In the past week, many Northern Nigerian states, including Kano, Kaduna and Katsina placed bans on the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), a Shia Islamic group in the north. However, it seemed like the ban didn’t achieve the expected result as on Wednesday, thousands of Shia Muslims across the northern states went on the Ashura procession, an annual festival celebrated by all Shia Muslims around the World. They were met by Nigerian security forces who opened fire on them, killing around 11 of them and unwittingly creating a potential crisis.
Ibrahim Zakzaky, who is the leader of the Islamic sect in Nigeria, has been placed in detention by Nigerian security forces since the incident that happened late last year. Hundreds of members of his organisation, the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), were murdered in cold blood by members of the Nigerian army after the latter claimed the sect had blocked their passage and attempted to kill the Nigerian Army chief of staff, General Tukur Buratai. This singular event has been the subject of various investigations by human rights organisations around the world and the Nigerian government. This week’s incidence, however, has a higher connotation than human rights violations.
The rise of another Islamic sect some years ago bears a close resemblance to the Shiite sect’s rise. Boko Haram’s late founder, Muhammed Yussuf was described as a “charismatic speaker who had no trouble attracting an audience” much like Zakzaky when he started. Yusuf drew to himself a large support, mainly through his radical sermons of an Islamic jihad solution to the corruption and repression by the Nigerian government. He raised a secret army in Borno state Nigeria, training them how to use guns and other weapons with the support of International Wahhabi terrorist organisations in Saudi Arabia. Zakzaky has reportedly done the same, albeit with the help of donations from Iran, the Shiite capital of the world. Having their own “state within a state”, terrorising other Muslims on the streets and getting killed in the process are all similarities between the IMN and Boko Haram’s early days.
It is not a fallacy to claim both Boko Haram and the IMN share the same similarities on first look. And the same approach that changed Boko Haram from a city menace to a West-African terror group is being used with the IMN. The constant underestimation of the rhetoric of Nigerian demagogues seems to always put the Nation in a quicksand. Authorities seem to think the elimination of a leader, and the harassment of his followers means the weakening of the group.
It is a shame that state governments in northern Nigeria are not learning from the past. The fact that these extrajudicial murders are happening under esteemed Islamic leaders like Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna state, and the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi both of whom, you would assume, should know better, makes it more baffling.
The criminalising of the Islamic sect is probably the first step in putting them in the same shoe with Boko Haram and eventually ending all hope of a peaceful resolution. Wednesday’s murders were a step too far, especially when a youthful mob was also implicit in the killings. Zakzaky’s death in detention might just be that extra straw that breaks the camel’s back and turn these sometimes extremist and violent sect into a terrorist group. Nigerians may not have to wait for long…
