Members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), otherwise known as Shiites, have mounted opposition to the inclusion of the Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir el-Rufai as a speaker at the prestigious TEDx event scheduled to hold this weekend in Abuja.

In a letter sent to the organisers, the Movement, speaking through the Free Zakzaky Campaign Committee Chairman, Sheikh Abdulrahaman Yola said that allowing el-Rufai to participate in the event would undoubtedly send the wrong signals to TEDx fans in Nigeria and globally. The Movement said el-Rufai’s involvement “definitely negates the spirit of TEDx’s mission of ideas worth spreading.”

The Movement posited that “TEDx speakers are supposed to be thinkers, doers and idea-generators and el-Rufai, whose government confessed to brutal extrajudicial killing of 347 IMN members and secretly burying all in a mass grave, does not fit that frame. The name and brand of the TEDx programme will be indelibly soiled in blood.”

IMN further alleged that the Governor's continued fierce persecution without remorse despite national and international outcry would not "bridge the gap", which is what the TEDxMaitama 2017 chose as its theme.

The letter reads in part: “We will like to register our displeasure and protest at this ignominious action of having Malam Nasir el-Rufai, the Governor of Kaduna State, as a speaker in your famous event. El-Rufai is someone who, by his own government's confessions, had undertaken the brutal extrajudicial murder of 347 citizens of Nigeria without recourse to the law. To hide this his crime, he ordered the mass burial of these people in a mass grave, secretly at night at a location almost a hundred kilometres away from the crime scene, and afterwards denied it until exposed by the renowned rights body, Amnesty International.

“We are particularly irked that by having such a character as a speaker in the internationally acclaimed TED/TEDx event, the name and brand of the TEDx programme will be indelibly soiled in blood!

“We do not see how El-Rufai, who is currently being investigated for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court at The Hague fits that description (TEDx's speakers). What ideas would such a mass murderer and mass gravedigger provide that would be worth spreading?

“Since the start of that massacre, and in spite of national and international outcry against the brutality against members of the religious minority group, Nasir el-Rufai has continued the fierce persecution till this minute without remorse.

“Consequently, we wish to draw your attention to these facts as you seem poised to align your famous group to this blood-tainted personality. We wish to inform you that you will be breaking the hearts of your teeming fans locally and the world as well as millions of other persons should you allow el-Rufai to participate.”

Update news