A non-governmental organization (NGO) Access to Justice has called on Kaduna State Government to walk away from the path of political persecution of members, the leader of Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), Sheikh Ibraheem El- Zakzaky and his wife, Zeenat Ibrahim and begin a constructive dialogue with the group and the Kaduna people on ways to forge a new future and repair badly fractured relationships.



The group noted that this would help to heal the bitter wounds of the past and bring about a better measure of peace in the State.

In a statement, Access to Justice advised Kaduna State Government to turn its attention now to the prosecution of all the military officers indicted by the Justice Garba Panel report, stating that if the government fails to do this, it would remain an enabler of the culture of impunity and of war crimes; adding that the government would also have strengthened the hands of those whose desire is to live above the rule of law and not under it.

The statement further reads: “The Kaduna State Government chose to pursue an egregious, “apartheid-like” pattern of selective justice on the ensuring deaths. It arraigned hundreds of IMN members for the murder of one soldier but no soldier has been prosecuted for the murder of at least 348 members of IMN. Not one!!!

“The Kaduna State Government – a democratic, constitutional government – has thereby abused and corrupted the criminal justice process of the state by using it to perpetuate a toxic form of unconstitutional bias and discrimination, elevating one life above those of at least 348 other lives. The Kaduna government has unconstitutionally denied the equal protection of the law to all Kaduna people alike, by determining whose life is worthy of protection in the State, and whose is not. The lives of hundreds of IMN members who were brutally murdered by Nigerian soldiers are worth accounting for, the same way the life of that lone soldier is worth accounting for. By prosecuting only members of the Shiite movement for the death of one soldier and remaining taciturn over the countervailing claims of justice for the deaths of hundreds of IMN members, the Kaduna State Government shows it is misusing the criminal justice system for ulterior motives.

“What the military did to IMN members arguably constitutes genocide and the International Criminal Court is currently looking into this. Yet the Kaduna State government shuts its eyes to the atrocities of the military and focused its energies on targeting the victims of the military’s atrocious bombardment.

“The Kaduna State government says it will further prosecute El Zakzaky for other offences arising before the 2015 clashes. This is further confirmation of the government’s illicit use of the criminal justice process for politically partisan ends, and it is unfortunate that this is occurring under a democratic system. The Kaduna State government must stop this disgraceful abuse of legal processes and institutions.”