[1] It was unveiled on January 6, 1977, by Mayor of the capital, Ibrahim Muhammad Ismail, on the occasion of the celebration of the fifty-sixth anniversary of the founding of the Iraqi army during the reign of Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr.

[3][1] Due to al-Mansur's poisoning of Ja'far al-Sadiq, the sixth of the 12 imams revered by the Twelver Shi'ism, and some inherited accounts that remember al-Mansur as a tyrant who brutalized the Shi'a sect, many Shi'a extremists have called for the removal and demolition of the statue, inspired by the American and British activists who destroyed statues of Confederate soldiers and slave traders in the eighteenth century.

Tired of the sectarian divisions, youth groups from the Shi'a holy city of Najaf defended the statue as "a symbol of Iraqi heritage".

[4] Shi'a extremist groups and members believed to be backed by Iran have also used Twitter in order to spread the campaign using trends which caused the statue to be heavily guarded by Law enforcement forces.

[5][6][7] On June 12, 2021, Iraqi security forces prevented an attempt to destroy the statue by a group of people armed with axes and hammers.