About 200 armed security agents consisting of Rapid Respond Squads, the anti-riot police officers and local vigilantes raided the house of the popular Bauchi State-based Islamic scholar Sheikh Idris Abdulaziz Dutsen Tanshi.
Sources close to the cleric revealed that the security officers went to his residential house in the wee hours of Thursday for his arrest, however, they did not succeed in arresting him.
Musa Mohammed, a resident of Dutsen-Tanshi told WikkiTimes that the officers could not get the scholar at his house because he was out.
Barrister A.U Umar, the counsel to the scholar confirmed the unsuccessful attempt by the security agents on Thursday. They went there to implement what he termed as ‘their illegal arrest’, which failed.
“There were more than 30 vehicles with over 200 security personnel comprising police and Civil Defence, among others, blocking all the entrances to his residential house,” he told WikkiTimes
BREAKING: Sharia Court Imprisons Popular Bauchi Cleric, Sheikh Abdul’aziz
“They ordered worshipers in the mosque not to move and then entered his residential house asked his family members and searched everywhere he was not there. They left but returned about 20 minutes later. He was not at home. And he always tells his students not to engage in any violent act as a result of this matter.
According to him, the case was scheduled to be heard Wednesday following the revoke of the granted bail by the court.
Barrister Umar alleged that the counsels to Sheikh Abdulaziz were excluded when the Judge handling the case privately discussed with the counsels to the Bauchi State Government, and later ordered that the cleric be incarcerated. “The case was not officially heard in the court and no official document was given to us as his lawyers.”
“All that they are doing is illegal, but they insisted that they want him incarcerated despite the case being appealed at the appellate court in Jos. The judge publicly declared that he was ordered to give the order. So you see how justice is being compromised,” he lamented.
Abdullahi Zulqarnaini Abdullahi posted some part of the scene when the security agents sieged the cleric’s house via his personal Facebook account as could be seen here and here where several Hillux vehicles could be seen and scores of armed security agents also could be sighted.
In May 2023, WikkiTimes reported that Sheikh Abdulaziz was remanded at the correctional centre for alleged “public disturbance and inciting public unrest.”
But he was later granted bail after being incarcerated for over thirty days in the correctional centre in Bauchi.
The court ordered the security forces to arrest him and arraign him before it for what they term as his refusal to honour the court’s invitation sent to him last week.
However, the cleric has already said that he would not honour the invitation on the ground that he has appealed against his charges at the appeal court for the allegations against him, thus, the Sharia court in Bauchi has no jurisdiction to call the case back before the ruling of the appellate court.
