Will Sunni-Shia tensions spread to Nigeria?

Today, in the northeast Nigerian city of Potiskum, a Boko Haram suicide bomber attacked a Shiite Muslim procession with reports putting the death toll between 15 and 20 according to reports:

The bombing took place at Faydia Islamic school, ran by the Shiite. It is located near the old market in Potiskum. The bomber struck when members of the Shiite were gathering to go on a procession to mark the Ashura day. Ashura day is the tenth day of the month of Muharram, the new month of the Islamic calendar. Shiite Muslims commemorate the day to mourn the death of Hasain Bn Ali, the grand son of Prophet Mohammed who was reportedly killed on that day. As the faithful were about embarking on the procession, the bomber got into their midst and detonated his bomb, witnesses say.

Although Nigeria’s Muslim population is largely Sunni, there exists a significant Shiite minority in the West African country – estimated between 4 and 10 million followers. The Shiite movement is especially strong in Northeast Nigeria, the same area Boko Haram has established itself and continues a violent insurgency against the Nigerian government. The manifestation of the Shiite movement in Nigeria is relatively recent, growing significant in the 1980’s, under the influence of Ibraheem Zakzaky, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood of Nigeria (Yan Brotherhood.) Zakzaky’s inspiration for a change in attitude toward a Shia ideology originated from the success of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Zakzaky and his group, the Islamic Movement, were soon on the payroll of Iran’s clerical regime – Iran has long sought to establish Shia footholds throughout Africa, especially in countries as resource rich and strategically significant as Nigeria.

This increasingly Shia orientation, and the involvement of Iran, led to a split within the Yan Brotherhood, with Boko Haram founder Muhammad Yusuf, breaking off to join a series of Salafist organizations, before eventually founding Boko Haram. Zakzaky’s multiple visits and courtship to the Iranian Islamic republic have secured his movement’s financial support, it has also goaded tensions with Sunni factions. While sectarian conflict between the Sunni and Shia supporters in Nigeria has been relatively rare. In the past some 120 members of IMN have been imprisoned for violence acts, most of it aimed at the Nigerian government. Researchers have alleged that Zakzaky’s followers have infiltrated the army, police and security service, and he is reported to have thousands of followers, many with some form of paramilitary training.  This latest bombing raises the specter that Nigeria could join the larger ongoing Sunni-Shia conflict currently underway in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, especially if Zakzaky’s people do decide to retaliate. But if so, Zakzaky’s followers are likely to prove formidable.