Nigerian Leaders Resist Iranian Revolutionary Ideology in Country’s North

Nigerian Leaders Resist Iranian Revolutionary Ideology in Country’s North

Executive Summary:

• The pro-Iran Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) recently renewed its activity, as members organized protests in northern states expressing solidarity with Iran amid the ongoing U.S. and Israeli military campaigns.
• Viewing the movement as a potential Iranian proxy, Nigerian leadership maintained heightened security during the protests and warned that importing external ideological conflicts would face strict legal consequences.
• Nigeria remains skeptical of Iranian groups and has shown no intention of expanding cooperation with Iran beyond basic diplomacy, despite Tehran offering—at least rhetorically—counterterrorism support.

Since the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, tens of thousands of Nigerian Muslims—most of whom were originally Sunni or had Sunni ancestors—joined Ibrahim al-Zakzaky’s pro-Iran and Khomeinist following. The group, which is now known as the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), frequently displays flags and other imagery of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khameini, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, and other late Shia or Iranian “resistance” figures (iranpress.com, January 3, 2023). The movement has been severely weakened and pressured in the past decade by major security forces’ crackdowns against it in 2015 and 2019, in which hundreds of its members were killed (punchng.com, September 11, 2019). The U.S. and Israeli conflict with  Iran, however, seems to have breathed new life into the organization.

One example of renewed IMN activities occurred on March 2, when the group’s members protested in Kano, Bauchi, and Yobe states in northern Nigeria (dailytrust.com, March 2). The main theme of the protests was “solidarity with Iran,” and protesters held placards with slogans such as “We Stand With Iran” and “Free Iran.” There was a heightened security presence across the country during the protests, as the Nigerian leadership views the IMN with extreme skepticism, including as a potential Iranian proxy that could become the “next Hezbollah” in Nigeria and as a heretical movement for abandoning Sunni Islam (france24.com, May 30, 2013; mei.edu, July 5, 2018).

Amid the tensions, the Nigerian police announced that “Nigeria will not serve as a theatre for foreign conflicts” and that “any attempt to import external ideological or religious tensions into the country will be met with the full weight of the law” (thenationonlineng.com, March 2). This reflects the changes in Nigeria’s posture over the past few decades. Previously—including when al-Zakzaky was a youth leader espousing an Iran-style Islamic Revolution in Nigeria’s north in the 1980s—Nigeria was a point of geopolitical contention between the United States and the Soviet Union. Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Iran, moreover, were also vying for influence in Nigeria by spreading their own models of Islam (CIA, May 1, 1985).

Nigeria is now keen to keep the influences of Iranian or other militant Islamist ideologies out of the country. This includes severely repressing the IMN’s Shia revivalism on one end and countering Boko Haram’s Salafi-jihadism on the other, even despite human rights organizations’ concerns about security forces’ overreach (Human Rights Watch, March 26, 2026). At the same time, Nigeria is showing a proclivity for its relationship with the West, including on security and terrorism matters. For example, Iran has offered to support Nigeria in its ongoing fight against terrorism, at least rhetorically (businessinsider.com, March 9). Yet, Nigeria’s leadership has indicated no intention to cooperate with Iran for anything beyond diplomacy or basic economic partnerships. The government, in contrast, plans to boost its multi-lateral political, diplomatic, economic, and military cooperation with the United States and the West as a whole (dw.com, March 25).