NIGERIAN Army commanders have dismissed calls for them to apologise to the Shiite sect the Islamic Movement of Nigeria over the shooting of dozens of their members in Zaria during a recent clash.
On December 12, troops serving as chief of army staff Lt General Tukur Buratai opened fire on members of the sect in Zaria after they refused to let him pass along a highway on a way to a function. Dozens of the sect's members are believed to have died in the attack and its leader Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky has since been remanded in custody over the incident.
Human rights bodies have condemned the attack, calling it barbaric and asked the army to apologise, while calling on the government to investigate the incident. However, the general officer commanding the First Mechanised Division of the Nigerian Army, Major General Adebiyi Oyebade, said the military operation against the group’s headquarters in Zaria was to avert possible outbreak of law and order by members of the sect.
He added that members of the sect from were mobilising to cause mayhem after they were dispersed for attempting to assassinate General Buratai. Major General Oyebade, said the situation would have been avoided if the sect members had not attacked soldiers who were deployed for a stop and search at its three enclaves in Zaria.
Major General Oyebade added: “What happened on that very day was totally avoidable but again you have to go back to history to know the antecedents of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria. On that very day, a call was made to a close aide of El-Zakzaky because the man was the only person who can allow the convoy of the chief of army staff to pass.
"We made the call and after the call, the person switched off his phone. We conducted that operation because we got a report that they were mobilising and they were attacking some of our troops deployed in Zaria as part of their internal security duties."
He added that as the general officer commanding the division, it was his responsibility to find out what was going wrong and what was happening. According to Major General Oyebode, he was getting feedback from his field commanders that the sect was mobilising within their three enclaves and he took a decision that they needed to contain the situation before it springs out into a bigger problem.
"The first thing we did when such threats became so evident was to conduct stop and search operations in order to get out all those carrying arms. I gave instructions to my men to ensure as much as it is feasible that there are no casualties, especially women and children because from the reports I was getting, I knew there was going to be stand offs.
“We notified the police that we are in Zaria and if you go into history, the sect has always been a problem in Zaria well over 30 years. We went in with megaphones to tell the people that we are just conducting stop and search and we asked them to just come out quietly and over 1,000 people came out, men, women and children in their hundreds came out," Major General Oyebade added.
He added, however, that there were sand bags check points leading to Sheikh El-Zakzaky’s house and the members of the sect were attacking the troops with stones, catapults and machetes. According to Major General Oyebade, there were group of boys and girls jumping and surging with sticks and machetes and the troops had to defend themselves.
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