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Following lack of a breakthrough in the impasse that greeted his treatment in New Delhi, India, leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, has announced his return to Nigeria.
In a video message sent through his office, the cleric said it was decided that he and his wife, Zeenah, be flown back to Nigeria.
Consequently, the couple departed the Asian country yesterday at 17:00 (Nigerian time).
El-Zakzaky, in the film, alleged that the Federal Government scuttled the whole process of his treatment rather than supervise as ordered by the Kaduna High Court.
“The government never wanted the medical leave in the first place and did whatever to stop it by all means possible.
‘” The Islamic movement is not happy with the latest development, and we believe any peace-loving person in Nigeria feels the same,” Head, Media of the sect, Ibrahim Musa said.
He added: ”As we await his arrival, we pray to Almighty Allah to continue protecting him from the enemies of peace, who are behind the Zaria genocide of December 2015.”
In the statement he issued in Kaduna, Musa added El-Zakzaky felt constrained to take the decision in the “present circumstances.”
The Islamic leader described the hospital where he and his wife were to receive treatment as another “detention facility, which is even stricter than the one we were in back in Nigeria.”
He claimed that there were armed police armed and several staff of the Nigerian embassy at the medical facility and “due to this, we think that based on everything we have seen so far, it indicates to us that we are not safe here. We were just brought to another detention.”
The IMN had at a media briefing on Wednesday in Abuja had alleged that the Sheikh and his wife were no longer safe in Madenta Hospital where they had been admitted on account of ‘interference’ from the government.
The allegation was, however, dismissed as “foul cry” by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Culture, Grace Gekpe.
