Sheikh Ibrahim Yaqoub El Zakzaky is an outspoken Shi'a Muslim cleric in Nigeria, and head of Nigeria's Islamic Movement (IMN).

Ibrahim Zakzaky was born on 5 May 1953 (15 Sha’ban 1372 AH), in Zaria, Kaduna State. He attended the Provincial Arabic School, Zaria (1969-1970), the School for Arabic Studies, Kano from 1971-1976, where he obtained the ‘Grade II’ Certificate, and the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria (1976-1979), where he earned a first-class bachelor's degree in Economics. The degree was denied to him by the university authorities due to his Islamic activities. During his university days, he was active in student Islamic unionism, where he became the secretary-general of the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN) at the Main Campus of the university (1977/78), and later became Vice President (International Affairs) of the National Body of the MSSN in 1979.

Zakzaky founded the Islamic Movement in the late 1970s, when he was a student at Ahmadu Bello University, and began propagating Shia Islam around 1979, at the time of the Iranian revolution—which saw Iran’s monarchy overthrown and replaced with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Khomeini. Zakzaky believed that the establishment of a republic along similar religious lines in Nigeria would be feasible.

As a result of his activities, millions have converted to Shia Islam in a country once with hardly any Shia population.

Ibrahim Zakzaky is the primary figure and spiritual leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (formerly: Muslim Brothers), Africa’s most prominent Shi'a Muslim movement. Of Nigeria’s 180 million population, around 50 percent are Muslim, a small minority of which belong to Shi'a Islam.

Shiite Muslims are generally well-integrated in Nigeria and do not suffer direct discrimination or persecution, according to Bat-el Ohayon, founder of sub-Sahara African consultancy Afrique Consulting Group. Zakzaky’s followers, however, have a strained relationship with the Nigerian security apparatus, says Ohayon.

He is married to Zeenah (Zainab), with whom he had nine children. Currently, only three of his children (one son and two daughters) are living.

On Friday 25 July 2014, the Nigerian Army reportedly fatally shot 35 followers of Ibrahim Zakzaky, including three of his sons, after a pro-Palestinian procession in Zaria. The UK Islamic Human Rights Commission published the report Zaria Massacres and the Role of the Military in October 2014.

He has been detained several times due to accusations of civil disobedience or recalcitrance under military regimes in Nigeria during the 1980s and 1990s, and is still viewed with suspicion or as a threat by Nigerian authorities. In December 2015, the Nigerian Army raided his residence in Zaria, seriously injured him, and killed hundreds of his followers; since then, he has remained under state detention in the nation's capital pending his release, which was ordered in late 2016.

SOURCE:

1. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Zakzaky#Zaria_Quds_day_massacre

2. http://www.newsweek.com/who-sheikh-zakzaky-nigerias-most-powerful-shiite-muslim-405297