Kano community isolates Darul Islam members

Written by Duncan Tuesday, 13 October 2009

Darul Islam sect members being reintegrated into their communities following the sect’s disbandment from Niger State by the Federal Government are facing stigmatization, a Daily Trust investigation in Kano has revealed.

No fewer than 36 members of the group who were returned to Takai Local Government Area of the state last month now live in makeshift huts in a farm because landlords are refusing to give them accommodation.

The apathy was said to have stemmed from a negative campaign which Izala followers in the area were said to have launched, but the Izala said they did not launch any such campaign. According to the deputy leader of the sect in Takai, Umar bn Idris, consistent Fatwas declaring the group members as enemies of Islam are being frequently delivered.  He said on many occasions, people were told that if they give his members their houses to live in as tenants, they risk similar treatment as landlords in other parts of the state who accommodated Boko Haram members. He said they were also told their houses could be pulled down.

The leader said all their efforts to live with other members of the community had been thwarted, adding that it was the general apathy that compelled them to clear a portion of farmland belonging to a relative of a group member  to settle on it.  When Daily Trust visited the makeshift huts, some men were erecting more huts which they said were meant to accommodate all the members while children recited the Quran. About 15 women were said to be housed in two tiny huts, raising fears of an epidemic.

They said since they relocated to the bush, no government official had visited them.  

The representative of the district head of Takai, Malam Abba Ahmad, told Daily Trust that the issue of antagonism against the sect members was real in the council, without any reason. Malam Abdullahi Al amin, the Chief Imam of Izala dismissed the charge against him and his group as baseless. Also refuting the charges alleging that members of the group had been abandoned by the local government, the council chairman, Alhaji Mauhammad Baffa Takai, said they were untrue and mischievous.