Nigeria Returns To Status Quo On Sharia Nigeria Returns To Status Quo On Sharia February 29, 2000 Paul Ejime PANA Correspondent LAGOS, Nigeria (PANA) All Nigeria's 36 federated states have been ordered to revert to the penal code in existence before October's adoption of the controversial Islamic Sharia law in the northern state of Zamfara. "...As far as Sharia is concerned, the nation will return to the status quo ante," Vice President Atiku Abubakar told reporters in Abuja Tuesday after an emergency meeting of the Council of State. The meeting, which groups all the state governors, service chiefs as well as the federal attorney-general and former Nigerian leaders, was called to discuss the violence that ravaged the northern Kaduna State last week which planned to introduce Sharia. Following the footsteps of Zamfara, several other northern states had declared their intention to introduce Sharia. But the plan by Kaduna state provoked bloody clashes between Christians and Muslims, resulting in the death of hundreds of people and substantial damage to property. Hundreds of people have also fled the area. There have also been off-shoots of the Kaduna violence in the south-eastern part of Nigeria, with reprisal attacks reported in Aba, where more than 20 people were reported killed, while tension mounted in neighbouring cities of Owerri and Onitsha. Abubakar said the Council of State's decision to halt the controversial system was "to restore normalcy...and confidence among all communities." He explained that the penal code in existence would continue to apply without the "latest additions introduced by some state governments." Abubakar noted that the penal code allowed for the practice of Sharia law and that such provisions would still be applicable in the affected Muslim-dominated region. He said Sharia was not new because the penal code which has been in operation in the northern region since Nigeria's independence from Britain in October 1960 "is substantially the Sharia law." The vice-president expressed the federal government's dismay at the carnage in Kaduna and warned that those found to be responsible for causing the mayhem would face the law. President Olusegun Obasanjo was expected Tuesday night to address the nation and elaborate further on the Council of State's decision, which is expected to douse the charged sectarian temperature in the multi-ethnic populous nation, which is secular by constitution. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 2000 Panafrican News Agency. All Rights Reserved.