Alwaght- The Nigerian army has continued its persecution of Muslims by completely demolishing a religious center belonging to the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) following the recent massacre of Muslims in the West African country.
A statement posted on IMN’s website stated that, Husainiyyah Baqiyyatullah Zaria Building has been completely demolished by the Nigerian troops on Sunday the 20th of Dec. 2015. The building was reduced to rubble at around 2pm local time.”
The building suffered partial destruction on Sunday last week when the Nigerian troops invaded the Islamic centre and massacred over 1,000 Shiite Muslims after they laid siege of it.
The military claimed Muslims in Zaria stopped the convoy of Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai and attempting to assassinate him. The IMN and its leader Ibrahim Zakzaky strongly rejected the assassination accusation.
IMN spokesman Ibrahim Usman also dismissed the accusation by local officials that the movement had “blocked roads for four days” during the religious ceremony, which marked Arba’een, the fortieth day to follow the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (PBUH), the grandson of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
Meanwhile Nigerian authorities say Islamic Movement Leader Ibrahim al-Zakzaky, who has been arrested and whose family and supporters have faced a bloody crackdown, will face prosecution.
On Saturday, Nasir al-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna State in north-central Nigeria, where Zakzaky was arrested in his home city of Zaria last week, said the cleric “will be prosecuted for any crimes that he may have committed,” Nigerian newspaper THISDAY reported on Sunday.
Meanwhile Nigeria’s former Minister of Aviation and Minister of Culture and Tourism of Nigeria, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode described the ongoing killing of the country’s Shiite Muslims as a crime against humanity.
Chief Femi made this known to public in an article he wrote titled "a government of sadists".
He started his publication with "on the night of 12th December 2015 in the city of Zaria, Kaduna state, Sheik al-Zakzaky, the leader of the 10 million-strong Shiite muslim community in Nigeria, was shot, brutalized and dumped in a wheelbarrow".
Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, who is a Christian, revealed that "those that were murdered were targeted simply because they were Shiite Muslims and simply because, earlier in the day, some of them had mounted a road block which obstructed the convoy of the General Burutai, the Chief of Army Staff".
He added that "every single officer and soldier that took part in the massacre are guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and are therefore candidates for the International Criminal Court at the Hague".