El-Rufai: Shiites State Its Position Over El-Rufai’s Withdrawal From NBA Meeting

The Islamic Movement in Nigeria IMN, popularly known as Shiites, has reacted to the withdrawal of Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai from the Nigerian Bar Association virtual forthcoming virtual meeting.

The Islamic group in a letter written and signed on Friday, August 21 by its President, Ibrahim Musa, applauded the National Executive Committee of the NBA for its decision to withdraw Governor El-Rufai from speaking at the association’s annual general conference scheduled for this month-end.

Naija News had reported earlier that the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) on Thursday, August 20 announced that Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai will no longer be speaking at its conference. The decision follows criticisms, protests and even threats of boycott from Nigerian lawyers and others.

According to IMN in the letter which copy was made available to newsmen today, Governor ‘El-Rufai is the most unsuitable person to talk to a body of learned men considering his legendary disrespect for the rule of law, blatant abuses of fundamental rights and intolerance to opposing views.”

The Islamic group alleged that El-Rufai has been “an agent of impunity and division who supports extra-judicial killings and building of mass graves.”

The letter reads further “He, in collaboration with officers of the Nigerian army, attacked members of the Islamic Movement, without recourse to law, leading to the gruesome extrajudicial murder of at least 347 members of the Movement (by the government’s own admission) in December 2015 and hurriedly buried them in mass graves.

“Despite the open confession by the Secretary to the Kaduna State Government, Alhaji Lawal Balarabe Abbas before a Judicial Commission of Inquiry, governor el-Rufai has refused to prosecute the criminal elements who perpetrated these crimes, but rather paradoxically filed charges of conspiracy and culpable homicide against over 250 members of the IMN at Kaduna state high courts.

“Although the Kaduna high courts have since discharged and acquitted all of them, governor el-Rufai has continued to seek further ways to subjugate and persecute members and leadership of the Movement in contravention of his oath of office to ‘do right to all manners of people according to law, without fear or favour, affection or ill-will…’

“Certainly, such a person must not be promoted or allowed to address an Association of learned men, whose motto is “Promoting the Rule of Law.” We therefore salute your unique courage to stand firmly on the path of what you profess to promote and stamp out – impunity and gross abuse of human rights in our beloved country, which loudly proclaims to operate under the rule of law.”