islamic group, makes the government’s plate too full.

 

Hence, the matter needs to be addressed promptly and truthfully by the government and the army, else an uprising beckons.

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Adebayo Emuleomo is a creative writer, poet and staff-writer at YNaija. He blogs at samuraipen.wordpress.com

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija