Spinsters Flee to Barracks in Minna




Post Express </publishers.html?passed_name=Post%20Express&passed_location=Lagos>
(Lagos)
November 15, 2000
Abubakar Muhammed
Lagos
Free and single girls in Minna, the Niger State capital, earlier given a week's
ultimatum by the state's Sharia Implementation Board to get married or quit the
state, have invaded military and police barracks for refuge as the board
commences a house-to-house search for them.
The Post Express gathered in Minna that following the development, some of the
girls have now resorted to squatting with unmarried soldiers and policemen in
barracks where the board's operations are restricted.
Some of the girls, it was gathered, have converted a block of vacant flats at
the 31 Artillery Brigade Barracks to their use.
Also in Bida, some of the girls now squat with unmarried soldiers in the
barracks while others throng beer parlours for men that need them. Those without
alternative arrangement have begun to flee the state en masse.
Though the state Governor, Alhaji Abdulkadir Kure, had earlier said single
ladies would not be embarrassed in the course of the board's assignment, the
police, on the instructions of the board, have embarked on the mass arrest of
the ladies.
A female corper recently arrested by the board told The Post Express that "I was
staying in front of our lodge when they came, saying that don't I know that
there is sharia here. Why should I move with a man in the night."
The corper who has since been released further stated that "I really went
through hell before they released me."
Contacted, the Board Chairman, Alhaji Awal Bida, said "we exempt spinsters who
are employed, students and corpers."
On the indiscriminate arrest, he said, "I am telling you that no body is
arresting indiscriminately, we must do our job the right way."


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