The Shiites women in Kaduna recently converged at the Nigerian Union of Journalists Secretariat in what could be described as a procession chanting “release our leader, El-Zakzaki and husbands from illegal detention”. Zainab Tanimu was there for Top Celebrities Magazine. Read on…

The Public Relation Officer, Sisters Forum, IMN, Kaduna Chapter, Jamila Awwal, in a press conference denied the allegations levied on them on the “assassination attempt on Chief of Army Staff and the road blockage speculation as mere “cover up” by the Nigerian Army. They accuse the army of insensitivity to their plights. To them, it was such a display of inhumanity and gross violation of human rights which no remorse was shown by the state authorities as homes, Islamic centers and graves of victims they said have been demolished.

They described the act perpetrated by the army as demonic which has raised the Army’s human rights records since lots of women and children they alleged have been turned to either widows or orphans.

This action they term deliberate and instigative for they would not be turned into mob actions. “We will never resort to anything outside the normal legal process of seeking redress. This is evident in the same way we acted last year when the same Nigerian Army attacked our members and killed 34 of them including three biological sons of our leader Sayyid Ibraheem Zakzaky”. The number of his biological children making six with this recent clash.

The group has therefore called for “the immediate and unconditional release of their revered leader Sheikh El-Zakzaky and his wife.

Corpses of our members killed by the army should be released to us with immediate effect for burial according to Islamic rights.” Also, was the call on government to live up to its morality to compensate them by paying “diyyah” to all affected families and relations.