Mother’s Day Wishes To Zeenat Zakzaky Whose 6 Sons Were Killed By The Nigerian Government And Remains Illegally Detained

Dr Perry Brimah

In July of 2014 soldiers of the federal republic of Nigeria allegedly brutally and summarily killed three sons of Mrs. Zeenat Zakzaky, Mahmoud (killed at 19) and Hameed (killed at 22) and Ahmad (killed at 24) after they had been abducted in an army vehicle while on peaceful procession, according to witnesses and media reports.

A surviving son Ali whose limbs were reportedly broken by the soldiers, told her that his brothers were abducted alive by the Nigerian army under command of one Captain S.O Oku; and that they were shot dead in the army vehicle.

The current Kaduna state governor, Nasir el-Rufai, on July 26th referenced the tragedy with this caption, “Genocidal Jonathanian Army Kills Once Again,” as he paid his condolences to her and her husband. Governor el-Rufai will later be involved in a similar genocidal massacre against the same victims and their secret mid-night mass burial to hide the evidence.

While the Nigerian government had not yet provided justice to the Zakzaky family and other victims of the July 2014 massacre, in December of 2015 the Nigerian government struck the same family again.

In what is now globally remembered as the #ZariaMassacre, between the 12th and 14th of December, the Nigerian army under leadership of General Tukur Y. Buratai in an overhanded response to disgruntled protesting minority Muslim youth, sacked five independent locations in Kaduna including the home of Zeenat Zakzaky.

Finding the remaining members of the family that included Sheikh Zakzaky, three sons and daughter Suhaila, the army reportedly bombed and burned down their home as pictures corroborate and then fired six shots at the Sheikh when they found him seeking refuge in a bathroom; shot mother Zeenat twice and fired and killed three of her sons at pointblank range. Sons Hammad, Ali and Humaid (13) were killed as well as Zeenat’s sister in-law, Malama Binta Yaqoub.

After going through all this, Mrs Zeenat and her husband were arrested and locked up at unknown locations where they have been since kept, denied medical assistance of their choice and kept away from their last surviving son and two daughters. Malama Zeenat missed the wedding of her surviving son Muhammad last year May.

The graves of the earlier killed three sons did not escape the repeat assault by the Buhari government which exhumed their graves and dumped their decayed bodies along with 350 fresh bodies, some still living/uncertified dead by any medical personnel, from the December 2015 massacre in a mass grave at Mando cemetery in the middle of the night.

It is a year and a half that Zeenat has been locked up. A court ordered her and her husband’s immediate and unconditional release and declared the federal government of Nigeria in contempt of the court’s orders when it refused to abide by the judgement.

Despite continued public protests from the glaringly peaceful Islamic movement members, friends and good hearted Nigerians of all walks of life including groups like Concerned Nigerians, ENDS and persons like the former chairman of Nigeria’s Human Rights commission; the federal government of Nigeria has not budged and obeyed the rulings of the court and continues to hold Mrs Zeenat.

We hereby celebrate Mrs Zeenat Zakzaky, a victim of the continually tyrannical Nigerian government and one of the world’s greatest victims of oppression.

We pray for her and pray God answers her prayers against her enemies and delivers her from their claws.

We wish Zeenat a Happy Mother’s day wherever she is being held.

Dr. Perry Brimah; @EveryNigerian