Islam

On March 9, the governor of Kano state removed Sanusi Lamido Sanusi from his position as Emir of Kano, which is usually regarded as the second or third most important Muslim traditional ruler in Nigeria. Briefly under what amounted to internal exile in a neighboring state, Sanusi sued in the federal courts for his freedom. He won, and the Federal government did not intervene to block the judgement. He has now moved to join his family in Lagos. There is speculation, especially among some Nigerian expats, that he is looking to launch a political career, perhaps even contesting for the presidency in 2023. Sanusi is a rather unique figure in Nigeria. Prior to his enthronement as Emir of Kano, he was the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under the presidency of Umaru Yar'Adua and his successor, Goodluck Jonathan. In this position, Sanusi won the prestigious international award of “Central Banker of the Year.” As CBN governor, he publicly called attention to the disappearance of some $20 billion in oil revenue from the government’s coffers; Jonathan removed him as a result. At that time, especially among Nigerian expats and parts of the business community, there were hopes he would enter politics. But, as a member of the royal house of Kano, he instead sought successfully his election by the “kingmakers” to become the Emir of Kano after the death of his uncle, the previous emir. His election was supported and approved by the then-governor of Kano, Rabiu Kwankwaso, a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) generally regarded as a reformer.  In 2015, Abdullahi Ganduje, a politician from the rival party, President Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC), won the governorship. Sanusi was highly critical of the news governor’s alleged corruption. In the elections of 2019, Ganduje claimed that Sanusi was supporting his opponent for the governorship; traditional rulers are supposed to be above partisan politics. After Ganduje’s reelection, the emir’s criticism continued unabated. Ganduje secured the approval of the Kano state executive council to remove Sanusi and secured the election among the kingmakers of another member of the royal family to be Emir. There has been speculation that President Buhari had a hand in his removal, but such allegations are strongly denied by presidency spokesmen, who point out that relations with traditional rulers are the purview of governors, not the president. Sanusi is apparently not contesting the governor’s right to remove him as emir. Though there are precedents going back to British colonial times for a governor to remove a traditional ruler, it is not done lightly, not least because of concern for popular unrest in the aftermath. Yet, the media reports little popular reaction in Kano to Sanusi’s removal. Sanusi emphasized the injustices faced by the poor of Nigeria’s political economy, particularly those in the north, in terms that resonate positively with a Westernized audience. But, he was not known for his liberality in the unstructured alms-giving that characterizes traditional charity. At the time twelve northern states adopted Sharia, a popular cause among the northern poor, he did not support it. Should he wish to enter electoral politics, Sanusi’s way forward is not clear. He is popular among the captains of Nigeria’s modern economy, just as he is among international business people. He appears especially popular among Nigerian expats, both those living abroad and those returned home. Hence, Lagos would appear to be his natural political base. But, Lagos, including its political class, is dominated by the Yoruba. It is hard to see them making room for a northerner, especially a critic of the political economy from which they benefit. On the national level, Nigeria’s system of political alternation, or “power shift,” between Christians and Muslim and between north and south, plays against him. Even under the British, the northern, Muslim, political class feared domination by the much wealthier and more advance south. They have long feared exclusion from government and hence from the wealth that accrues to those that capture the state and can access oil revenue. Power shift, in response to those fears, was an important part of the 1998 to 1999 transition from military to civilian government. In principle, after eight years under President Buhari, a Muslim from the north, it will be the Christian south’s turn in 2023. Especially in Lagos, among Nigerian expats and in the internationally-oriented business community, it is increasingly said that Nigeria no longer needs power alternation to stay together. This was the argument used by supporters of the southern Christian Goodluck Jonathan when he ran in 2011, though it was ostensibly the north’s turn at the presidency. (The Muslim president, Umaru Yar’Adua, died in office. Jonathan, as vice president, was meant to finish Yar’Adua’s first term and then make way for a northern Muslim to run in 2011.) The aftermath of those elections, however, when it was clear that Jonathan had won not least by rigging, were marked by horrific bloodshed in the north; riots that started against Jonathan’s victory morphed into rival Christian-Muslim pogroms with a strong ethnic dimension. In 2015 the political classes nation-wide joined together to ensure the election of Buhari, thereby restoring power shift. In 2019, still the north’s turn, both major political parties fielded northern Muslim presidential candidates. Some of the leading contemporary Yoruba politicians are Bola Tinubu and his successor as governor, Babatunde Fashola. Both are Muslims and southerners. Could a southern ticket include two Muslims, with Sanusi as a vice-presidential candidate? That is a possibility. However, the way forward for Tinubu, Fashiola, or other Muslim presidential candidates is not clear. Since 1993, the south’s Christian majority has become much more politicized and uncompromising. That, along with growing radical Islamic movements in the north, narrows the scope of the possible in Nigerian politics. Buhari’s vice president, Yemi Osinbajo is a Christian Pentecostal preacher, also with a positive international reputation. What about an Osinbajo-Sanusi ticket? A dream for the business community. But Osinbajo denies political ambition and says he is merely “on loan” from his church to the government as vice president. In any event, 2023 is a long way away, and much could happen in the interim. 

The federal high court in Abuja has ordered the release from detention of Lamido Sanusi, the former emir of Kano deposed and exiled by the governor of Kano state. The decision follows a suit filed by Sanusi in federal court. The rule of law can be weak in Nigeria, especially when it comes to high-profile political prisoners, but it appears that Sanusi has been released from government custody, following a visit from Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai. Shortly after his dethronement by the governor of Kano state, Abdullahi Ganduje, Sanusi was moved under a heavy security escort to nearby Nasarawa state. According to Nigerian media reports, he has been held in detention in an apartment in the town Awe. It was not immediately clear under what grounds he was being held by state authorities.  Sanusi is the former governor of Nigeria’s central bank and has a highly favorable international reputation. During his tenure, he publicized fraud in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation involving some $20 billion in missing government revenue during the administration of Goodluck Jonathan. In response, Jonathan removed him from his position at the central bank, a step that may have been illegal.  Sanusi is a member of the royal family of Kano that provides the emir. When his uncle, Ado Bayero I, died in 2014, he was elected emir by the “kingmakers” and approved by the then-governor. (Sanusi’s successor is Ado Bayero II, the son of Ado Bayero I.) He then fell out with the current governor, Ganduje, who is often accused of corruption. In social media and elsewhere, there is speculation that the governor deposed Sanusi because of his criticism. In his official reasoning for the dethronement, the governor accused Sanusi of “insubordination,” among other things.  Apparently the judge has not questioned the right of the governor to depose Sanusi, and there is ample precedent for governors removing traditional rulers going back to British colonial times. The judge’s ruling addresses instead the detention of Sanusi under what amounts to house arrest in a different state by a governor. In the Nigerian media, there are hints that the removal of Sanusi is causing unease within the political class as well as on the street. Thus far, it is unclear whether President Muhammadu Buhari has played any role. 

On March 9, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano state, through a unanimous vote of the Kano state executive council, dethroned Emir of Kano Lamido Sanusi. Soon after the vote, Sanusi was removed from his palace and escorted under tight security to nearby Nassarawa state. Shortly after Sanusi’s dethronement, the state government announced Aminu Ado Bayero, the son of the previous emir who died in office in 2014, as the new emir. Sanusi, in a video message after his dethronement, called on people to be calm and support the new emir. Ganduje is in many ways a conventional Nigerian politician. A septuagenarian, he has moved back and forth among the two leading parties and has held multiple offices. As with many or most of Nigeria’s politicians, he is suspected of corruption. He has been feuding with Sanusi, whom he accuses of supporting his political opponents. In 2019, Ganduje moved to reduce the size of the emir’s domains by reducing its size and appointing additional emirs at the same level as the Emir of Kano. Now, the governor claims that Sanusi is guilty of insubordination and his removal is necessary to preserve the prestige of the office. Many Nigerians, however, feel that the governor moved out of resentment over Sanusi’s charges of corruption. Before being turbaned, Sanusi was a governor of the central bank and had a highly favorable international reputation. He has also been a whistleblower with respect to state corruption, embarrassing the government of President Goodluck Jonathan with a $20 billion fraud allegation. The Nigerian sate was created by the British during the colonial era and by the post-independence military. While ostensibly a democracy, state authority tends to be top-down, rather than bottom-up. For example, the military wrote the constitution, it has never been subject to popular ratification, and elections are manipulated by the rival cartels that have largely captured the state. This formal state is declining, buffeted by Boko Haram in the north, a low-level insurgency in the oil patch, and quarrels over land and water use that fall along ethnic and religious lines in the country’s middle belt. In addition, there is a nationwide crime wave. The state is disproportionately dependent on revenue from oil, whose declining price is putting stress on the budget and the complex network by which oil-based wealth is divided among the ruling elites. As the authority of the federal government has declined, that of the governors has increased.  However, federal and state governments have little relevance for many Nigerians, especially those living in the predominately Islamic north. Here, Nigerians turn to traditional rulers for justice and resolution of disputes. These traditional rulers have little formal, legal recognition by the Nigerian state, and they in theory are subject to the authority of governors, who can remove them from office. This has happened only rarely, most notably when the military ruler Sani Abacha removed an earlier emir of Kano. Nevertheless, at least up to now, the popular prestige of the Sultan of Sokoto, the Shehu of Borno, and the Emir of Kano appears to have been much greater than that of governors.  For the time being, Sanusi has accepted his removal as “the will of God.” It remains to be seen what the consequences will be of the governor’s action. If he “gets away with it,” and there is no widespread popular reaction, it will be a sign that governors are, indeed, in many ways now the predominate power-brokers in Nigerian governance, even to the point of displacing traditional rulers that enjoy popular support. However, it may take some time before the consequences of Sanusi’s removal become clear. Abacha’s removal of the Sultan of Sokoto, the premier Islamic traditional ruler, destabilized traditional authorities in the north in ways that were hard to see at the time but with hindsight contributed to the erosion of the authority of the military regime. This post has been updated to reflect that Sani Abacha removed the Sultan of Sokoto, not the Emir of Kano. 

On December 12, the Sultan of Sokoto publicly said that disobedience to court orders is “a recipe for lawlessness and chaos.” He said, “We must regularly obey and respect the laws of our land. We should never disregard the laws to avoid the consequences. If a court makes a judicial pronouncement on a particular matter, it should be obeyed to the letter.” Though he never mentioned Sowore by name, the Sultan’s audience understood that the context was the State Security Service (SSS) invasion of a court room and the re-arrest of Omoyele Sowore contrary to court order. He was speaking at a quarterly meeting of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council in Abuja. Apparently under the sultan’s leadership, the Islamic establishment appears to be moving to oppose the SSS assault on the judiciary. The Sultan of Sokoto is regarded as the premier Islamic traditional ruler in Nigeria. In terms of formal protocol, he is usually listed first. He is the president-general of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, the paramount Islamic umbrella organization in Nigeria. Muslims in the north often accord him greater respect than secular leaders, including the president. Indeed, he and President Buhari are both supported by the northern man-in-the-street. Were the Sultan and the president seriously to diverge—and they are far from doing so, at present—it is difficult to know who would have the greater support. However, during military rule, military chiefs of state removed one Sultan of Sokoto and replaced him with another, though from within the same family. Before his enthronement, this Sultan, Alhaji Muhammad Sa'ad Abubakar III, was a career military officer. He served as Nigeria’s defense attache in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Unlike many in public life, he shows a strong sense of Nigerian national identity and promotes national unity. He is known for his good relations with Christian leaders and for promoting Muslim-Christian dialogue.  The Sowore re-arrest is consolidating opposition to the president by civil society, the press, international opinion and now religious leaders. It is to be hoped that the Buhari administration is looking actively for a way to defuse the Sowore issue, perhaps by allowing him to return to the United States.

Jack McCaslin is a research associate for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. On September 10, members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), a Shia religious and political movement, marched in different cities across the north of Nigeria to mark the beginning of Ashura, a major Muslim holiday. In doing so, they defied the government, which, in July, had banned the group. The IMN later claimed that fifteen of their members had been killed after police opened fire on the various IMN processions. The police denied the claim. Complicating the episode is the fact that not all Shiites consider themselves members of the IMN, even if they may follow or support Zakzaky. Their participation in the Ashura march could stem just as much from their religious faith as their "membership" in the IMN. The decision to label the IMN as a terrorist organization came after deadly clashes between security services and alleged IMN members in July, who were protesting the continued imprisonment of their leader, Sheikh Ibrahim el-Zakzaky. The government has since accused Zakzaky of planning a takeover of Nigeria along the lines of the 1979 Iranian revolution. It is true that he has clear ties to Iran, is said to be inspired by the Iranian Revolution, uses the term “Great Satan” to refer to the United States, and  preaches against the government. But it is not clear that he has openly called for violence, and links to violence are tenuous. To the extent that deadly force used against the IMN is unprovoked, they are largely peaceful.  Zakzaky has been in government custody since 2015 without trial. He is being held in relation to a series of confrontations between his followers and the military, in which an estimated three hundred IMN members were killed around Zaria, Kaduna in 2015. Zakzaky’s home was subsequently raided, members of his family killed, and he and his wife taken into custody. He is in poor health, partly the result of injuries allegedly sustained during his arrest. In August, he was allowed to travel to India to receive medical treatment. However, he was unhappy with his treatment there, alleging U.S. involvement, and returned to Nigeria without receiving treatment.   Such a clash as the one this month, between IMN members participating in religious processions—albeit that sometimes double as protests against Zakzaky’s imprisonment—and security services, may sound familiar. One year ago, IMN members clashed with security services during the Arbaeen Symbolic Trek, an event related to Ashura. At least forty people were likely killed as a result, making it one of the deadliest incidents since Zaria in 2015.  It is not clear what strategy the Abuja government is following with respect to the IMN, but Zakzaky’s issues with the Nigerian government are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. The point is, however, that a religious procession or peaceful protest over the detention of Zakzaky should not end in bloodshed. The police are in desperate need of reform. Their handling—and that of the larger security service apparatus—of ostensibly peaceful movements is highly problematic, and could easily serve to inflame, rather than deescalate tensions.

On August 13, Ibrahim el-Zakzaky arrived in India to receive medical treatment. Three days later, he returned to Nigeria having refused medical treatment. Upon his return, he was placed under arrest. He found his treatment in New Delhi to be unsatisfactory and objected to the tight security arrangements that had been put in place. He and some of his followers are claiming that the United States was behind his perceived poor treatment in India. Sheikh Ibrahim el-Zakzaky is a charismatic Shia preacher and founder of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN). He has been in government custody since 2015, though he has yet to face a trial. He is accused of inciting an attack on a military convoy; the incident led to the death of over three hundred IMN members, and to his and his wife’s arrest. Periodic IMN protests over his detention have sometimes led to deadly clashes with security services.  Not only is there no credible evidence of any American involvement in Zakzaky’s travel to India for medical treatment and his subsequent return, it is hard to think of anything less probable. The United States has no interests at stake in the nature of Zakzaky’s treatment. However, the notion that the United States has somehow manipulated the situation so that Zakzaky has not received the medical treatment he needs and deserves has become an urban legend in some Nigerian circles. Where the story of American involvement came from is not known. However, Iran is a credible hypothesis. Iran has long supported Zakzaky, and has provided him with funds. Given the poor bilateral relationship between Iran and the Trump administration, it is easy to imagine that some Iranian elements looked to exploit Zakzaky’s medical treatment (or the lack thereof) to score points against the United States.  Why have some elements in Nigeria bought in to the story of alleged American interference? Conspiracy theories about almost everything are common in Nigeria. So, too, is the sense that the United States is so powerful that it could certainly manipulate Zakzaky’s medical treatment in a third country with which Washington has good relations. Some Nigerians also have an exaggerated view of the importance of Nigerian developments in American official circles. Apparently, Zakzaky himself believes there was American involvement. This is not particularly surprising. He is hostile to the West, to secularism, and, at times to any Washington administration. He also knows that the bilateral relationship between the Trump and Buhari administrations is good. Hence alleged American involvement in his New Delhi adventures is convenient.

The importance of religion to Africans is well known among those who study and follow the continent. Of particular interest has been the explosive and relatively recent growth of Christianity there. For example, the conventional wisdom is that in 1900, Christians in what is now Nigeria were perhaps 2 percent of the population. Now, they are said to comprise roughly half of a population of over 200 million. (Nobody really knows how large Nigeria’s population is or what proportion of it is Christian, but this conventional wisdom is widely accepted by Nigerians themselves.) Explanations for Christianity’s success have included its association with the colonial masters and the modern world. Others, perhaps derisively, have observed that Christianity in Africa is “a mile wide but an inch deep,” and that it has been compromised by the incorporation of heterodox elements from African religions. Dr. Lamin Sanneh, the celebrated scholar of Christianity and Islam who died on January 6, compared such explanations to a “caricature." Recent obituaries published in both the New York Times and the Washington Post celebrated his enormous scholarly contributions to religion in Africa. He emphasized the role of African missionaries as well as European ones in the spread of Christianity throughout the continent. For example, Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a missionary from Sierra Leone, not Europe, introduced the Anglican Church into Nigeria. Sanneh saw the success of Christianity in Africa as owing much to its “translatability.” Whereas Islam is associated with Arabic and Judaism with Hebrew, Christianity is associated with no particular language (at least since the Reformation). This enabled the translation of the Bible into African languages early on, which, according to Sanneh, rather than “compromising” Christianity, affirmed the dignity of local cultures. For Sanneh, the African experience did much to change Christianity from primarily a European to a global religious sensibility.  Sanneh, born a Muslim who converted to Christianity as an adolescent, was also a scholar of Islam. His most recent book, Beyond Jihad: The Pacifist Tradition in West African Islam (2016) argued that the spread of Islam in West Africa was a consequence of its emphasis on peace, not on military conquest. Upon the release of the book and in the context of the global war on terror, he warned, “the only thing worse than being the target of religious extremism and violence is the forsaking of the very values and ideals that violent extremists find so abhorrent. The enemy doesn’t deserve that outcome because the West is worth of more noble ends.” Sanneh was born in the Gambia, his family was descended from Islamic royalty. Educated at British and American universities, he became a distinguished academic, teaching at Yale for more than thirty years and as editor at large for the Christian Century. He was appointed by two popes to Vatican committees.  

Jack McCaslin is a research associate for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. Between October 27 and 30, protesters from the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), a Shiite religious organization led by the pro-Iranian Sheikh Ibrahim el-Zakzaky, clashed with security services in and around Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. The IMN reported that Nigerian security services had killed at least forty of its members during the marches. The military claimed that only six people were killed and that protesters were carrying petrol bombs and other dangerous weapons. It later arrested around four hundred members of the IMN. Today, as justification for its use of force against IMN protesters, the Nigerian army tweeted a clip of President Donald J. Trump explaining what he told the U.S. military in reference to the migrant caravan travelling north through Mexico to the U.S. border. "They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back," he said. "I told them, consider it a rifle." The tweet appears to have since been deleted. Group members were participating in the Arbaeen Symbolic Trek, an annual commemoration practiced by Shias to mark the fortieth day of the murder of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. The march featured prominently calls for the release of el-Zakzaky, who has been in government custody for almost three years. In December 2015, IMN members blocked the path of Army Chief of Staff Tukur Buratai’s convoy in Zaria, Kaduna state. The government accused el-Zakzaky of ordering the assassination of Buratai (though he was not formally charged until April 2018). Security services subsequently raided el-Zakzaky’s compound and injured and arrested him and his wife. During that December crackdown, security services reportedly killed over three hundred Shias across at least three locations in and around Zaria and quickly buried them in a mass grave. In December 2016, the Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the State Security Service to release el-Zakzaky, but it was apparently ignored. More recently in August 2018, the Kaduna State High Court cleared and released eighty IMN members also arrested in 2015 during the crackdown, but dozens of others still remain in custody. El-Zakzaky has vehemently opposed Nigeria’s federal government, the state of Israel, the United States, and secular government more broadly, and his rhetoric has been explicitly anti-Semitic and dehumanizing. In this way, some of his messages are similar to that of Boko Haram. But, el-Zakzaky does not promote violence, and in 2015 the IMN even supported Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential candidacy. The IMN, through el-Zakzaky, is also undeniably linked to Iran; he visited there in 1980 and was said to be inspired by the Islamic Revolution, and he has made frequent reference to it and its leaders. It is unclear how significant those links are for IMN operations.  That religious and political movements in Nigeria criticize or purport to offer an alternative to the massively corrupt federal and state governments should not be surprising. But, the government’s frequent and indiscriminant use of force reduces or eliminates the possible peaceful paths that these groups might take in their criticism. The Zaria episode is reminiscent of the 2009 confrontation in Maiduguri between security services and Boko Haram, during which the Mohammed Yusuf-led group staged an anti-government insurrection. The security services killed Yusuf, who was in their custody at the time, and several hundred of his followers. The movement then went underground, only to emerge two years later as one of the world’s deadliest terrorist organizations.  Afenifere, the influential Yoruba group, issued a stark warning following the violence in Abuja this week: “We must not forget how [the] extra-judicial killing of the founder of Boko Haram turned the group into a massive terror machine [that] we have been unable to contain and we are opening yet another front.” Afenifere’s warning is well-received. Should security service behavior radicalize the IMN, Abuja would face yet another insurgency for which it is ill-prepared. Despite their similarities, Boko Haram is in the Salafist tradition that generally loathes the Shia, and it is therefore highly unlikely that the two groups would join forces.

Sahara Reporters has acquired a video of a confrontation on Saturday, October 27, between the Nigerian military and a parade of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), a Shia political movement. The video clearly shows young men, presumably Shia, throwing stones at the Nigerian military, who then responded with live fire. Traffic was stopped as apparent civilians fled for cover and some continued to throw stones at troops. Much about the incident remains unclear; a recent report put those killed at more than ten, though previous reports have suggested three or five. According to Sahara Reporters, on October 27 the Shia were marching from Suleja to Abuja in preparation for a religious event called Arbaeen Symbolic Trek. The marchers apparently took a route that had not been approved by the security services. When the soldiers and police intervened, marchers responded by throwing rocks. The army and police responded with live ammunition.  In a press release, the military claimed, among other things, that troops “escorting ammunitions and missiles from Abuja to Army Central Ammunition Depot in Kaduna State were attacked by some members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria.” The military spokesman, Major General James Myam, also alleged that members of the IMN procession “attempted to overrun the escorts to cart away the ammunition and missiles the troops were escorting,” and that the marchers “established an illegal roadblock denying motorists free passage.” A spokesman for the IMN rejected the military’s description of events, claiming instead that the IMN protesters were peaceful and were attacked. The IMN’s three-day march began on October 28 in Abuja and included a call for the freeing of Shia leader Ibrahim el-Zakzaky, who has been under house arrest since 2015. Members of the IMN, marching in connection with the religious event, support of el-Zakzaky's release, or both, were reportedly fired on by the army on Monday, and clashes continued on Tuesday. Reports place the number of marchers and protesters in the hundreds, despite IMN claims that one million would attend. Overall, the IMN claims some three million followers in Nigeria, though the country's predominately Sunni Islamic establishment says that the real figure is much less. In 2015, there was a bloody confrontation between an IMN march and the convoy of Tukur Buratai, the army chief of staff. In that confrontation, the army killed several hundred Shia IMN marchers. The military states that the IMN had tried to assassinate Buratai in the alleged attack on the convoy. El-Zakzaky has been under house arrest ever since. Objective observers have not found the official explanation credible. The 2015 event is reminiscent of the 2009 confrontation between the security services and the followers of Boko Haram, then led by Mohammed Yusuf. A difference is that thus far, the IMN has eschewed violence.  The video of the October 27 confrontation, as well as the subsequent reports of action by the security services, is chilling because it clearly shows how poorly trained the security service personnel were, and how willing they were to resort to the use of live ammunition in the midst of marchers and otherwise innocent bystanders. The military explanation, should it be firmly disproven, would become yet another intentionally false claim made by the military to cover up their treatment of civilians.

Largely overlooked by the Western media, there is an escalating conflict between Nigeria’s Shia minority, some of whom are organized into the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), and Nigeria’s secular government. The current focus is eight charges of murder brought by Kaduna state against IMN leader Ibrahim el-Zakzaky, whom the government has detained for two years without charge. Complicating the issue is the Iranian government, which has periodically protested el-Zakzaky’s confinement. Beginning in April, there have been daily protests in Abuja and cities in the north against el-Zakzaky’s continued detention. According to the Nigerian media, some of these demonstrations have turned violent and the capital has occasionally been “shut down.” The demonstrations may have provoked the Kaduna state authorities to formally charge el-Zakzaky with murder; if convicted, he could face the death penalty. Federal, not state, authorities, are holding el-Zakzaky in custody, and federal spokesmen have said that he cannot be released until the Kaduna state judicial process is completed. The murder charges stem from an incident in Zaria in December 2015. Federal and military spokesmen say that a Shiite mob led by el-Zakzaky attempted to assassinate Nigeria's chief of army staff Tukur Buratai when they blocked his convoy. Buratai was not killed, but the formal charges against el-Zakzaky accuse him and his followers of killing at least one soldier by name. In the aftermath, the army attacked IMN facilities, killing hundreds of people, including members of el-Zakzaky’s family. El-Zakzaky and his wife were seriously wounded in the attack and subsequently arrested. IMN vociferously denies that there was any assassination attempt, and charges the army with attempting to disrupt a Shia religious event. The Zaria episode is in some ways similar to the 2009 clash between the army and followers of Mohammed Yusuf in Maiduguri, which led to Yusuf’s death and to the emergence of Boko Haram in its present form. But unlike Mohammed Yusuf, el-Zakzaky has not been murdered by the police. Indeed, the Abuja government claims that he and his wife have received excellent medical attention. Further, Mohammed Yusuf advocated violence against the secular state, while el-Zakzaky has not. Advocacy of violence aside, there are striking ideological similarities between IMN and Boko Haram, at least for outside observers. Both see the secular state as evil, both want an Islamic state based on Islamic law, and both want the end to Western influence, including in education. Both also seek the end of northern Nigeria’s traditional political and religious elite. For IMN, the model appears to be the aspirations of the post-revolutionary Iranian Islamic state. Boko Haram’s vision appears more nebulous and less developed, but both try to function as a state-within-state. Despite their similarities, the two groups are anathema to each other. IMN is opposed to Boko Haram’s use of violence and el-Zakzaky has claimed, implausibly, that it is a creation of the “oil-hungry west.” Boko Haram is hostile to any Muslim group that does not share its theology or submit to its authority. As with other Sunni radical movements in the Middle East, Boko Haram is especially hostile to Shias. In the majority-Sunni north of Nigeria, the group likely has more support than do Shias, and the traditional Islamic establishment, which is Sunni, is viscerally hostile to Shias. It is therefore highly unlikely that its members have ever provided any support for the Shia and IMN. The extent of Iranian financial and other support for the Nigerian Shia in general and IMN in particular, however, is unknown. Nobody really knows the size of the Shiite population in Nigeria. International Crisis Group cites an estimate that it makes up between 2 and 3 percent of Nigeria’s population, which would amount to roughly four million Nigerian Shiites. El-Zakzaky has claimed to have followers ranging from a few hundred thousand to three million; it is worth noting that it is by no means true that all Shias are associated with IMN. Whatever IMN’s numbers, it has demonstrated the ability to shut down Abuja, if only for a few days at a time. Were el-Zakzaky to be tried, convicted, and executed—the worst-case scenario—Abuja could very well face the “black swan” of an insurrection.   

Despite this controversial tweet to the contrary, the unemployment rate is Nigeria is not actually that high on average. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the unemployment rate is 5.5 percent (the official unemployment rate for the last quarter is 19 percent). For comparison, Ethiopia’s was 5.4 percent, South Africa’s was 27.3 percent, and the U.S. unemployment rate stands at 4.9 percent. In his book Poor Numbers (2013), Morten Jerven has taught us to be skeptical about African statistics, with the exception of those from South Africa. Nevertheless, the World Bank figures are probably the best to be had, and they try to take into account the informal economy. The reality appears to be that Nigeria has an unemployment rate similar to that of other African states, while South Africa is the outlier.  However, despite a relatively low unemployment rate, most Nigerians are very poor—more than half of the population lives on two U.S. dollars per day or less. Unemployment is certainly an important driver of poverty in South Africa, but poor and unemployed South Africans benefit from a government safety net, and still have a higher standard of living than many employed Nigerians. Within countries, there can be big regional differences in unemployment. As anybody who has been to Lagos knows, the city is a hive of activity, with literally everybody working at something. The shear energy released in Lagos is striking to outsiders. George Packer’s brilliant 2006 New Yorker profile of Lagos comments on the huge range of services offered. Lagosians are never idle. Their civil culture appears to be unsympathetic to beggars, with the important exception of those with visible physical infirmities for whom spontaneous charity of biblical proportions is common. In general, however, the only able-bodied beggars to be found in Lagos, with an estimated population of up to 22 million, are from other parts of Nigeria or West Africa.  Begging and unemployment are more common in the sharia states of the north. The giving of alms is seen as an important religious duty. Beggars are ubiquitous and have long been a part of the social and religious fabric of communities. Children enrolled in Islamic schools, known as madrassas, often split their day between begging and religious studies. The region is poor and generally getting poorer, the result of exploding population growth, climate change, and under-investment in almost everything. Those economic and social realities, coupled with local custom that is sympathetic to it (unlike in southern Nigeria), drive begging. Even before the Boko Haram insurrection, Bornu’s state capital, Maiduguri, was notorious all over West Africa as “the beggar maker.” The treatment of begging distinguishes sharia states from the rest of Nigeria. With respect to unemployment and begging, as with much else, regional differences in Nigeria are important.

After months of speculation, many signs indicate that Malaysia will hold its national elections in late April or early May. According to reports in the Malaysian press, the country’s election commission has booked most of the private helicopters in Malaysia for that time period, suggesting that it will be using them to monitor the election. Although Prime Minister Najib tun Razak does not legally have to call an election until late August, he may want to hold an election in April or May, since the vote would come before opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is released from jail. In the last national elections, held in 2013, the Anwar-led opposition coalition actually won the popular vote, but extreme gerrymandering gave Najib’s ruling coalition control of parliament, which it has enjoyed since Malaysia gained its independence. The election likely will be close, but, without Anwar, the opposition has turned to an unlikely figure of unity—former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has now turned against the ruling coalition, but during his own terms in office harshly repressed dissent and oversaw Anwar’s first jail term.  And, even with the 1MDB scandal still swirling around him and the ruling coalition, Najib has a strong chance to win the election. If he does so, it will be in part because he, and the ruling coalition, have aggressively courted conservative, even Islamist voters, in part by splitting the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), part of the opposition alliance in the last national elections in 2013, away from the opposition. But to woo these voters, which the ruling coalition needs as urban Malay, Chinese, and Indian voters favor the opposition, Najib and the party have increasingly framed Malaysia as a state that should be dominated by Muslim, ethnic Malays. In addition, the ruling coalition has, among other steps, allowed PAS and its supporters to push forward legislation that could undermine Malaysia’s civil laws. The shift in Malaysia, in which conservative, even Islamist groups are wielding greater power in politics, is mirrored in Indonesia as well. There, the Jokowi government has not wooed Islamist organizations, but it was slow to recognize their growing power, which grew over the past decade but now has fully bloomed. Indeed, Jokowi’s administration only began to push back after Islamist organizations helped swing the vital Jakarta governor’s election last year. In a new CFR expert brief, I examine why Islamist groups are growing more powerful in Malaysia and Indonesia, the potential impact of their rise on the countries’ political systems, and the implications for U.S.-Malaysia and U.S.-Indonesia relations.  The full expert brief can be read here.

The rise of Islamism in Malaysia and Indonesia could have severe consequences for the two states’ societies, political systems, and overall stability.