Test of Will With Frightening Consequences

In December 2015, a group of Shia Muslims crowded Sokoto Road, near Zaria, for a religious procession. Around this time, a convoy including Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai was attempting to navigate through the crowded road. The army demanded that the demonstrators disperse, to let the convoy ease through. But they refused. According to some accounts, some sort of projectile then struck Buratai’s car and the soldiers fired warning shots into the air. When that didn’t work, according to SBM Intelligence, a Nigerian security advisory firm,  “the military opened fire to cover their principal, after which they left the location.”

Coming from ‘bloody civilians’, the action of the IMN caused so much outrage in the Nigeria Army. It was extremely difficult to believe that a band of private citizens could muster the courage to openly challenge the head of the army and even seek to do him harm. Shortly after ferrying Buratai away, soldiers returned to Sokoto Road with a renewed determination to give the matter deserving attention.

According to SBM, the army saw the incident as an excuse to finally crush this group of Shia Muslims which organises under the aegis of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN).

“The Nigerian Army, according to some sources, was forced to tackle [what they see as] the problem of the Shi’ites once and for all, because of a belief that the group poses a latent threat to the stability of the region,” SBM reported at the time. “Based on security reports, the Shi’ites have consistently defied constituted authority, with Police and other security agencies too afraid to confront them.”

The 2015 Zaria crackdown, which lasted for about three days, led to the massacre of hundreds of Shi’ites. In 2016, a judicial commission said the army had killed 349 Shia Muslims, in what the commission described as a demonstration of “excessive force” by the Nigerian army. Leader of the IMN, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, was also reportedly wounded in the violent crisis and his son and wife were killed.

The judicial commission, which had been appointed by the Kaduna State Government, recommended that “steps should immediately be taken to identify the members of the Nigerian Army who participated in the killings of December 12-14, 2015 incident with a view to prosecuting them.” But lip-service was paid to that recommendation and El-Zakzaky  was remanded in prison, despite court orders granting him bail.

Since their leader was imprisoned, IMN has continued to demand for his release, providing more opportunity to defy constituted authority. The Shi’ites regularly organise peaceful protests across the country, but some of them have turned bloody, including the recent ones held this July. A lot of experts have described the escalating tension between the group and government as a sign of darker things to come, drawing parallels with the rise of Boko Haram.

Last Friday, a federal high court in Abuja declared the IMN a terrorist organisation, after an ex parte application filed by the Federal Government through the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF). But will rendering IMN illegal whisk the Shi’ite crisis away?

The Psychology of Shi’ism

Historically, the Shiite movement started as a struggle for power. After Prophet Muhammad died on June 8, 632 AD, the Muslim community struggled to substantively agree on who should replace him as the head of Islam.

Some of Muhammad’s followers thought it was best to preserve the Prophet’s special relationship to God by recognising his family as the inheritors of his authority. So when it came to anointing Muhammad’s successor, they supported his cousin and son-in-law, ‘Ali Ibn Abi Talib. This party henceforth was known as the Shi’ ites (the “partisans” of ‘Ali).

But, at first, ‘Ali didn’t get the job. He was passed over twice. However, in 656 AD, he eventually became the ultimate earthly helmsman of Muslim affairs. But his reign did not last long. In 661 AD, ‘Ali was murdered. The Shi’ites became anxious, because the majority, now known as Sunni Muslims, preferred the Governor of Syria, Muʿawiyah ibn Abī Sufyān, as the successor to ‘Ali, rather than ‘Ali’s son, Hasan.

The Shiʿites’ growing conviction that the tide of history was moving against them was confirmed definitively when Husayn, Hasan’s younger brother, was murdered, together with his family, in 680 by the forces of the Umayyad ruler Yazid following the Battle of Karbala in Iraq. With the death of Husayn, the closest descendants of Muhammad were vanquished. Husayn was seen as a martyr to be revered, and his death sealed the division between the Shiʿites and the Sunni majority.

The tragedies surrounding the deaths of ʿAli and Husayn, according to History Professor, Scott Appleby, made a lasting mark on Shiʿite consciousness. From that time forward, they were overshadowed and often persecuted by hostile rulers, including forces aligned with the Sunni caliphate. In response to this predicament, Shiʿism diverged in at least two significant respects from the belief and practice of mainstream Sunnism.

First, the Shiʿites, adopted the worldview of the underdog and came to see history as an extended era of suffering and persecution that would be reversed only with the return, at the end-time of fulfillment, of the Hidden Imam, who disappeared from a mosque in Samarraʾ around the year 875 CE. The 12th Imam in succession from ʿAli, he is the divinely guided leader (Mahdi) who will return to establish justice on earth.

Second, the leadership structure of Shiʿism revolves around learned teachers (imams), interpreters of the religious law, who are seen by their respective groups of disciples as “sources of imitation”. This reliance on authoritative and charismatic leaders gives Shiʿism, if not exactly a hierarchy of religious authority, certainly more-concentrated power than the decentralized, more numerous, and geographically more-dispersed Sunnis.

Coming to Nigeria

Shi’ism in Nigeria is usually traced to the Iranian revolution of 1979, which led to the emergence of an Islamic government in the Middle-East state. The revolution inspired many Northern Nigerian Muslims. Radical Islamist movements, such as the Muslim Brothers, later renamed the IMN and led by El-Zakzaky of Kaduna State, introduced a militant pro-Iranian Shi’ite version of Islam into Northern Nigeria in the 1980s.

IMN’s “stated mission is to establish an Iran type of Islamic state in Nigeria, which has kept it in intermittent skirmishes with government security forces,” Ibrahim Haruna Hassan, a Professor at Nigeria’s University of Jos, wrote in 2015. Though the group acquired weapons, it had not taken up arms against Nigeria’s secular government. “While the group still strongly rejects secularism,” Hassan wrote, “they believe that the time to take up arms is not ripe (yet) in Nigeria.” Perhaps, until now.

El-Zakzaky was born in 1953. He claims descent from the Prophet (Sharif) and lays claim to the Zaria Emirate dynasty. He was first educated in the traditional Qur’anic system and later in modern secular schools. While at the School of Arabic Studies (SAS) in Kano, he attended the Qadiriyya-Sufi School of Shaykh Muhammad Nasiru Kabara and the Tijaniyya-Sufi School of Shaykh Isa Waziri. After graduating from SAS with a General Certificate of Education (GCE), which includes such secular subjects as Economics, he eventually entered Ahmadu Bello University, but was expelled for his leadership in the “Islam Only” protest.

After his expulsion, he went to Iran for a short course of studies, before founding IMN, whose members refer to themselves as ‘Yan’uwa’ (a Hausa word for brothers). Many of the movement’s leaders and adherents regularly visited Iran or studied there. On the occasion of its silver jubilee on April 10, 2005, the movement declared that its main aim is “the establishment of an Islamic system and state, no more no less.”

Apart from organising religious processions, IMN also has a network of Islamic schools and hospitals with trained medical practitioners, including doctors, who attend to victims of crises and disasters, often free of charge.

In the North where it has its largest following, IMN seems to have more followers in urban areas among both Western-educated and nonwestern-educated, but nonetheless makes steady progress in the rural areas.

In 2001, El-Zakzaky told a BBC journalist, “If we want a million people out on the streets on any issue, we can do that.”

‘Give us our Leader’

Late last year, the Nigerian military and police shot live bullets on Shi’ites marching near and in the capital city of Abuja to celebrate a religious holiday and demand El-Zakzaky’s unconstitutional release from custody.

While the military said that six people died, the IMN noted that the figures were at least seven times higher. Amnesty International reported similar figures in what it described as an “unconscionable use of deadly force by soldiers and police.”

The US Embassy in Nigeria said it was “concerned” about the deaths and called for a “thorough investigation of the events”. But to justify opening fire on the Shi’ite group, the Nigerian Army on Friday posted a video of US President Donald Trump saying soldiers would shoot Central American migrants throwing stones.

“Not only did they use stones but they were carrying petrol bombs, machetes and knives, so yes, we consider them as being armed,” former spokesman for Nigeria’s defence, Brigadier-General John Agim, said.

Again, this July, Shi’ite protesters stormed the National Assembly. According to some accounts, they overpowered policemen on duty, seized guns and shot two security operatives. They also reportedly vandalised the main entrance usually guarded by Mobile Policemen and forced legislators in session to adjourn. A few days later, another protest turned into a deadly confrontation as a Deputy Commissioner of Police, Usman Umar and a National Youth Service Corps member reporting for Channels TV were shot dead. A Shi’ite spokesman said at least 20 of their members have been killed in the recent crisis.

“Being a Shi’ite under this current Buhari administration is . . . being persecuted,” IMN spokesman Ibrahim Musa told AFP last year. “We have suffered more discrimination under this administration than with any other in the past. We are not allowed to worship our god according to our convictions.” On the flipside, there is an unveiled conviction by elements in the Presidency that the Shi’ites are bent on bringing down or tarnishing Buhari’s government because he is Sunni. This line of thinking aligns with those who want the Shi’ites punished for not voting for Buhari and openly campaigning against him.