AFRICANEWS

Nigeria

Sharia: The Damocles sword hanging over Nigeria

Religion/politics

Nigeria is now a ticking time bomb after the architect of the country's craze to adopt Islamic law (Sharia) accused some of his northern counterparts of incorporating the Islamic code for political reasons.

Ahmed Sani, Governor of Zamfara State, had declared on September 4 that some of his northern counterparts are implementing Sharia for political reasons. If Sani's accusation is true, then the Islamic code has become Nigeria's Damocles sword. For the allegation not only represents a serious blow to the credibility of northern Islamic and political leaders, but also increases the possibility of the ascendancy of a greater number of radical Muslims keen to impose a more stringent brand of Sharia. That could provoke a violent backlash from the country's southern and central states that are inhabited by Christian and other non-Muslim majorities, hence threatening Nigeria's already fragile cohesion.

The unity of Nigeria is under siege following the loss of thousands of lives in bloody ethnic and religious clashes since October 1999 when Sani incorporated Sharia into Zamfara's legal code. So far, twelve northern states have adopted Sharia to address what they say is "rising crime, immorality, poverty and marginalisation" by the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, a southerner and Christian.

In the middle of last month in Lagos, Sani charged that some governors had adopted Sharia out of political expediency rather than religious conviction. He stated that his government in Zamfara had declared Sharia "purely on religious grounds" but others "implemented it because they were pushed by some people." Sani further claimed that some of his colleagues were also using the Sharia as a political gimmick to seek re-election in 2003. "The media should dig up these people and expose them," he urged.

A few days later, Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, Governor of Kaduna, another northern Sharia bastion, warned of politicians using Sharia as a means of furthering their own careers. He said politics "should be clearly separated from the application of the Islamic legal code." President Obasanjo had said the same thing in January this year when he pointed out that it was imperative to observe the separation of state and religion. "The path of separation of state and religion which was chosen for our country from the beginning is still enshrined in its supreme law, the 1999 Constitution," said Obasanjo. "Given the multiplicity of religions and sects in the country, the wisdom of this choice cannot be doubted."

But in a country where its 110 million people are polarized along religious, economic, ethnic, and geographical lines, few Nigerians separate issues, especially state and religion. During successive military juntas by northern military generals, southerners - Christians and non-Muslims alike - usually complained of oppression by their northern Muslim brethren. When Obasanjo came to power in 1999 with a large Muslim vote, southerners felt that it was now their time to rule Nigeria. Obasanjo had barely settled into office when calls to bring in Sharia started coming from the north, with the accusation that the new government was sidelining northerners in the military and civil service. The calls gained momentum in June 1999 after Obasanjo forcefully retired 50 senior military officers from the north.

The dismissals were seen as betrayal. In October 1999, Sani declared Sharia in Zamfara. Nigerian newspapers reported that some disgruntled northern politicians were behind the Sharia calls, and within eight months the Sharia bullet had claimed twelve northern states. Southerners interpreted the infusion of Sharia in the country's politics as a move to use religion to settle political scores. "The question is, why talk of Sharia at this time?" asked Chris Abashiya, leader of the umbrella Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). "Why didn't we talk when (former presidents) Sani Abacha and Ibrahim Babangida were there? They were all Muslims and would have supported them." Abashiya was firm that it is northern politicians who are behind Sharia and the subsequent ethnic and religious violence. Indeed, two former northern heads of state, Muhammud Buhari and Shehu Shangari loudly applauded Sharia, yet neither is known to be a devout Muslim.

The entrance of Sharia could only complicate matters for Obasanjo. In December last year, Muslim militants attacked and vandalised 18 Christian churches in the central town of Ilorin in Kwara State. Kwara lies along the boundary of the south and north, so the attack was seen as a significant pointer of what lay ahead. Despite pledges by Islamic authorities that Christians and other non-Muslims would be spared the full wrath of Sharia, the opposite was the case. Early this year in Kano State, an Islamic vigilante group known as Hizbah canned a Christian trader 80 times after he was found with a bottle of gin. Livinus Obi, 50, who had bought the gin to celebrate Christmas last year was caned him in full view of his 16 children and two wives. "They removed my clothes, held me face down and gave me eighty strokes," he said.

Obi, like most Christians, observed that it was literally impossible to safeguard religious minorities living in the north given the close daily contact between people in that region. However, Muslims fared no better. A few weeks after Obi's canning, a 17-year old girl who gave birth to a baby in December received 100 strokes of the cane at an Islamic Court in Zamfara State. Bariya Ibrahim Magazu had initially been sentenced to 180 lashes after being found guilty of premarital sex, but court officials reduced the sentence due to procedural errors. Similar punishment was meted in Katsina State on another teenage girl, Attine Tnako, 18, who had also been accused of engaging in premarital sex. Her boyfriend, Lawal Sada, received a similar sentence. In an earlier case in Zamfara, Bariya, 17, was sentenced to 180 strokes for having premarital sex and falsely accusing three men of being responsible for her pregnancy. What is curious is that even in the zeal to apply Sharia, none of the top Muslim government and military officers accused of economic and sexual offences have been punished.

The intensity with which Sharia is being applied has also assumed an ethnic dimension, with southerners saying that they are being punished solely because of their ethnicity. Nigerian authorities have admitted that such accusations are responsible for the violence that has killed over 2,000 people this year in three cities: Kaduna (north), Aba (south-western), and Jos (central). Obasanjo now stands accused of reacting belatedly to the Sharia crisis, hoping that it would resolve itself without intervention from the federal government. When violence broke out in Illorin last year, Obasanjo sent officials of the Committee on Inter-religious Harmony to deal with the issue. The Catholic Church in Nigeria has accused the Obasanjo administration of not taking a firm stand on Sharia. "It is our strong conviction that the present tragedy (religious violence) could have been avoided if government had heeded our warning as contained in our memo to it as early as October 1999," said Archbishop John Onaiyekan, the vice-president of the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria.

With the government seemingly scared of dealing with Sharia advocates, local people have threatened to take matters into their own hands. On September 14, CAN said that it would not allow the introduction of Sharia in Kwara State after the Kwara Muslim Forum (KMF) called for Islamic law. CAN officials in the state said such an eventuality would be "a recipe for destabilisation and disaffection" and vowed to prevent Sharia with "the last drop of its blood." Non-Muslim business people - especially those in the hotel industry - have pledged to deal with Islamic zealots keen to enforce a ban on alcohol as demanded by Sharia. In August, hotel and bar owners in Kano State vowed to fight back against a state-backed vigilante group, Hisbah, which has threatened to enforce a ban on the production, ownership, and sale of alcohol. "We will take to self-defence against further assault from the Hisbah," said George Ashiokhanele, spokesman for the hoteliers. That was after Hisbah members destroyed at least 1,000 cartons of beer in Kano, an attack that Ashiokhanele described as "an act of religious terrorism." But Hisbah leader Mohammed Ghali expressed his determination to destroy all alcohol in Kano since the state government seemed unable to enforce its own bans.

Obasanjo's inability to act is more related to the 2003 polls. He hasn't forgotten that he came to power with northern support. For his northern benefactors, a government ban on Sharia is a declaration of war whose result will be decided in two years' time. He is also not immune to a military coup, either. On the other hand, he must do something for the southerners who at election time might accuse him of abandoning them at the mercy of Islamic fundamentalists.

What galls most non-Muslims is the fact that Obasanjo has been unable to enforce a suspension of Sharia his government forged in March this year with the states where Sharia is being applied. During a meeting in Abuja, Nigeria's Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, himself a Muslim from the north west, said that the "suspension is to be done in the best interest of national security." Igbo leaders from the largely Christian southeast welcomed Abubakar's plea calling it a "very, very happy event because we believe it will bring the crisis created by the promulgation of Sharia laws to an end." Publicly that was the stance taken by Muslim leaders, but in private Nigerian papers reported them as saying, "the suspension of Sharia was already too late for a retreat."

True. Just as Zamfara's Sani was lashing out at his fellow Sharia proponents, the Governor of the neighbouring state of Niger, Abdulkhadir Kure, announced the creation of a commission to supervise the full implementation of Sharia in that state. Kure is a close friend of Niger's most famous son, ex-military ruler, Ibrahim Babaginda. In Nigeria, Babaginda is acknowledged as the country's most resourceful politician politically. Rumours are rife that he will oppose Obasanjo in 2003, and with his history of coup making there are no reasons why Babaginda won't sanction Sharia in the north to win votes there and also use Obasanjo's mundane handling of the issue, to bury his old friend in his native south.

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