Pars Today

Sections of the Nigerian press have begun to express doubts on Nigeria’s claim to be a functioning democracy, by noting that Mohammadu Buhari first took power in 1983 in a military coup as a general, long before his election in 2015 as a democratically elected president, who earlier this year began his second term – on the basis of questionable voting.

This was part of an article by the staff writers of Iranian English language daily, Kayhan International under the heading: “Delay in Sheikh Zakzaky’s release raises doubts in Nigerian gov’t.”

"One in four Nigerians – i.e. some 50 million people – are suffering from some sort of mental illness”, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), which pointing out that Nigeria – the 7th highest populated country in the world – has the dubious distinction of "being Africa’s highest caseload of depression and ranks 15th in the world in the frequency of suicide”.
The UN Affiliate did not name any particular person of Nigeria of possessing any of those mental diseases diagnosed by its medical experts, but discreetly left this difficult duty of determining the psychological disordered ones to those dealing with Nigerian people in different fields, including business and politics.
With due respect to President Muhamadu Buhari, no foreign diplomat has detected any disorderly symptoms during discussions with him, including Iranian dignitaries meeting him for exchange of views on various issues, such as oil, gas, economy, problems pertaining to the Muslim World, and pleas for release from prison of the prominent Nigerian Islamic Leader, Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, who today on December 16 began his 5th year in detention despite the order for his release by the Judiciary, whose verdict the Chief Executive continues to unconstitutionally violate in a country that is supposed to be a democracy.

Sections of the Nigerian press, however, have begun to express doubts on both Buhari’s behavior and Nigeria’s claim to be a functioning democracy, by noting that he first took power in 1983 in a military coup as a general, long before his election in 2015 as a democratically elected president, who earlier this year began his second term – on the basis of questionable voting.
The daily ‘Punch’ has duly called Buhari’s administration a "dictatorship” by pointing to his record of human rights violations and "disregard for democratic institutions” in its scathing editorial on Wednesday, December 11.
The newspaper said that from now on it will address Buhari with his former military title of "Major-General”, and his administration will be described as a "regime” by citing the attacks of his security forces on the media, citizens and civil society, including the recent re-arrest of political activist Omoyele Sowore and the continued detention of Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky in whose case the authorities have contemptuously continued to disregard the orders of the Federal Court of Nigeria, issued in November 2016 for immediate release.
It added that "until Buhari and his repressive regime purge themselves of their martial tendency PUNCH will not be a party to falsely adorning it with a democratic robe; hence our decision to label it for what it is -- an autocratic military-style regime run by a Major-General.”
The Nigerian newspaper’s remarks are a purely internal matter, but the free world, especially the Muslim Ummah and particularly the Islamic Republic of Iran cannot ignore the undemocratic detention of the venerable Sheikh Zakzaky.

In a recent press conference, Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Seyyed Abbas Mousavi, disclosed that a week ago on the sidelines of the summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum in Equatorial Guinea, Iran’s Vice President for Economic Affairs, Mohammad Ali Nahavandian held personal discussions with Nigerian President Muhamadu Buhari on various subjects, including bilateral ties and regional and international developments, as well as the issue of the continued detention of Sheikh Zakzaky, his wife Zeenah, and scores of his followers.  
Tehran is hopeful of a peaceful solution and has spared no efforts for the release of the 66-year old Leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), who is suffering from various ailments, including loss of his left eyesight and lead poisoning as a result of bullets in his bodies fired by Nigerian soldiers during their savage attack on his residence in the city of Zaria in mid-December 2015 and the massacre of over a thousand men, women, and children.
The Iranian capital on December 8 hosted a meeting in this regard to highlight the tragic situation of Sheikh Zakzaky that was attended by Dr. Naser Omar of Nigeria, who had initially been allowed to treat the IMN Leader, and who said: "Due to the [Nigerian] army’s cruel measures, Sheikh Zakzaky’s health condition has severely deteriorated. He is now in dilapidated prison where many detainees have so far died due to lack of medical attention.”
Among those from Nigeria attending the Tehran meeting was the IMN Leader’s daughter, Suhaila Zakaky, who recounted the sufferings of her father since the 1990s when he was imprisoned for the first time by Gen. Sani Abacha’s regime.

She told the audience, how patiently the Sheikh, as a true follower of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) and the Blessed Ahl al-Bayt, has endured the tyranny of his tormentors, especially the Nigerian army, which killed six of her seven brothers – three in 2014 and three the next year in 2015.
In her emotional speech she said four years after the Zaria massacre, justice has not been done to Nigeria’s ten-million plus Shi’a Muslims, and the Nigerian government is seeking to slowly murder the Sheikh.
Born into a Sunni Muslim family, Zakzaky underwent a traditional Islamic education, before enrolling in the late 1970s at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, where he became president of the Muslim Student Society.

Initially influenced by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, in 1979 on the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, he was inspired by Imam Khomeini, and came to the holy city of Qom for religious studies, on completion of which he returned to Nigeria to launch a socio-religious campaign, the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), in order to enlighten his countrymen, resulting in the growth of followers of the School of Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt to over ten million in the 2000s, including many Christians, because of his focus on social justice and against corruption.
The Zionists and the Wahhabis, horrified at these developments, pressured the Nigerian administration to suppress the IMN, massacre its members, and label all sorts of false accusations at Sheikh Zakzaky.
In short, we the Iranian media, out of diplomatic courtesy, neither call President Buhari a ‘dictator’ (as described by the Nigerian Press), nor accuse him of the mental disorders afflicting one in every four Nigerians (as the WHO report says), but appeal to him as Muslims to release the IMN Leader from unjust detention, without the least sectarian bias, since as a citizen of Nigeria, where Christians are free to follow any sect of Christianity, Sheikh Zakzaky hasn’t committed any crime by adopting the Shi’a faith and attracting million towards it.   

AE/ME