A victim of the protest on Monday, July 22
A member of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) and two lawyers on Saturday reacted to the recent prescription order granted against the group.
The Shiite, Abdullahi Musa, said despite the order, the group will not relent in its activities which he described as religious in nature.
Mr Musa, who noted that he was not speaking on behalf of the group, said the court order was in his view, a “senseless decision” of government given the spate of killings allegedly “perpetrated by security operatives without prosecution of culprits.”
Mr Musa spoke with PREMIUM TIMES in a telephone interview on Saturday.
According to the IMN member, who also heads the media unit of the group, the Nigerian government took the decision to legalise its “killing of Shiite members”.
“There is no law that allows the Nigerian government to just wake up and proscribe a religious group. We are not some registered organisation. We are a religious group. Do they mean that we will no longer say our five prayers? That we will not go to Mosques or visit Mecca? This is senseless.
“They should go ahead. They don’t need a court order to do what they have been doing, the Nigerian government does not obey court orders. They have been killing our members. When they went to Zaria to kill over a thousand of our members and buried them in mass graves, they did not get a court order to do that. When they killed our members severally in Abuja, they did not get a court order. They should go ahead. But nothing can stop us from practicing our faith.
“This is like saying that the Catholic Church or any other church has become a terrorist organisation. Nigerians cannot be quiet. If they fail to speak up, today it is the IMN. Tomorrow it can be any other set of worshipers. They are calling us terrorists, who did we terrorise? They are the ones who have been terrorising us,” Mr Musa said.
PREMIUM TIMES reported how the federal government obtained a court order on Friday effectively allowing it to proscribe the movement.
The decision followed a security meeting by the Nigerian government with top security officers after protests by the Shiite Islamic Movement turned violent in parts of Abuja. (Premium Times)
