Muslim Group Condemns Calls for Banning of Shiites

John Shiklam in Kaduna

The Rasulul A’azam Foundation (RAAF), a Shi’a-based Muslim organization in Nigeria, has condemned recent calls by the Kaduna State chapter of the Supreme Council for Shari’a in Nigeria (SCSN) for the banning of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria ( IMN).

The group said in a statement yesterday in Kaduna that the recent statements by Sheikh Yusuf Sambo Rigachikun of the Kaduna chapter of the SCSN were not in the interest of peace and unity among the Muslim ummah.

The statement which was signed by the spokesman of RAAF , Alhaji Nasir Ja’afar‎, accused the SCSN ‎of widening the gulf between the Muslim Ummah instead of promoting unity and peace within the Islamic fold and the Nigerian nation in general.

He noted that the SCSN had in a communique “sought the Federal Government assistance to ‘ban Shi’a Islam’, from the wide spectrum of the existing global Islamic sects that have been recognized world over; and was explicitly protected along with all other religious sects under Nigerian Constitution”.

The statement described comments of some interest groups on the report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry that investigated the army- Shia clash as unfortunate.

Ja’afar declared: “The Islamic Movement in Nigeria is not a Shi’a sect we insisted, and the recent crisis is solely between the Nigerian army and the members of the IMN, a movement that comprise all the Muslim sects as they claimed.

“What is then, the take of innocent Shi’a Muslims that are not part of the movement and remain loyal to the sovereignty of the Nigerian state to be innocently accused?

“The Supreme Council for Islamic Shari’a in Nigeria (SCSN) proved to be playing an agent to lure the Nigerian government to fight the fight of foreign entities of which the Wahhabi infested Shari’a Council is part of, thus to divert the government attention from celebrating successes in bringing about peace and harmonious co existence among its citizens; to engage in another front of unending war with its patriotic citizens.

“This, their sinister motives has however, contravenes the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution that bestows upon Shi’a Muslims the same rights as any person with or without any religious affiliation a right to practice his or her belief in a manner that is not inimical to the Nigerian State, and this must be acknowledged as such” .

Further details later