Why FG is still holding El-Zakzaky – Adesina
Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, has said that the Federal Government is still holding on to the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, because it has appealed Justice Gabriel Kolawole’s order on his release.
Adesina, who said this on Tuesday, while featuring as a guest on Channels Television’s morning show, Sunrise Daily, explained that the then Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, may have had his reasons for doing so since the government had the right to appeal the bail.
According to him, “I know that the immediate past AGF in whose purview it was to make pronouncements on that, addressed the issue. If bail is granted and another case subsists and there is an immediate filing of the appeal, you have to wait till it is dispensed with.
“So, that is a legal matter which is outside my purview but as a layman, an unlearned man as lawyers would call us, we know that until all cases are dispensed with, you don’t say that it has been concluded,” he said.
While maintaining that the matter had since been taken before a court in Kaduna State and the bail hearing would come up next Monday, the President’s Aide called on Shiites members to wait for the court to make its ruling.
Reacting to the death of a corp member, Precious Owolabi, who was a staff of Channels Television, Adesina said he couldn’t get over the news because it reminded him of how he also started his career as a young journalist.
“I couldn’t get over it. I started my career as a journalist, 33 years ago as a youth corp member at the Lagos Television and that is what he is doing exactly the way I started.
“Imagine that as a youth corp member at a television station 33 years ago, I’d been killed in the field of duty.
“No man should lose his life that way. It is very sad and very dolorous for our country and this is what I call fratricide, brothers killing brothers. It need not happen, it should not happen,” he said.
He also condoled with the police for the loss of the DCP as well as the Shiites for the loss of their members.
He said, “Let me also condole with the police on the loss of the DCP and all those that have been lost earlier in these series of clashes and even with the Shiites group because life does not need to be wasted wantonly and that is what we have seen in this Shiite protests.”
Responding to allegations that the police ought not to have fired live bullets into the protesters on Monday, the President’s spokesman said the police deserve to be commended.
“The death toll would have been much higher if the police did not show some restraint. I tell you despite what happened yesterday if the police had responded with greater force, you know we would not be talking about what we are talking now,” he added.
