SINCE the army swooped on the members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, popularly called shittes, in what the media and the political establishment including the army authorities mis-represently referred to as “clash” last December, there has been no let up in the smear campaign to tarnish these simple and ordinary Nigerian Muslims.

Apart from the fatal blow to this group by the massacre of its members, including women and children, now belatedly admitted by the Kaduna state government of nearly 400 hundred dead, which was hurriedly buried in mass grave, the group would not even be allowed to mourn their dead and care for the injured. As if the attack of the Islamic Movement was premeditated, a daily barrage of smear campaign has been mounted against the group inspite of been nearly physically decimated. One is amazed at how the teachings of these simple ordinary Muslims strikes fear and paranoid among the northern religious establishment that they needed to deploy such massive and intense smear campaign to tarnish the group.

Shia Islam is a strand of the Muslim community that venerates the Muslim caliph, after the death of prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Ali who took the title of imam, which simply means leader, a departure from his three predecessors, caliph Abubakar, Omar and Othman. A close companion of the prophet and reputed as the first convert to Islam, Ali was both pious and deeply imbued with justice. A cousin of the prophet, he married the prophet’s daughter Fatimah and bore his two grandsons, Hassan and Hussein. Hussein is a reverend and adored figure in Shia Islam and his courageous resistance to his overwhelmingly militarily superior adversary at the battle of karbala was the origin of Shia revered Ashoura, in commemoration of the brutal annihilation of his forces at karbala by the ever ruthless governor of Syria, Yazid.   Ashoura procession is outstanding in solemnity in Shia Islam .In spite of the varying traditions from the early and key historical figures in Islam, the divergence is over-shadowed by the core consensus in the divinity of the Quran and the Prophet’s elaboration in the hadith.

The schisms in Islam as in other established religions flow essentially from political contestations that seek to appropriate the profound influence of religion to gain ideological hegemony and material bounties. In the Middle East, cradle of the both the two established religions, geo-political contest has accentuated the schisms in Islam, widening the rift within the Muslim community beyond the region.

The current persecution of the members of the Islamic movement in Nigeria, most vividly exemplify the struggle for ideological hegemony. Historically, the tradition of shiism exemplified by the peaceful, and compromise gesture of Ali in the battle with the Syrian cunning governor, Muayiwa, firmly established Shiism as tolerant, accomodational and inclusive.

From the Commission of inquiry set up by the Kaduna state government on the December Army attack of the members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, some chilling facts have been unearthed. The Kaduna state government through its key officials has admitted 347 bodies including women and children were murdered and buried in a mass grave. Inspite of this overwhelming fact, not a single soldier is under house arrest or on trial. The leader of the Islamic Movement, Mr. El-Zakzaky and is wife for the trauma of the cold – blooded murder of his children and his colleagues are held incommunicado and   in unknown place.

Since the December Mayhem, when the Islamic Movement in Nigeria was nearly physically decimated, so much propaganda stuff have spewed out, to ostensibly bring them to public odium. The most serious of the charge against the group even, if it is the most ridiculous, is that the group is a State within State, with all paraphernalia of a government. And the evidence, according to this charge is that group does not recognise government and have their own organisational apparatus. However even social clubs, political parties have internal organisations, with some designating their top leadership position as president. Every Sunday in many churches it is not the police or army that provides orderly traffic within and around the domain of the churches. It is young men and boys decked in paramilitary uniforms who provide the function. On Fridays, in many mosques, it is also the young men who ensure orderliness during the prayer period. If it is these young volunteers who make the IMN a State within State, it beats our common sense to imagine how many States there are within the Nigerian State.

Even as web of lies are been woven around the shittes to justify the heavy-handedness of army clamp down on them, the most spurious ones includes that the group is another Boko Haram in the making, waiting to unleash mayhem if their activities were not preemptively curbed. But even a casual observer knows that the extremist and intolerant Boko Haram shares absolutely nothing in common with the Islamic Movement in Nigeria. The movement has even come under attack by the Boko Haram extremists.

It appears that the paranoid about the shittes is more likely from their famed discipline, organisational dexterity, egalitarian virtues of self improvement. The republican slant of their Islamic activism appears to sit uneasily with the northern traditional and political establishment. It offends common sense that a group that has existed for nearly four decades without any record of public nuisance or disturbance is now dressed in the cloak of public enemy number one.

As if smear campaign linking the shiittes with treason is not enough, efforts are been orchestrated to link their alleged treasonable acts to a foreign power.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, that happen, to share values of faith with Islamic Movement in Nigeria is been bandied as the instigator of the alleged malfeasance of the shitte group. But the same Iran took a global centre stage as she successfully concluded key nuclear deal with key world powers. As a result, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been the cynosure of attention as Tehran is turned to the hub of global diplomacy. The French has officially visited. The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping also paid a state visit and just recently, the South Korean leader, Mrs Park called in.

Iran is long past the meddling and revolution exporting entity that she is been unduly associated in some quarters here.

Moreover, it is a throwback to the cold war mentality, when even students stampede and workers agitation were routinely claimed to be directed by the Communist Soviet Union. No gain saying that since the Soviet Union ceased to exist, students and labour unrests have not ended.

Even with a commission of inquiry that should take submissions from the key actors of December incident, the shittes are been denied a hearing by refusing a simple demand that their leader, Mr. El Zakzaky currently a hostage of the state should be released. If El Zakzaky is the quintessential villain, treasonable felonist and a paid agent of a foreign power, what then, is the official fear to have him on a public platform to state his case and that of his group.

Mr  Charles Onunaiju,a journalist, wrote from Abuja.