Mismanagement of Zakzaky’s detention ll

…also published in Daily Trust

Though my piece titled “Mismanagement of Zakzaky’s detention” a fortnight ago was originally a single-part piece, some subsequently conceived afterthoughts warrant writing more on the issue and under the same title. I have therefore added (1) to the title of the previous piece making this part two accordingly. 

I must also admit that the drama of Zakzaky’s aborted medical trip to India disproved my early assumption that by granting him the leave to leave the country in the first place, the federal government was actually succumbing to pressure to release him; and that it was actually allowing him to escape in a carefully stage-managed face-saving arrangement.

Mismanagement of Zakzaky’s detention 1

….also published in Daily Trust

Since the detention of the Shiite leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky during the 2015 Army-Shiite clash in Zaria, there has been inexcusable foot-dragging on the part of both the federal and Kaduna state governments in handling his case, which his followers and apologists have capitalized on to not only peddle his supposed innocence but also attract sympathy for him among unsuspecting Nigerians.

Both governments have by so doing inadvertently lent some credence to the claim that he is innocent; and that he and his followers are only being persecuted for being Shiites. Besides, his notoriety of more than three decades of subversive activities, disregard for constituted authorities, harassment and intimidation of the general public, which he had perpetrated with impunity, is being gradually overshadowed through sustained peddling of his plight in detention.

Motives of Zakzaky apologists

…also published in Daily Trust  

Since the 2015 Army-Shiite bloody confrontation in Zaria, and the detention of the Shiites’ leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky; he has attracted many unsolicited apologists who portray him as a victim of systematic persecution at the hands of successive federal and various state governments in Nigeria over the past forty years.

This, however, isn’t particularly interesting; after all, a controversial person would always attract unsolicited apologists among the attention-seeking and other equally controversial individuals and groups.