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Nigeria: Another State Adopts Islamic Law
KANO, Nigeria, June 15 (News Agencies) - An 11th northern Nigerian state has started implementing the Islamic law code, the Shari'ah, as the federal government is seeking to review the way it is enforced, officials said Friday.
The northern state of Bauchi Friday formally appointed 63 Shari'ah court judges following a quiet ceremony June 1st to officially launch the code in the state, Muhammad Dan Madami, the head of the state Shari'ah implementation committee, told Bauchi State radio, monitored by AFP in the largest northern city, Kano.
"The Shari'ah court judges are to adjudicate based on the Shari'ah legal system. The penal code has been abrogated," he said.
The formal launch date for the code in Bauchi was June 1st, officials said.
Bauchi State Governor Adamu Muazu in February signed into law the code that bans the sale of alcohol, introduces severe punishments for a range of offenses and sets out a series of religious obligations for Muslims.
Last week, in the northern Katsina state, an Islamic court in the town of Malumfashi ordered doctors to remove the left eye of a man found guilty last month of partially blinding a friend, officials said.
The court in Malumfashi, around 88 miles west of Kano, last month found Ahmed Tijjani guilty of stabbing and blinding his friend Sanusi Bala in the right eye during an argument over the outcome of a football match last March.
Finding him guilty of the assault, the judge said that under Islamic law introduced in a swathe of northern Nigerian states last year, the two sentences available were either the removal of one of Tijjani's eyes or the payment of 60 camels by way of compensation.
Islam been a part of northern Nigeria for hundreds of years and a civil Islamic law code has operated since the end of the 19th century.
But since January last year, a swathe of states across the north has now introduced a criminal code, over the objections of minority Christians.
Of the 11 states which have started operating full or partial versions of the code since January last year, nine say they have started enforcing the code fully, while two others have offered more restricted versions.
The 11 states, which have started implementing the law to some degree, are Bauchi, Borno, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara. But the level of implementation has varied greatly from state to state.
The two that have introduced only partial Shari'ah law are Kaduna, where Christian-Muslim riots in February 2000, left between 2,000 and 3,000 people dead, and Niger, where authorities first introduced the code then withdrew it, but left in place an official alcohol ban. In Kaduna, the Shari'ah is applicable only in Muslim-majority areas.
Several other states, which have formally begun implementing the law, have done so with little vigor.
The federal government has, meanwhile, held two recent sessions of talks with northern governors over the issue, how the code is implemented and the use by some states of vigilante groups to enforce it.
The talks, demanded by Nigeria's Christian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, have been led by the country's Muslim Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, and the most recent session was held earlier this month.
In Bauchi, the state's large Christian minority opposed the introduction of the code and Dan Madami said Friday that the main Christian area of the state had been exempted as a result.
"Bogoro local government has been exempted because it is a predominantly Christian area and Shari'ah is only for Muslims," he said.
Authorities in another northern state, Gombe, have declared plans to implement Shari'ah but face strong opposition from Christians there.
In Borno State, Christians who say they were not consulted on Shari'ah's introduction have said they will ignore it.
Christians in northern Nigeria complain they are marginalized by the code but have had little support from the federal government and agitation over the issue has dropped in recent months.
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