Sharia Is Acid Test For Nigeria's Young Democracy 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. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 2000 Panafrican News Agency. All Rights Reserved.