by Peregrino Brimah
God forbid! But we must ask the questions urgently and it is time for full answers. It has been over three months since the husband and father and wife and mother have been detained by Buratai’s forces. And unlike any other prisoner of conscience or other prisoner in Nigeria currently or in history, the Nigerian government is unable to show them to anybody. Are they alive? Were they extrajudicially killed by the Nigerian army as has been done in the past?
The Kaduna ‘panel’ which is meant to urgently investigate the Zaria massacre has postponed its sitting five times, for five weeks now due to the inaccessibility of the central victim. Justice delayed is justice denied.
The General Officer Commanding (GOC) 1 Mechanised Division, Kaduna, Maj.-Gen. Adeniyi Oyebade, told reporters on December 14th, that Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky and his wife were in the protective custody of the military.
Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai must produce Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky and his wife, Zeenat Zakzaky immediately. Nigeria’s Attorney General Abubakar Malami was stand up to his sworn constitutional obligations and duties to humanity and God, or resign.
As Justice Yusuf Haliru of the High Court told Buratai today, no Nigerian is above the law. If as the army has demonstrated, the punishment for being “above the law” is an immediate death sentence delivered from the barrel, then Buratai should consider equal justice for himself for acting above the law, detaining these persons (and others with some acquitted today) for over three months without charge.
This is a national emergency. Zakzaky and Zeenat must be produced immediately!
Dr Peregrino Brimah is the coordinator of the Every Nigerian Do Something campaign.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
