Iranian Agenda in Nigeria

Though the recent discovery of weapons in a private residence in Kano was quite shocking, it wasn’t absolutely surprising in view of Nigeria’s worsening vulnerability to security breach, which attracts some contending international intelligence agencies to settle scores on its soil away from their own territories. However whether the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah Shi'a militia maintains an active terror cell in Nigeria (as asserted by Nigerian authorities) or not, it’s quite obvious that, Iranian subversive activities in Nigeria are on the increase, after all just recently an Iranian national was convicted for arms smuggling into the country.

  

Besides, in its protracted though largely bogus showdown with its purported enemies i.e. Israel and the US-led western powers, Iran is hell bent on opening as many proxy intelligence war fronts as possible, to target their interests and exhaust them hence extract as many concessions as possible. By the way, notwithstanding the conviction of that Iranian arms smuggler and the recent discovery of those arms in Kano, Nigerian intelligence agencies aren't equipped and trained enough to counter the relatively sophisticated Iranian intelligence activities in Nigeria.

As a matter of fact, though Iranian intelligence capabilities can't match up to those of its purported western enemies particularly in terms of technological capabilities, it’s ironically much more effective than theirs. This is because it adopts a faith-based indoctrination process through which it indoctrinates many people all over the world, and indirectly mobilizes them to consciously or unconsciously serve and promote its strategic interests in disguise.

This process dates back to 1979 when late Khomeni returned to Iran from France, where he had been living and from where he had orchestrated his revolution. He and his co-priests were faced with a dilemma on how to go about establishing a state, because according to their Imamiyya Shiite religious doctrine, they can only attain statehood under the leadership of a character called Mahdi Almuntazhar, the so-called 12^th Imam, who they regard as a God-appointed saviour empowered to singlehandedly rule the world when he emerges. Incidentally, this character had, according their belief, gone into hiding in a basement more than one thousand years ago.

  

To address that dilemma, Khomeini invented a doctrinal political concept, which he called Wilayatul-faqeeh and which means the guardianship of a senior priest. Through it, he sought to, and indeed compromised the Shiite religious prohibition against establishing a state before the re-advent of the Mahdi, and in the meantime gave room for appointing a senior Shiite religious priest, who would exercise the Mahdi's powers pending his awaited re-advent.

Predictably also, he i.e. Khomeini assumed that position and became the Waliyyul Faqeeh, otherwise known as the Supreme Leader whose powers effectively override presidential powers. Accordingly, all Imamiyya Shiite religious adherents all over world were (and still are) under religious obligation to pay allegiance to him as the Waliyyul Faqeeh, and also to maintain the same loyalty to whoever happens be the Waliyyul Faqeeh at any given time after his death.

Consequently, Iran managed to literally hijack the loyalties of millions of Shiite religious adherents around the world, who basically give their loyalties to the Waliyyul Faqeeh in Iran, and are prepared to go to the extent of betraying their own countries in order to abide by the wills of the Waliyyul Faqeeh.

Unsurprisingly also, it exploits this situation to violate the national sovereignty of many countries e.g. Lebanon, where its Hezbollah militia agents effectively run a state within the state, Yemen, where its Al-houthy militia agents wage war against the state and Iraq, which has been virtually turned into a province in Iran following its invasion by Americans in 2003.

Hezbollah Leader, Hassan Nasarallah confirms the stand of the Imamiyya Shiite adherents with regards to 

loyalty to the Waliyyul-faqeeh.

However, in some countries like Nigeria, where the population of Shiite religious adherents isn’t big enough in the first place, Iran adopts a very gradual but consistent process aimed at converting people to Shi’a religion before mobilizing them to serve its agenda. They started this process in Nigeria about three decades ago through some very few converted Nigerians, who were particularly active in universities and other higher institutions' campuses. They initially capitalized on public frustration over the impacts of bad leadership in the country e.g. poverty in the land, to brainwash the naïve on the necessity of changing the whole system and replacing it with an "Islamic government," if justice and fairness were to prevail.

Their modus operandi also focuses on highlighting the plights of victimized Muslim communities wallowing under occupation or any form of injustice at the hands of particularly western powers and Israel, while also highlighting the indifference of many Muslim countries, referring to Iran in the meantime as the only country sincerely concerned with the plights of persecuted Muslim communities around the world.

Subsequently, those converted Nigerians, many of whom had already transformed into turbaned priests, began to lure their victims into Shiite religious ideology under the pretext of loving the Prophet’s progeny (Ahlul-baiti), and in no time those brainwashed  chaps imbibed Shiite religious doctrines, rituals and of course absolute loyalty to Waliyyul Faqeeh in faraway Iran.

Though they hardly confess their religious belief, such indoctrinated agents in disguise, many of whom are active particularly in academic and media circles, effectively constitute a lobby (of a sort) of Iranian apologists, hence isn’t surprising if they collaborate directly or indirectly with Iranian intelligence agents to facilitate the smuggling of arms into the country.

Nigerian authorities should therefore expand the scope of their investigations and go to any extent possible in order to unravel the intricate intrigue surrounding the noticeable increase in Iranian subversive intelligence activities in the country.