Ibraheem Yaqoub El-Zakzaky

Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky is a Nigerian Shi'a cleric and the founder and leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), the largest Shi'a organization in Africa. Born in Zaria in 1953 to a family of Qur'anic scholars, he memorized the Qur'an as a child and later studied economics at Ahmadu Bello University, where he became a leading figure in the Muslim Students' Society and helped organize nationwide demonstrations calling for the inclusion of Shari'a in Nigeria's constitution.

Inspired by the 1979 Iranian Revolution and Ayatollah Khomeini, Zakzaky converted to Shi'a Islam around that time and began propagating it in northern Nigeria, in a country with a historically small Shi'a population. Through the Islamic Movement, founded in the late 1970s, he built a large following, along with an extensive network of schools (the Fudiyyah schools, numbering in the hundreds) and the Hausa-language newspaper Al-Mizan. The movement's spiritual and administrative headquarters is the Husainiyyah Baqiyyatullah in Zaria.

Zakzaky was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned under successive Nigerian governments, from the Obasanjo military era through the Abacha regime, generally on charges of sedition. Tensions between the IMN and Nigerian security forces escalated over the following decades, including a 2014 Quds Day procession in Zaria where soldiers opened fire on marchers, killing dozens including three of Zakzaky's sons.

In December 2015, the Nigerian Army launched an assault on Zakzaky's residence and the Husainiyyah Baqiyyatullah in Zaria after his convoy allegedly obstructed a military procession. The operation, now known as the Zaria massacre, killed at least 348 people according to a Kaduna State judicial commission of inquiry, with bodies buried in mass graves; three more of Zakzaky's children were among the dead, and both he and his wife were seriously wounded and then detained. Human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch condemned the killings and called for accountability, while the Nigerian government maintained the IMN posed a security threat. Zakzaky was held for years, largely without trial, and his declining health amid the detention became an international human-rights concern; in 2019 the Nigerian government formally proscribed the IMN as an illegal and "terrorist" organization following a deadly Abuja protest demanding his release. A Kaduna State court eventually acquitted Zakzaky and his wife of all charges, and they were released on 28 July 2021.

Zakzaky remains a highly influential and polarizing figure: revered by followers across Nigeria and internationally as a scholar and champion of the Shi'a community, and viewed by the Nigerian state and some critics as leading a movement responsible for episodes of unrest. He continues to lead the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, which operates chapters and Hussainiyyahs in cities across the country including Kano, Sokoto, Kaduna, Abuja, and Lagos.