By Samuel Aruwan
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) yesterday condemned the killings that occurred in Zaria, Kaduna state, at the weekend in which over 30 Shiites lost their lives.
In a statement signed by its spokesman, Professor Ishaq Akintola, it said the killing was a manifestation of barbarism and excessive use of force by the black sheep among the military.
It said: “We strongly condemn this unprovoked aggression. It is callous, cowardly and inhuman. It is appalling. It is crime against humanity to mow down unarmed civilians. Shiite procession in Zaria is an annual routine known to all and sundry and they have not been known to turn violent. It appears to us that the Nigerian military is seeking to gain by the bends what they fail to gain at the straights.
“The military is still interested in power but having realized that military dictatorship has become unpopular all over the world, it seeks to retain power via crude relevance by deliberately creating perpetual turmoil. We posit that the attack on the Shiites is an indirect invitation to the evolution of another guerilla group. Today was born from the wombs of yesterday. We only need to look back and trace the history of Boko Haram. It was the extra-judicial killing of Boko Haram leader 24 hours after he was arrested and shown alive on television which started what has now become a national gangrene, a regional cancerous tumor and a universal cankerworm.”
MURIC added that the federal government must confront this challenge now and find a lasting solution to it, saying that the “federal government must desist from pampering the military. Instead, the military must be retrained and re-engineered to evolve a culture of respect for civilian authority. The federal government must be firm this time around and the first step in this direction is to stop involving the military in civil matters like elections and confronting peaceful protesters.”