Hamas sent a delegation to Nigeria in February, expanding the group’s diplomatic outreach to friendly African countries to increase international support. A senior Hamas delegation concluded a four-day visit with Nigerian officials and civil society members on February 15.[1] The delegation included the group’s spokesperson, foreign relations head, and former deputy foreign minister.[2] Hamas said the delegation updated stakeholders on the situation in Gaza, general political developments, and Hamas’s positions and praised Nigeria for its position on standing with Palestine and Hamas.[3] Iranian state media republished Hamas’s announcement.[4]
The Nigerian government has been pushing for de-escalation and a ceasefire since the October 7 attacks and the beginning of Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip.[5] The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Arab League also chose Nigeria as the sub-Saharan special delegate to the Arab-Islamic summit in November 2023 and the accompanying special delegation that met with United Nations Security Council (UNSC) officials to broker a ceasefire.[6] Nigeria’s stance reflects strong pro-Palestinian sentiment among Nigeria’s diverse religious population, which has led to large demonstrations.[7]
The Nigerian Iranian-backed Shi’a group Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) has been an outspoken advocate of Palestine and Hamas in Nigeria. Nigerian authorities report that the IMN has about 60,000 registered members, while the group claims there are five to 10 million members—more than the estimated four million Shi’ites in Nigeria—who are mostly concentrated in the north.[8] The group’s leader voiced support for Palestine and Hamas alongside Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei when visiting Tehran in October 2023.[9] IMN supporters organized mass pro-Palestinian protests in northern Nigeria shortly following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.[10] The group’s leader also said that Palestinians are fighting for the liberation of “every Muslim” and symbolize the way in which the oppressed of the world need to resist during a January interview with the Iranian regime’s English language outlet Press TV.[11]
Hamas officials have traveled to South Africa and Egypt to rally international support and advance ceasefire talks since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas War. A Hamas delegation traveled to South Africa for a commemoration of the birthday of former South African President Nelson Mandela, who was a vocal supporter of Palestine, in December 2023.[12] South Africa has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, has maintained ties with Hamas officials, and brought a genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice in January 2024.[13] Hamas has also sent officials to Egypt multiple times since October 2023 to participate in ongoing ceasefire and hostage discussions.[14]
The Hamas visit follows a long history of Iranian-backed engagement in Nigeria, where Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah have been active since at least 2010. Lebanese diaspora populations and decades of soft-power proselytizing efforts have grown Nigeria’s Shi’ite minority, and Lebanese Hezbollah (LH) exploits this population for its illicit activities.[15] LH’s Foreign Relations Department and Business Affairs Component had networks in Nigeria that the US Treasury sanctioned in 2015 for “scout[ing] recruits for Hezbollah’s military units, as well as . . . creat[ing] and support[ing] Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure for its operational units in Africa and globally.”[16] Nigerian officials caught suspected Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps–Quds Force (IRGC-QF) and LH operatives smuggling weapons into Nigeria in 2010 and 2013.[17] Iran also controls the Hausa-language Hausa TV radio and TV platform, which it has used to run information operations supporting its interests in Nigeria.[18]
Iran and LH also have direct ties to the IMN. The IMN’s leader, Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, founded the group in the early 1980s after being inspired by the Iranian revolution and studying in Iran.[19] The group rejects the Nigerian government’s authority in favor of an Iranian-style theocracy.[20] The government banned the group in 2019 for threatening the state.[21] The IMN has also orchestrated numerous mass protests, which has helped multiply its political influence and led to several military crackdowns on its followers.[22]
LH and the Iranian regime have provided financial, military, and political support to the IMN. The Middle East Institute reported in 2019 that LH was providing ideological and military training to IMN members in Lebanon.[23] This assistance has helped the IMN replicate some of LH’s media, recruitment, and social welfare models in Nigeria.[24] Zakzaky visited Lebanon in 2015 and did an interview with LH-owned and -operated al Manar TV during the trip.[25] A former US State Department official estimated in 2017 that the group received approximately $120,000 per year from Iran.[26] Zakzaky also has an office in Mashhad, Iran; has done numerous TV interviews with Iranian regime–affiliated outlets; and met with Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei in Tehran in mid-October 2023.[27]
Zakzaky has also espoused anti-American rhetoric in line with the Iranian regime’s framing. He accused the United States of compelling other countries to support Israel and allow US military bases in Africa during his January interview.[28] Zakzaky also echoed the Iranian regime’s praise of the recent coups and actions by the juntas in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger as anti-colonial uprisings against the West.[29] These statements continue a long-standing trend of Zakzaky parroting the Iranian regime’s framing of the US in regime-affiliated outlets.[30]
Iranian activity in Nigeria and across Africa aims to increase Iran’s economic and diplomatic clout as part of the regime’s revisionist “resistance” strategy to erode Western influence worldwide. Iran is advancing a global resistance strategy through which it seeks to secure partnerships that offset the West’s diplomatic and economic isolation of Iran. The Iranian regime sees resistance as a counterbalancing strategy against the geopolitical structure of international relations.[31] It views the United States as enforcing the geopolitical structure and posing an existential threat to the Islamic Republic.[32] Iran’s resistance politics have led most notably to its group of Middle East proxies called the Axis of Resistance, but the regime has emphasized that this approach is not limited to the Middle East and should be expanded to Africa to increase pressure on the United States and the West.[33]
Iran has sought to boost economic ties with African countries since Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi took office in 2021 as part of his “neighborhood policy.”[34] This policy aims to grow economic ties with non-Western partners to undermine Western sanctions and enable Iran to de-emphasize rapprochement with the West.[35] Nigeria has Africa’s largest economy, according to the latest World Bank statistics from 2022, and is already Iran’s third-largest trading partner in Africa.[36]
Iran also seeks to strengthen diplomatic ties with African countries to undermine Western efforts to politically isolate Iran and other revisionist states in institutions like the United Nations.[37] Nigeria is a leader on the continent and has long campaigned for a permanent African seat in the UNSC due to its size, economy, and participation in peacekeeping missions.[38] Numerous international leaders, including US President Joe Biden, have voiced their support for reforming the UNSC and adding permanent seats for Africa and other underrepresented regions.[39] Nigeria’s leading role among sub-Saharan countries pursuing a ceasefire since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war underscores its current diplomatic sway in international relations regardless of any future UNSC membership.
Iran has attempted to use its covert apparatus to attack US and Western personnel and interests in Nigeria and across Africa as a form of horizontal escalation multiple times over the past decade. Kenyan and Nigerian officials claimed to disrupt plots backed by the IRGC-QF and LH in 2013 that aimed to attack British, Israeli, Saudi, and US targets in both African countries as the US tightened sanctions on the Iranian regime.[40] One of the Nigerian cells had conducted surveillance on the United States Agency for International Development, the Peace Corps, and hotels frequented by Americans and Israelis in Lagos.[41]
Iran surged attack plots between 2019 and 2022. Anonymous Western intelligence officials told The Telegraph in June 2019 that former IRGC-QF Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani had organized attack cells in the Central African Republic, Chad, Gambia, Ghana, Niger, and Sudan to attack Western targets in response to new US sanctions.[42] US intelligence exposed a potential Iranian plot to assassinate the US ambassador to South Africa in 2020 in retaliation for the US assassination of Soleimani.[43] Security forces also thwarted IRGC-QF-backed plots against Israeli tourists and Jewish centers in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, and Tanzania in 2021 and US targets in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2022.[44] The repeated failure of Iranian-backed attacks increases the likelihood of adaptation and future success.[45]
