IRIN Focus on growing concern over Sharia law

As more state governments adopt Sharia law in northern Nigeria, groups opposed to it are increasingly voicing concern that the imposition of the Islamic legal system threatens constitutional order. However, President Olusegun Obasanjo maintains that no urgent action is needed to stem what many see as imminent danger to the stability of multi-ethnic, multi-religious Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with more than 110 million people. "What we have now is what I call political Sharia. I am not afraid of it because I believe it will fizzle out," Obasanjo said last month. Despite condemning the introduction of Sharia as unconstitutional, Obasanjo has chosen not to act against it. In October last year, Zamfara - governed by Ahmed Sani of the opposition All Peoples' Party - became the first state in Nigeria to adopt Islamic law. Since then, eight others have followed. Zamfara and the other Sharia states insist that their interpretation of the 1999 Constitution that ended more than 15 years of military rule is that it allows the imposition of the Islamic legal system, which provides for corporal punishment, amputation of limbs and decapitation. But Catholic bishops who met in the northern city of Kaduna see imminent danger. More than 1,000 people died in bloody riots in Kaduna involving Christians and Muslims in February and May this year over plans by the state government to introduce Sharia. "The Sharia issue, which is presently on hold in Kaduna, after unfortunate bloody crises that have taken many innocent lives of Christians and Muslims, is still blowing across many states in the north," Archbishop of Abuja John Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja said on 3 October. Onaiyekan, who is president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, said that despite promises by states that only Muslims would be affected by Sharia, its impact was being felt by Christians. Moreover, he said, they were being deprived of their legitimate means of livelihood by measures such as the closure of hotels. "The federal government says it is all politics and that it will soon boil over," he said. "Meanwhile, there are Nigerians suffering and wondering if the state is actually interested in the welfare of all citizens. We cannot continue along these lines and still pretend that we want a united, peaceful and prosperous nation." Many Nigerians, both individuals and groups, also seem to believe that action is needed to contain the burgeoning political crises associated with the introduction of full Islamic law in parts of the north. Early in September a group known as Concerned Citizens, whose members include prominent Nigerians from both sides of the religious and political divide, planned a conference in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos to discuss ways out of a looming quagmire. The group's leader, lawyer Rotimi Williams, was the chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee appointed in 1976 by Obasanjo, who was then a military ruler, to draw up Nigeria's 1979 constitution on which the 1999 constitution is based. The 1979 constitution provided for the setting up of state Sharia courts of appeal and northern governors have used this to justify the imposition of full Islamic law. Another prominent member of the group is Mohammed Dikko Yusufu, who was head of the Nigeria police in the 1970s. "The objective of the dialogue is to find amicable and workable solutions to the Sharia issue which will enable adherents of different religions to practise their faiths without any restrictions or fear," Concerned Citizens said in a statement. However, Lagos police did not allow the group to hold the meeting. They said they feared provocative issues might arise that would threaten the peace of the country's biggest city. Attendees and several human rights condemned the police action as arbitrary and an infraction of constitutional rights. "Whatever the security justifications, many people find it a paradox that a government that thinks Sharia is not really an issue is so anxious to stop its discussion," human rights activist John Okolosi told IRIN.