Violence against Shiite Muslims in Nigeria

On December 12, 2015, the military took the law into its hands and massacred over 347 members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) who allegedly blocked the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai. Although the military has used several lies to justify the killings, a panel set up by the Kaduna state government to investigate the killings indicted the Nigerian army for the Zaria massacre. Specifically, the panel indicted Maj. General Adeniyi Oyebade, the General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army’s 1st Devision in Kaduna for authorising the operation. The Panel only stopped short of indicting the Chief of Army Staff General Burutai who also bears responsibility for, and has defended, the killings on several occasions. Regardless, the army stands accused of grave killings of civilians and crime against humanity.

The Panel rightly pointed out that the killings are a crime against humanity and those responsible must be brought to justice. The report also blamed the leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky for the clash and recommended that he should be investigated and prosecuted. The government said that the action was taken to preserve peace and stability in the state.

The president has not only kept quiet on the report, no action whatsoever has been taken towards bringing to justice those who carried out the extra-judicial killings.

In a shocking move however, the Kaduna state government issued an order declaring the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), otherwise known as Shiites, as an unlawful organisation. Since then, members of the group – this time not only in Kaduna but also in Abuja, Kano, Katsina and Jos who have been protesting the government’s actions and also demanding the unconditional release of their leader, ElZakzaky, his wife and other members of the IMN who had been in detention unlawfully since their arrest in 2015 following the sect’s clash with the Nigerian Army – have been systematically brutalised, killed and arrested by the Nigerian authorities.

On Monday16 April 2018, the police again shot at the sect’s members in Abuja protesting the continued detention of their leader, his wife and many other members. 115 of them were subsequently arrested.
We note the increasing crackdown on Shia Islam in Nigeria since the ascension to the president of Mohammadu Buhari, a Sunni Muslim. In 2016, President Buhari confirmed Nigeria’s membership in the Islamic Coalition against terrorism formed in 2015 by Islamic countries following the order of Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni nation. Iran was conspicuously left out of the coalition. On the surface, it appears an innocuous move, but underneath the move is a pandering towards Saudi Arabia and other Sunni countries who have never hidden their hostility towards to Shia Islam. To make matters worse, the Nigerian government condemned the Iranian-backed Shia Houthi militia resistance group fighting the Saudi-backed government of Abid Rabbo Mansur Hadi in Yemen for targeting the Holiest city of Islam, Mecca, in a ballistic missile attack – a claim hotly disputed by both the Houthis and their Iranian backers.
The reality is that the Buhari government is dragging Nigeria into a Saudi-Iran proxy war. Paradoxically, those two countries have somehow managed to keep this conflict out of their lands, and have turned other countries into proxy battlefields for political supremacy.
Nigeria is still a volatile country trying to overcome the Boko Haram insurgency. It cannot afford another conflict. We urge the federal government to desist from persecuting the Shia’s in Nigeria, release or prosecute its leader in open court and also punish all those involved in the killing of IMN members. A stitch in time saves nine.