President Muhammadu Buhari may proscribe the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), PREMIUM TIMES reports.
The proscription, which is likely to come in form of an executive order, may be made public today, the paper learnt.
An emergency meeting of security chiefs held at the State House late Monday afternoon, and the conclusion was that the IMN will be declared an illegal organisation in Nigeria.
It is a direct response to the protests that turned violent Monday when members of Shiite IMN took over the streets of central Abuja, the Nigerian capital.
The demonstration was billed as just another installment of relentless agitation for the release of Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, a foremost Nigerian Shiite cleric who was taken into custody four years ago.
It, however, ended with casualties, including the death of a deputy police commissioner. The IMN said 11 of its members were killed during the violence.
Presidential spokespersons, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu, did not immediately return requests for comments about the president’s consideration of a Shiite proscription.
El-Zakzaky was arrested following an invasion of his residence in Zaria, northern Nigeria, between December 12 and 14, 2015.
The official death toll of the invasion, which was carried out by Nigerian soldiers in the dead of the night, was 347 for Shi’a adherents. The IMN said the official death toll was grossly downplayed and insisted more than 1,000 of its members were killed in that single attack.
The military said the protesters had attempted to block the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, from the free passage on a highway that runs through the Shi’a headquarters in Zaria in the evening of December 12, 2015, and soldiers had no choice but to open fire when the Shiites became unruly.
The IMN strongly disputed the military’s account, saying its members were peaceful during the encounter.
They also questioned why the Nigerian Army deployed heavily armed soldiers, bulldozers and excavators to demolish both the headquarters and Mr El-Zakzaky’s residence in an operation that lasted two days.
A panel of enquiry constituted by the Kaduna State Government indicted Nigerian Army officers for the massacre, and also recommended the prosecution of some IMN leaders for various offences.
Governor Nasir El-Rufai accepted the conclusions of the judicial panel, but partially implemented its recommendations by proscribing the Shiite movement in Kaduna State.
If gazetted, the IMN will be the second organisation to be proscribed by President Buhari since he came to power May 2015. The government had proscribed the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) in 2017.