Hawzah News Agency - (Kaduna State - Nigeria) - The Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) denounced the transfer of their leader, Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky and his wife from the custody of Nigerian Department of State Security Service to the Kaduna central Correctional Service as ordered Thursday by the state high court.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the IMN spokesman, Ibrahim Musa, said that any attempt to take Sheikh Zakzaky and his wife to anywhere other than a hospital that is sufficiently equipped to handle their medical needs amounts to punishing them further.
The group also lamented that the facilities at the Kaduna Central Prison where the couple were taken to, are dilapidated.
According to the statement, it was in that very prison that some survivors of the Zaria genocide of December 2015 died due to lack of medical attention.
“It can therefore never be a substitute for appropriately furnished medical facility that can take care of their urgent medical needs,” the statement read in part, according to channelstv.com.
The IMN’s full statement is as follows:
*We Are Vehemently Opposed to Subjecting Sheikh Zakzaky to Further Hardships In Whatever Guise*
The Islamic Movement in Nigeria condemns the wicked antics adopted today in court by the Kaduna state government through their prosecuting counsels aimed at humiliating our leader, Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky, and subjecting him to further hardships. These mischievous moves by the Elrufai government were equally meant to ridicule the formidable legal team of the Sheikh, who had consistently defeated their team in all cases thus far, including securing a landmark favorable judgment ordering the immediate release of the ailing Sheikh and his wife, both of whom the government is still detaining in contempt of a competent court order.
It will be recalled that the Kaduna state government had chosen a path of dishonor and shame in charging the Sheikh and his wife for aiding and abetting alleged offences they couldn’t prove in the same court against hundreds of his supporters.
They refused to diligently pursue the case, but rather use one flimsy excuse or the other to delay making any progress in the case because of their knowledge that they don’t have a case against them. When the court granted them medical leave to go and seek urgent medical attention in India, the government had opposed, trying to rather put obstacles on their paths.