Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State, will
next Friday inaugurate the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Zaria clash
between the Nigeria Army and the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, IMN.
Consequently, the governor has appointed Malam
Yusuf Ali, SAN, as counsel to the Commission of Inquiry.
But the IMN (Nigerian Shiites), yesterday in a chat , came short of calling the commission “useless,”
as it restated its resolve not to appear at the Commission’s sittings if the
leader of the movement, Shiekh Ibrahim Zakzaky, was not unconditionally
released.
The IMN also said that some members of the
commission were known adversaries of the IMN, having cast aspersions at the
movement in public in the past.
The date of the inauguration of the Commission,
which was contained in a statement signed by the Special Assistant to the
Governor on Media and Publicity, Mr. Samuel Aruwan, over the weekend in
Kaduna, read: “The Kaduna State government last week announced the membership
of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Zaria clashes.
“The chairman is Justice Mohammed Lawal Garba, the
presiding justice of the Port Harcourt Division of the Court of Appeal.’’
The twelve other members of the commission of
inquiry are Prof. Salihu Shehu, Prof. Umar Labdo, Malam Salihu
Abubakar, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, Mr. Afakirya Gadzama and
Brig-Gen. Aminun and Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim.
Others are: Mrs. Khadijah Hawaja Gambo, Mr. Bilya
Bala, Maj-Gen Alexander Anjili Mshelbwala, Mrs. Desire Deseye Nsirim, CP
(retd.)
The rest are Mrs. Nsirim and Dr. Bala Babaji
who has also been appointed the Secretary to the Commission. He is
currently the Director of the Centre for Islamic Legal Studies, Institute of
Administration of the Ahmadu Bello University.
“The Judicial Commission of Inquiry is expected to
submit its final report six weeks after its first public sitting”, said that
statement.
But the Spokesman of the IMN, Mallam Ibrahim Musa,
who spoke to news men in Kaduna over the matter, said: “I
want to assure you that the Judicial Commission of Inquiry as constituted at
present, and our conditions set down before appearing at the hearings not met,
is not useful to us.
“We cannot appear at any Commission of Inquiry when
our leader, Sheik Ibrahim Zakzaky, is still in custody. Our leader was arrested
not on the road where the Army claimed that our members threatened the life of
the Chief of Army Staff that afternoon.
‘’Our leader was in his home with his family when
the Army invaded his house, shooting and throwing explosives into his
house. He was shot with others and taken away that night. They have demolished
his house and it is now a playing field for children in that area.
“He is the one that will lead us if we must appear.
Now, how can you keep him in captivity and expect him to prepare his brief and
tender evidences? No, we shall not be part of that.
“That is not all. There are members of that
Commission that are known haters of the IMN.
They have made statements in
public against us. We can not expect them to be fair to our side. So, that
Commission of Inquiry is not useful to us at all.”
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