Sharia Is Acid Test For Nigeria's Young Democracy
April 4, 2000

Paul Ejime
PANA Correspondent

LAGOS, Nigeria (PANA) - When he launched with fanfare
the Islamic Sharia penal code last October in
Nigeria's northern state of Zamfara, it is unlikely
that governor Ahmed Sani ever anticipated the public
outrage and mayhem that have trailed the controversial
law in a country which is supposed to be guided by a
secular constitution.

An attempt by neighbouring Kaduna state to follow the
Zamfara example in introducing Sharia in February
unleashed a blood bath that left more than 400 people
dead and led to wanton destruction of property after
clashes between Christian opponents of Sharia and its
Moslem advocates.

There were reverberations in other parts of the land,
including the south-eastern state of Abia, where
reprisal attacks on ethnic Hausas reportedly left
several people dead.

Sharia-related clashes were to be reported in northern
states of Sokoto, Kano and lately Borno as the
national controversy lingers.

Not even a compromise decision by a Council of State
to suspend implementation of Sharia by a meeting
attended by Ahmed and his colleagues from the other 35
states and former Nigerian leaders, has halted the
tension.

To compound the situation, the Sharia issue has re-
opened the clamour by other ethnic groups, with the
Igbos of the south-east asking for a confederation,
while Yoruba leaders of the south-western insist on a
national sovereign conference to determine the basis
for the continued corporate existence of Nigeria.

Amid the controversy, some conspiracy theorists blame
the former colonial power, Britain for "contriving"
the state called Nigeria out of its more than 300
ethnic nations, while Lagos human rights lawyer Gani
Fawehinmi leads the school of thought, which holds
Nigeria's past military rulers responsible for the
"constitutional ambiguity" now fuelling the Sharia
debacle.

Fawehinmi argues that while Section 10 of the
operating 1999 constitution makes Nigeria a secular
state, by declaring that no religion should be made a
state or federal religion, the same constitution also
has provision for Sharia court of appeal.

For his part, Kaduna governor Ahmed Makarfi asserts
that the military, who wrote the constitution are to
blame for deliberately creating the "confusion,"
apparently with a view to benefiting from it by
staging a come-back in an anticipated chaos.

But as the controversy rages, Zamfara has gone ahead
with the implementation of the Sharia penal code under
which an 80-year-old has been reportedly caned
publicly for stealing.

The high-point was, however, marked 23 March when a
thief named Bello Jangedi had his right hand chopped
off for stealing a cow, in compliance with a decision
by a Zamfara Sharia court.

Nigeria's vibrant press has made a show of the
amputation, running unending series of articles with
illustrative photographs as well as editorials on the
bizarre incident which many, including President
Olusegun Obasanjo, have criticised as a violation of
human rights.

Yet Obasanjo, who has been accused by critics for not
showing "sufficient leadership" on the Sharia issue,
has insisted that the federal government cannot go to
court on behalf of any individual.

Although some like Lagos Catholic Archbishop Anthony
Okogie disagree with Obasanjo's position, it is
unlikely that any legal action against Sharia will
ever originate from the state, whose officials appear
content in hoping that the controversy would fizzle
out.

But as Nigerians await the outcome of a suit by a
human rights group against Zamfara for introducing
Sharia, the deaths and destruction coupled with
Jangedi's amputation, remain dark spots in the
country's chequered history.

Meanwhile, some 13 concerned eminent Nigerians,
representing different ethnic groups, have formed
themselves into a committee with the task of finding a
lasting solution "to the controversy now raging over
the issue of Sharia so that the unfortunate
disturbances arising therefrom may be avoided and
peace and tranquillity restored" in the country.

With observers warning against the futility of a
religious war and the fact that no nation is known to
have survived two civil wars, the committee of
Nigerian elders has appealed for time to tackle the
potentially dangerous divisive problem, with the
attendant violence compared to the country's bloody
civil war during the failed secessionist bid by the
Igbos in 1967-70 that claimed an estimated two million
lives.
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Copyright © 2000 Panafrican News Agency. All Rights
Reserved



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