The mild (electro)chemical oxidation of pyridin-2-ylthio-meso substituted Ni(ii) porphyrins affords C-N fused cationic and dicationic pyridinium-based derivatives. These porphyrins are fully characterized and the molecular structure of one of them was confirmed by X-ray crystallography. A mechanism for the intramolecular oxidative C-N coupling is proposed based on theoretical calculations and cyclic voltammetry analyses.