By Abdulmumin Giwa
Honorable Bello Nasiru Elrufai, the House of Representatives member representing Kaduna North had asked a very important question at a particular session at the House sitting recently.
He expressed surprise as to how justice is delivered in Nigeria where the same crimes are punished differently under the same law.
He sighted the case of a Boko Haram member, Husain… that was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for the same crime of terrorism that the Biafran agitator, Nnamdi Kanu, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
This is indeed worthy of asking and it needs an answer that the system cannot directly respond to without creating further confusion and lack of confidence in the justice system in the country.
However, I am forced to believe that Bello Elrufai is economical with the truth of the matter while asking the question as to why terrorists are treated differently by the law.
He should have also asked about what the law provides against state officials who who abuse power and commit acts of state terrorism while in office.
This is because, the former governor of Kaduna state, Nasiru Elrufai, under former president, Muhammadu Buhari (late), coincidentally also the father of Bello Elrufai, the mass killing of Shi’ites in Zaria in 2016 was perpetrated.
Although no reasons that would justify the mass murder of innocent Nigerians, men, women and children were given by the state, almost 1000 of them were declared missing by the Shi’ites group as well as other human rights organizations.
Former governor Elrufai, following pressure by the Amnesty International in particular, was forced to declare that the government killed only 347 and got them buried in a mass grave at Mando in Kaduna.
There were allegations that some of them were even buried alive having received injuries during the clampdown by the Nigerian Army at the residence of the Shi’ite leader in Zaria. They were even said to have begged those burying them to please kill them before they put sand over them but they refused and buried them alive.
A federal high court in Abuja freed the leader of the Shi’ite group, Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, and placed damages of N50 million for him and his wife to be paid by the government.
The implication here is that the government had committed an act of state terrorism against an innocent group of Nigerians who are allowed by the Nigerian law to practice their faith.
By this act, the state had turned hundreds of women into widows and thousands of children into orphans in Nigeria, using the Nigerian Army, thereby misusing their powers.
What Bello Elrufai should have mentioned is that, the law is not fair by sentencing some terrorists to life imprisonment, other terrorists to 20 years in jail while setting other terrorists free and even allowing them to be active in politics in the country. What kind of law is this?
Now the big question, in Nigeria, what is the punishment for terrorism committed by individuals against innocent Nigerians, and what is the punishment committed by state officials against innocent individual citizens of Nigeria using the offices they occupy?