Nigerians Will Prefer Islamic Rule — IMN Leader, El-Zakzaky

Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, the head of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), has stated that if given the opportunity, most Nigerians will choose the Islamic system of administration over the neocolonial system of government.

The Islamic scholar, who is the leader of Shiites in Nigeria, accused the Nigerian Government of egregious violation of his fundamental right by not allowing him to go overseas for treatment despite his failing physical condition.

On Wednesday evening, he revealed this when replying to questions in a special live program with Iranian Press TV, which was broadcast in Kano.

It’s his first media interview after regaining his release on July 28, 2021.

Since December 2015, he had been imprisoned and arrested.

He said, “Even after the incarceration, we are still in another incarceration since they have refused to allow us to travel outside the country.”

Zakzaky explained that the Movement is seeking an Islamic government system to replace what he described as a neocolonial system, which he said is currently being practised in the country today.

“I believe that if there will be a plebiscite in this country and people will be asked ‘which system would you like?’ Is it the status quo, which is inherited from the British colonialists or the Islamic system?

“I’m sure that the majority will choose the Islamic system. It will be the government of the people after all.

“However, this depends on the people being given the choice similar to what happened in Iran with the referendum that followed the victory of the country’s Islamic Revolution in 1979.

“Nigerian authorities admit in private not in public, that they fear the Islamic Movement and the potential that it may help establish the Islamic system just as the Revolution in Iran.

“But all the IMN is after is democracy. What is a democracy? It is the government of the people,” he said.