Following the clash between the Nigerian Army and the Shiite movement during a procession on Saturday and the subsequent alleged arrest of the spiritual leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, the army on Monday insisted that it applied minimum force to bring the situation under control despite the loss of lives.
Members of the group were alleged to have attempted to assassinate the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, in Zaria.
The Chief of Army Civil Relations, Brig. Gen. Rogers Nicholas, made this known while appearing on Kaakaki programme on African Independent Television (AIT), where he maintained that the army was not under pressure whatsoever in what transpired that day, stressing that the army did what was necessary to bring the situation under control.
According to him, "We tried to negotiate with them that look, you don't have to do this; this is against the law of this country; you don’t have to do things like that. We warned them that what you are doing is against the law of this country, and all of a sudden they started insulting the convoy and the next thing we heard was an explosion from their side. Of course, the Nigerian Army will respond appropriately within the rules of engagement for such situations and we did that, and with that we were able to clear the road."
In order to give credence to his account about what transpired, he stated that NTA and AIT crew were also on the convoy that they were able to record the happenings of what transpired live, stressing that he hoped both NTA and AIT would tell the people exactly what happened.
Continuing, Nicholas noted: "If you have a programme, will they have to infringe on the rights of other people? Will they have to block a federal government road? There was attempt on the lives of very senior people in the Nigerian Army. I don't want to mention names, but there was an attempt and they fired at the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff, and the life of everybody there is important. If you fire at any soldier on that convoy, or any of the media guys, then you are in trouble. Why should somebody take arm against an institution like Nigerian Army in this time? That was uncalled for. Whatever the sect’s spokesman is saying is not honest."
He revealed that they had to come down and negotiated with the sect to allow the convoy to pass but they refused. He however explained that there was no serious damage on any vehicle of the convoy as most of them were armoured.
The army chieftain said, "Considering that lives were lost, that is a barest minimum damage, because the other man firing had machine gun and other weapons, and the only way to take him down is the barest minimum force that we applied. If the army had responded with a heavy force, we would have seen more causalities, more damages done, but what we applied is the barest minimum force to bring the situation under control."
