Release El-Zakzaky, Wife’s Passports, Cleric Begs FG

 A Kwara State-based Muslim cleric, Sheikh Abdullah Berende, on Friday pleaded with the Federal Government to release the passports of the Leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (Shiite), Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky and his wife Mallama Zeenat forthwith so they could undergo medical treatment abroad.

Berende, who spoke with reporters in Ilorin, Kwara State capital, believed that by doing so, the Federal Government would be showing decorum as well as respecting the rule of law.

The cleric said that the passports would “avail the couple access to required imperative medical treatments that are not available in Nigeria in order to halt and reverse the worsening health conditions of the couple.”

He decried the attacks on El-Zakzaky which resulted in the alleged “killing of his sons and scores of his followers as well as destruction of living house, mosque, library and even the graves of his mother are instances of the numerous injustices against this religiously pious and peace loving individual whose persecutions are premised on his call for justice and fairness to all.

“It is on record that the medical reports of the health status of these two towering personalities and couple, revealed serious health defects in them resulting from the brutal attacks on them by the military,” he alleged.