FROM NOAH EBIJE, KADUNA
Members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), Shiites, have raised the alarm over alleged
plan by some unscrupulous persons, to secretly exhume the 347 corpses of their members buried
in a mass grave following the December 2015 clash with the Army in Zaria.
A statement issued yesterday by the media spokesman of the IMN, Ibrahim Musa, alleged
that the move was in an effort to lower the figure of those buried in case of subsequent full blown
international investigation of the clash.
The statement said, “Reports reaching the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) have it that
some unscrupulous people, who were behind the massacre of hundreds of unarmed citizens and
their secret burial in a mass grave, are planning to secretly and unilaterally exhume the corpses in an
effort to lower the figure of those buried therein in the event of a subsequent full blown international
investigation of their crime.
“Since the disclosure of the existence of a mass grave at the Judicial Commission of Inquiry by officials
of Kaduna State government, the Nigerian Army has been quite uncomfortable.
“Initially, they tried to debunk the existence of a mass grave in their testimonies at the Commission.
When it became obvious through confessions of officers of the state government that mass grave exists, and that officers and men of the Nigerian Army were fully involved in the construction of the mass grave as well as the secret burial of hundreds of IMN members they killed.
“The Nigerian Army officials have been working out how they could at least significantly put
down the number of corpses buried in the grave.
At a follow-up testimony at the Judicial Commission, they bluntly refused to acknowledge the hundreds
killed and buried in the mass grave, claiming that they handed over only “a few” to state officials
for burial.
“The Islamic Movement in Nigeria wishes to make it categorically clear that the site of the mass
grave where the Kaduna state government admitted that it had buried 347 of those killed by the Nigerian
military in Zaria last December is a crime scene, hence any attempt to tamper with it would
not only be taken as a sacrilege and unacceptable, but also as an attempt to tamper with an important
exhibit, which is a serious crime in itself.”