Residents of Zaria, Kaduna State yesterday called on the Federal Government to urgently ban the Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky-led Shiite movement in their communities for allegedly unleashing untold hardship on them in the last 20 years.

Addressing a press conference in Kaduna, the spokesperson of the affected Zaria communities, Idris Mohammed Baba alleged that the Shiites had held the people in Zaria and Sabon Gari local government areas hostage with impunity, adding that the sect is running a parallel government in the country.

The communities also said that the Shiites had in May 2015 declared 24 youths persona non grata for challenging their activities in Gyellesu community where Zakzaky resides.

Narrating his ordeal in the hands of Shiite followers in Zaria, Baba said: “My experience with Shiite followers is disastrous and terrible, at a point Shiite boys threaten to kill me.”

He continued that “There is one notorious Shiite boy call Ali. He is the leader of El-Zakzaky’s notorious boys who accompany him anywhere he goes.

“We are happy over military action against Shiite’s movement in Zaria because we have fresh air now blowing in our areas.

“Before, we can’t grant interview to the world about Shiite’s activities, but now we are sleeping with our two eyes closed.

“As a community, we wrote letters to the governments about ungodly activities of Shiites but no single action was taken. We no longer
report Shiites to police because they will never honour police or security invitation.

“These Shiites are authority unto themselves; they don’t respect authority, security and so on.

“We are Muslims but we discovered that Shiites activities are contrary to Islam. They carried dangerous weapons openly molesting
innocent people in our areas. Human rights groups should also look into our pains by Shia sect”

Alhaji Saidu Garba, one of the Gyallesu’s elders, who also spoke, said, the once booming economic activities in the area have been crippled due to the activities of Shiites.

According to Garba, “After, El-Zakzaky was released from detention in 1999,he came and settled in Gyallesu since then there is no peace in our area.

“We thank Allah for touching the heart of government and the military to liberate us from Shiites untold hardship.

“Shiites killed many of our people who challenged their activities,we buried them and we cannot talk to the world because of their threat.

“We were living like slaves in our own land which Shiite leader, Sheikh El-Zakzaky came and met us. We residents of Gyallesu are
calling on the Federal government to ban Shiite movement in our community and Kaduna state as a whole. Government should put a stop to Shiites’ ungodly activities in our area,” he said.