Nigeria faces new rift over alleged Shiite massacre

Nigeria faces new rift over alleged Shiite massacre

Piles of rubble are all that remain of the residence of Nigeria’s most prominent Shi’ite Muslim leader after it was demolished by bulldozers in the northern city of Zaria.

Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky’s compound was levelled after three days of clashes between the army and Shi’ite residents of the city in December in which rights groups say hundreds of Shi’ites were killed.

The army declined to give a Shi’ite death toll but said one soldier was killed and five were wounded.

After the clashes, the army detained a wounded Zakzaky, who is still in custody.

The clashes were the deadliest in living memory involving security forces and the minority Shi’ite community, say some Shi’ites and rights groups.

Muhammadu Samaru, a Shi’ite religious leader, said members of the Shi’ite community are angry with the military.

“This anger cuts across from the leadership, to all the members, anyone you ask will tell you that he is very angry,” Samaru said sitting in his Zaria home.

The violence and its repercussions could further fracture a country battling a northern insurgency by hardline Sunni group Boko Haram, a secessionist movement in the southeast, militancy in the oil-rich Delta, as well as a growing economic crisis.

Africa’s most populous nation, led by President Muhammadu Buhari, is home to around 180 million – roughly evenly split between Christians, mainly in the south, and Muslims, mostly in the north and predominantly Sunni. Shi’ites are estimated to number under 4 million, according to a 2009 report by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center, but there are no official figures.

Zaria, 270 km (170 miles) north of the capital Abuja, is a predominantly Sunni city with a population of about 500,000. It is a focus for inter-community tensions because it is also the spiritual centre of Shi’ite sect the Islamic Movement in Nigeria as home to its leader Zakzaky.

Zakzaky used to live in Zaria’s Gyellesu neighbourhood. In a sign of the tensions gripping the city, several anti-Shi’ite slogans have sprung up in recent weeks on buildings used by the sect.

There is deep resentment for the Shi’ite sect among some Sunni residents of Zaria who say members of the movement had regularly carried out attacks in the city in the past year – charges denied by the sect.

“Even though we are neighbours, we can’t park our vehicles in front of our house. Two, if you try to talk to them they will beat you up, but they will park their vehicles and cars there, but we cannot, they have destroyed two of our motorcycles right here by this gate. When I try to talk to them, they hit me with a machete injuring my head,” Salisu Mohammed is a Sunni and Gyellesu Community youth leader said.

“Sometime last year, they had some problems with our youths, so they hired some thugs who came and were attacking people with machetes,” another Sunni, Bello Mohammed, said.

While he was talking an angry crowd gathered, with many telling similar tales.

Zakzaky’s neighbour Fatima Abu couldn’t be clearer.

“We want him out of Gyellesu, we are happy with the demolition of his house and arrest,” she said.

Human Rights Watch estimates there are around 3 million members of the sect, a religious and political movement inspired by Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

But members of the sect, which says it is a peaceful movement, and some rights groups say the army launched an unjustified attack, with the motive unclear, and opened fire on civilians.

The sect says more than 1,000 Shi’ites could have been killed – it says the army had taken more than 400 bodies to several morgues and that 750 other people were missing.

There have been sporadic clashes between Shi’ites and security forces since the 1980s in Nigeria. Zakzaky has been jailed several times, often for anti-government rhetoric.

But many Shi’ite residents of Zaria said tensions had never been this bad, and that officials’ refusal to give a death toll or hand over dead bodies, as well as the destruction of the holy sites, was fuelling growing anger.

Adding a foreign dimension, the Islamic Movement in Nigeria has links to Shi’ite power Iran, which is locked in a struggle with Sunni kingdom Saudi Arabia for pre-eminence in the Middle East.

Zakzaky travelled after the revolution, later returning to found his sect, though the nature of the links are unclear.

Following the Zaria violence, Tehran denounced the killing of Shi’ites and urged Nigeria to protect the minority group.

What provoked the December violence is disputed.

The army said members of the Shi’ite movement had blocked the convoy of its chief of staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, as it travelled through Zaria on Dec. 12, and tried to assassinate him. It said a shootout and street battles ensued and that it was forced to call in reinforcements.

Army officers showed Reuters pictures of guns, machetes, petrol bombs and swords with which they said sect members had attacked soldiers.

“We only have problems with those violent extremists amongst them who should be brought to justice and who should be caged. There are many moderate Shi’ites. In the military there are Shi’ite officers and soldiers,” Army General Adeniyi Oyebade.

Buhari – himself a Sunni – has launched an investigation into the violence and its cause, and the destruction of the Shi’ite sites.

The president said civilian deaths could not be justified, but also accused the Shi’ites of creating “a state within a state”, though he and his government have largely declined to comment until the inquiry reports its findings, which is likely to take several weeks.

Activist and lawyer, Ebun Adegboruwa said the violence risked spawning a radical Shi’ite militant wing – much like the Boko Haram uprising began in 2009 after security forces killed hundreds of its members and its leader Mohammed Yusuf died in custody.

He called for an independent investigation into the clashes.

“The military is part of the government, I do not think that it is proper to ask the government to investigate his own army because in most cases the outcome of the report will be biased and in favour of the government. So we demand an independent judicial commission of inquiry,” Adegboruwa said.

It is unclear whether the bulldozers that entered Zaria were sent by the government or military.

Zaria residents say bulldozers demolished Zakzaky’s residence, a Shi’ite shrine, a prayer hall, a clinic, a cemetery and offices in the day and weeks that followed.

A Reuters reporter saw the ruins of several sites during a visit last week.

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