Nigerian Army officers and other government agents implicated in the brutal crackdown on Nigerian Shia Muslims (Shiites) risk death penalty and life imprisonment, a coalition of civil society organisations under the Centrum Initiative for Development and Fundamental Rights Advocacy warned over the weekend.

The coalition issued the warning in a statement signed by Dr Hasan Bala, Geoffrey N Nwokolo Esq, Prince Adelaje Adeoye, Comrade Ecoja Godwin, DR. Y. B. Abubakar, Comrade Ahmad Shuaib, and Comrade Mabel Christiana Abba.

The activists, who earlier at a press conference on July 4, 2020, accused the Muhammadu Buhari administration of shocking human rights abuses, alleged “the gross violation of the fundamental human rights of the Nigerian Shia Muslims under the leadership of Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky which include; murder, destruction of properties and unconstitutional arrests were identified.”

Giving an example, the statement said: “Between 12 – 14th December, 2015, the Nigerian Army burnt alive, maimed, raped, demolished homes and buried hundreds of male and female of the Nigerian Shia Muslims in a mass grave in Kaduna State (Mando).”

The coalition vowed that “these crimes committed against the Shia minority can never be forgotten in our strive for the desired human rights to be shaped within the Nigerian democratic system.”

It also alleged “the ill treatments of members of this religious minority group and their leader Sheikh Zakzaky and his wife Zeenat that are kept in custody incommunicado with severe bullet wounds all over their bodies in continuous disregard and contempt of an Abuja High Court order to release them and pay them the sum of 50 million Naira as compensation as fully documented.”

The activists noted that “murder, Extermination, Enslavement, Deportation or Forcible transfer of population, Imprisonment and other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of Customary rules of international law, Anti Torture Act of 2017, which prohibit all sorts of torture and Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious are indeed a crimes against humanity.”

The coalition, which did not indicate its next line of action, put those guilty of violating the rights of Nigerian Shia Muslims on notice that they “shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.”

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