Proscribed group, Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), has bashed Pete Edochie after the veteran Nollywood actor raised alarm early this week alleging his life was being threatened after photos and video clips circulated, showing him playing a role that seemed like that of Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, leader of the IMN, who has been held in detention by the Nigerian Army since December 2015.
According to IMN, the movie titled “Fatal Arrogance” was sponsored by the “Nigerian Army to cover up the alleged December 2015 massacre of Shiites by soldiers where 348 people were allegedly killed.”
The IMN says Pete Edochie allowed himself ‘to be used’ and should stop wailing as he wasn’t threatened. The group blasted the actor for his portrayal of Shiites in the soon to be released movie.
The statement read “The petition written by the IMN to the Inspector General of Police and the Film’s Censors Board doesn’t threaten anyone’s life. Issuing of threats has never been in our character. Pete Edochie should be honourable enough to accept that he allowed himself to be used to further vilify victims of one of the worst state-sponsored massacres of its citizens. He could still redeem his name as other actors in the ill-fated film are doing. If Edochie has any character as he claims, he would not have accepted to act any role in a film that seems to change the narrative and distort history based on a book distorting facts! If he had any integrity, he would not have accepted to appear in a movie tarnishing the image of an oppressed personality like Sheikh Zakzaky and still think he did nothing wrong because the Sheikh was not mentioned by name. Any serious artist worth the name must, first of all, undertake some kind of serious research to get the facts of any script brought to him right. Had he been bold enough to cross-check, he would have realized that genocide took place in Zaria in 2015 where over a thousand Nigerian lives were wasted by the sponsors of the film. He would have come across the very many attempts by the perpetrators to hide these heinous crimes, firstly by the burial of their victims in mass graves, an internationally recognized crime… He would have realized the matter is currently a subject of investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The script before him is a continuation of that desperate attempt to distort facts.”