Molly Kilete, Abuja
Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) has debunked claims by the Federal Government that its leader, Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, had wanted to seek asylum in India before his repatriation.
IMN said the allegations were part of the Nigerian government’s campaign of calumny to cover its own gross misconduct in a foreign land.
IMN president, Media Forum, Ibrahim Musa, in a statement, said: “Sequel to the Nigerian government’s sinister operation that frustrated the treatment of the revered Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky and his wife, Malama Zeenat Ibrahim, in India that led to the repatriation of the couple, the Nigerian government, in its effort to deceive the general public, has concocted contradictory statements and lies to colour its acts of violating the order given by the Kaduna High Court allowing the Sheikh to seek treatment in India, with the government only supervising.
“The facts are that the government mischievously went beyond its role of supervision to the level of maliciously interfering in the medical process, instructing on which doctors the Sheikh and his wife must see, while refusing to allow them access to their own doctors. Apparently, the government had a hidden mission, the details of which they had detailed specific doctors to execute. The Sheikh was forced to either accept their choice or return home within two hours.
“Being mindful of the government’s various previous plots to eliminate him since 2015, first, through the barrels of the gun and much later through poisoning in detention while refusing him access to adequate medical care until the court’s intervention, the Sheikh sensed the government’s intention of inducing killer doctors to finish what they had earlier started, now through the back door.
He, therefore, insisted on having the presence of the doctors that initially assessed him in Nigeria, who also worked in that hospital, failing which, he preferred to return to Nigeria.
“He refused to be subjected to any breach in the basic ethical principles guiding the medical treatment of people of respect for persons; protecting the autonomy of all people and treating them with courtesy and respect and allowing for informed consent, which the Nigerian government had contracted medical personnel in the Indian hospital to throw to the wind.”