The leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), Sheikh Ibraheem El Zakzaky and his wife, Hajiya Zeenat, have challenged their incarceration since last December, at the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja. They said their detention violates their fundamental human rights.
As such, they are asking the court to compel the respondents – the Federal Government and its agencies – to pay Zakzaky and his wife N2 billion as general damages for violating their fundament human rights.
Addressing a press conference yesterday, the legal team of IMN, led by Barrister Festus Okoye, said that they have already filed two originating motions last Tuesday. According to Okoye, the Nigerian Army, Chief of Army Staff, the Department of State Services (DSS), the Inspector-General of Police and the Attorney General of the Federation were joined in the originating summons.
Okoye, who said that the leader of the Islamic Movement is seeking 11 reliefs, including that the respondents violated his fundament human rights to personal liberty, by not allowing him access to his doctors, family members and friends as enshrined in section 35(4)(6) of the constitution and Article 6 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.
The counsel also said that the respondents violated Zakzaky and his wife’s freedom of association as guaranteed by section 40 of the constitution and Article 40 of the article 11 of the African Charter, by keeping him incommunicado since December 14, 2015.
“The respondents have continued to detain the applicant, thereby denying him his constitutional right of presumption of innocence, in violation of section 36(5) of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” the IMN counsel added.
According to him, the brutalisation of Zakzaky and his wife by soldiers who endangered his life by shooting at them, “which caused the death of their three children, is a flagrant violation of his right to life and dignity of human person as guaranteed by section 33 and 34 of the constitution.”
Okoye also revealed that the legal team of IMNhad met with Zakzaky on April 1, after they had withdrawn from appearing at the Commission of Inquiry that was set up by Kaduna State Government in order to probe the crisis that occurred at Zaria between December 12 and 14, 2015.
He said that Zakzaky expressed reservation about IMN appearing before the commission, considering its composition and “the fact that the Nigerian Army is a federal institution that is not subject to the control of Kaduna State Government and its agencies.”
According to Okoye, the Shiite leader had instructed the legal team “to challenge the composition of the commission and its impartiality in court and to enforce his fundamental human rights, which has been and are still being infringed upon by his continuous detention without trial.”
