Piles of rubble are all that remain of the residence of Nigeria’s most prominent Shia 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 Shias were killed. The army declined to give a Shi’ite death toll but said one soldier was killed and five were wounded.
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.
The clashes were the deadliest in living memory involving security forces and the minority Shi’ite community, say some Shias and rights groups.
Diplomats said the violence risked spawning a radical Shia 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.
Boko Haram, which has pledged allegiance to Dae’sh, has killed thousands of people and driven more than 2m from their homes in Nigeria’s poor north.
After the Zaria clashes, the army detained a wounded Zakzaky. Sensing the explosive situation, the government flew him abroad for a few days for medical treatment to avoid creating a martyr like Yusuf, according to diplomats. He remains in custody.
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. Shias 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, 270km 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.
Human Rights Watch estimates there are around 3m members of the sect, a religious and political movement inspired by Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, which would represent most Shias in the West African country.
What provoked the December violence is disputed.
The army said members of the Shia movement had blocked the convoy of its chief of staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, as it travelled through Zaria on December 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 pictures of guns, machetes, petrol bombs and swords with which they said sect members had attacked soldiers.
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. Some Shias showed Reuters videos on their phones of the dead and wounded.
The sect says more than 1,000 Shias could have been killed - it says the army had taken more than 400 bodies to several morgues and that 750 other people were missing.
President Buhari - himself a Sunni - has launched an investigation into the violence and its cause, and the destruction of the Shi’ite sites. It is unclear whether the bulldozers that entered Zaria were sent by the government or military.
