A Deputy Governor

A Deputy Governor's Sharia gang

It is probable that, after Jangebe's hand was severed for stealing, a lactating mother whipped for fornication, and several other persons caned in public for consuming alcohol, the shock value of the implementation of the Sharia penal system in some northern states has diminished. Which may yet explain the apparent lack of opprobrium in the face of the vicious attacks on hotels and their guests in Kano a couple of weeks ago. The Kano incidents, in that sense, would seem to be another version of the same old story about Sharia. But, in reality, the Kano episode was a milestone, on account of the sponsors and supervisors of the mayhem that was perpetrated as evidence of the iron-fisted enforcement of the Sharia Code.

For five hours, the elected Deputy Governor of Kano State, Alhaji Mar Ganduje, led a horde of Sharia enforcers on an unprecedented raid on top-class hotels and recreational centres where alcoholic drinks were allegedly being sold in contravention of the Sharia Code. The Deputy Governor and his gang descended on Kano Club, Daula Hotel, Central Hotel, Magwan Water Restaurant, Hotel Tropicana, among others. They left their signature in their wake: broken heads and doors and windows; smashed bottles and millions of Naira wasted in a fury. Emboldened by, or taking a cue from, the Deputy Governor's exploits, moslem youths branding themselves Sharia vanguards, later marched on Hensino Hotel also in Kano City. In their hundreds, they surrounded the hotel, armed with guns knives, axes and other cudgels. They became a law unto themselves. No one else had a right of ingress or egress in the hotel. Then the invaders doused the place with petrol and set it alight. Guests escaping from the inferno were bludgeoned; many others received varying degrees of burns. The hotel, or most of it, was reduced to ash.

The state government was probably embarrassed by the role of the Deputy Governor in the mob action and therefore attempted to deny any knowledge of his involvement. Like a man in a gallery, the office of the Deputy Governor quickly repudiated the disclaimer and the public disagreement was thus ended. Historians evaluating this period of Nigeria's democratic experience would have committed a grave error of omission if they failed to note the Deputy Governor's milestone in leading a mob to destroy property. Incidents such as these galvanise the agitation for a sovereign national conference which is really an elegant by-word for secession, so that in the end those who want to rule over amputees can have their sovereignty over their defined territory, and those who want to be drunk on their resources can have equal, undiluted sovereignty as well.

What Deputy Governor Ganduje has done is to repudiate the very Constitution he swore to uphold on May 29, 1999. See the Oath of Office of a Deputy Governor in the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution, which reads, inter alia, "...I will discharge my duties to the best of my ability, faithfully and in accordance with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the law...that I will strive to preserve the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy contained in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria...that I will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria...." Section 43 of the Constitution guarantees the right of every Nigerian citizen to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in the country. Section 45, which derogates from fundamental rights, does not affect the right to own immovable property and therefore public morality cannot be relied upon to justify the raid on the hotels.

If the Deputy Governor argues that he swore to uphold the Constitution and the law, the latter being legislation validly enacted, the world is anxious to know whether the Sharia law passed in Kano prescribes arson and vandalisation as punishment for the sale of alcohol and in the manner that the Deputy Governor used thugs to enforce the law. Does the Sharia law in Kano prescribe a mode for interfering with property rights in the event of a violation of the law? The uppermost and civilised limit in this regard would be compulsory acquisition which itself does not admit of arson and vandalisation as a mode of enforcement.

See also section 17(2)(b) of the Constitution which stipulates that "In furtherance of the social order---the sanctity of the human person shall be recognised and human dignity shall be maintained and enhanced". Section 17(2)(c) also provides that "governmental actions shall be humane". Both subsections should be read together with s.34(1)(a), to wit, "Every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his person, and accordingly---no person shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment". Entrapping guests in a hotel, maiming them and attempting to burn them alive are acts of torture and inhuman treatment.

It is the tragedy of the Fourth Republic that two years after it came into being, political parties exercise little or no influence over their elected members. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which controls the Federal Government also controls Kano State where the Deputy Governor led hoodlums on a rampage, an assault on law, order and due process. The PDP has not expressed any embarrassment at the action of the Deputy Governor. It is a silence, which is not necessarily acquiescence, but really a measure of the party's ineffectual capacity to maintain discipline among its rank and file. One interpretation of Ganduje's action is that he embarked on the act of lawlessness as a populist gambit in order to upstage his Governor in the 2003 polls. If that is true, it is a misadventure that should be his liability on the platform of any party through whose instrumentality he may aspire to elective office in 2003. Ganduje may be a vote-catcher, but he has shown his hand early enough that he can do worse things in the name of responding to popular demands. The least the PDP can do is to censure him.

Yet, such censure will not sweep Sharia away. In their rage against alcohol and alcohol joints, one must wonder why the Sharia activists have fought shy of confronting science. If they did, the result would be alarming indeed. The food that we eat contains alcohol. If the Sharia enforcers are in doubt, let them take a trip to the departments of chemistry and biochemistry in any nearby university. If the result of their inquiry is yes, that food contains alcohol, which is true anyway, let the Sharia enforcers go on hunger strike, close all restaurants in their jurisdiction and live and die by their faith. Asereke is hawked on the streets of Kano by moslem northerners. Asereke is sugarcane. Moslems and non-moslems alike munch it. Sugarcane contains alcohol; which is why a grass cutter becomes punch-drunk after consuming too much of it on a farm. Why is sugarcane still being sold in Kano and the other Sharia states?

Sharia is not intended to be ridiculous. Therefore, the presumption must be that the injunction against alcohol affects alcohol of the edible variety. If it were alcohol in general, one would expect the Sharia enforcers to raid hospitals and clinics and destroy methylated spirit, because it contains alcohol. They would also visit homes and cosmetic shops and get rid of after-shave and other cologne, including sosorobia, because they contain alcohol. If intoxication were the mischief that the provision in the Sharia law is aimed at, then perhaps, the enforcers would need to expand the scope of items that should be prohibited. Cough syrup is one. Taken in a certain quantity, it is intoxicating. Let science and religion clash once more, and let's see the result.