Sharia, Ba mu so
By
In his response to the letter circulated by the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice of the Federation, Kanu Agabi (SAN) on the vexed issue of the Sharia and its application as a legal orthodoxy in the Northern states, Ahmed Sani, the Sheik-Governor of Zamfara state has used the platform of the BBC Hausa Service to raise some of the critical issues which underscore the politics of the Sharia and the main reasons why it will always be central to the Nigerian political process. Said he: "it is either that the Minister is ignorant of the constitutional provision relating to Sharia or he is being overzealous...I will write to educate him on the matter". He added: "what he wrote in his letter was because of the outcry by the international communities and if you look very well, these countries are not Muslim countries." Sani explained that government should also seek the opinion of Muslim or Islamic nations such as Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria to know if the implementation of Sharia is good or bad. "It is an issue we discussed about (sic) at a meeting with the late Attorney-General and I drew attention to the fact that the Constitution allows for Muslims to be tried under Sharia, the non-believers to be tried with customary laws and Christians with the Canon law". Alhaji Nafiu Baba-Ahmed of the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria blew further heat on the matter when he noted that "it is a clear and desperate move by the anti-Sharia movement headed by President Olusegun Obasanjo to silence the Moslems from enforcing their fundamental human rights".
The truth of the matter is that the attempt by the Federal Government speaking through Kanu Agabi to declare the Sharia illegal and unconstitutional in certain aspects is too mild, too late in the day, the wording of Agabi's letter is too diffident, and I agree that the Federal Government is simply being mischievous to the extent that it has no real intention of descending on the law breakers who are imposing the Sharia beyond its constitutional limits. Agabi's letter did not talk about sanctions that may arise from the Sharia violations of the constitution, rather he was offering advice! Nonsense. Sheik Sani of Zamfara has offered a typical Northern Hausa-Fulani response by dismissing the Attorney-General as ignorant and by purporting to educate him on the fine points of law. This arrogance is at the very roots of the Othman Dan Fodio Jihad, whose original objective is to establish a Moslem hegemony based on the Sharia. That objective has never changed with the successors and descendants of Othman Dan Fodio. The Sharia is invariably in that regard used to sustain the class divisions in the North by providing the talakawas with a religious orthodoxy, that they cannot question and which enables them to obey the dictates of those who have been born to rule. The introduction of Western education to the north, the modernisation process, and talks about liberal democracy have sought to destroy this hold on the imagination of the ordinary Northerner. The Northern elite has found itself in a position where it has to use the Sharia to re-establish its class interests. It is why it is only commoners like Jangedi and Safiya who would ever get caught by the Sharia soldiers. The Northern elite, are far more corrupt and venal than the ordinary people, their children are just as wayward as the children of the Southerners whom the Hausa-Fulani despise but the Sharia is a law that is meant to keep the poor in line by reminding them of the dictates of the Islamic religion and the need for their devotion. This is the first level at which religion and politics are mixed in the Sharia.
Beyond that, Kanu Agabi and Obasanjo should not expect any Hausa-Fulani to listen to any such talks about the Sharia. They who are born to rule, and who consider themselves, defenders of the Islamic faith, cannot at any time be comfortable with a leadership that is dominated by Christians. In the eyes of the Muslim-Northerner, a Christian is an infidel, and there are too many pagans in the Obasanjo government. Before Obasanjo came to power, there was no church in Aso Rock. The early occupiers of that Presidential lodge never imagined that a time would come when infidels will take over that building. But now, Obasanjo has not only built a church, the name of Jesus Christ is called on a daily basis in Abuja, and under this government, pastors claiming to be quoting the Bible have been enjoying access to the Presidency. The President holds inter-denominational services, and he has granted licences to the Opus Dei, the Baptists, and David Oyedepo's Winner's Chapel to establish private universities. Northern Moslems consider it humiliating to live under the influence of an unIslamic power. The Sardauna was the political leader of the North but always he sought to assume religious powers. The Emirate of Kano as an institution as well as the Sultanate of Sokoto derive their significance from being , in the eyes of the people, the symbols of Islam. During the Second Republic, Alhaji Shehu Shagari was so committed to the Islamic religion that his personal aides started converting to Islam. Chief Micheal Prest, the head of his personal staff, became a Moslem and his Michael became Mikhail. Again under Shagari, an Islamic mode of dressing was popularized: the Babanriga and the Shagari cap. Obasanjo has since changed the face of fashion in Abuja, the Babanriga has been replaced by "sokoto pempe and fila pereku", which in the eyes of the Northern Muslim is the garment of pagans who have no religion. In 1986, the Babangida government introduced a Decree No 26 which removed all usages of the word personal in connection with Islam in the Nigerian constitution. The 1978 Constituent assembly had tried to resolve the problem of the Sharia by limiting it to the domain of personal law, but it was a resolution which the Northern Moslem never really accepted, such that although the Sharia is recognized under the constitution, the Northern hegemony is not convinced that it should have limits. The explanation is again religious but the truth is that the Northern elite under the Sharia are able to commit a lot of injustices and present same as the judgement of God. Is it not curious that corruption is considered normal for the Northern elite whereas the poor are not allowed to steal?
Sani's objection to the Obasanjo government doing the bidding of the West is not fortuitous, and his reference to Islamic countries of the East is just as instructive. The point is worth amplifying that the Sharia is structurally and ideologically opposed to western liberal democracy, a carry over of the Northern suspicion of Western education. This is partly why the Northern states are unable to function well under democratic rule except when democracy is converted to their own purposes as in the First and Second Republics. Proponents of the Sharia also mouth such phrases as justice, equity and freedom, but the meaning to them is different. Please note that Kanu Agabi in his letter did not dismiss the Sharia as unconstitutional, he merely said that aspects of its practice are repugnant to natural law and justice. This is a very obvious point which underscores the fact that no law can be superior to the constitution, and if it is, it is to that extent null and void. In the Native Courts Proclamation of 1900, the British made a similar point when they considered the Sharia courts as customary courts but with the proviso that "these courts are to administer native law and custom prevailing in the area of jurisdiction and might award any type of punishment recognized thereby except mutilation, torture, or any other which is repugnant to natural justice and humanity". When the Sharia courts cut off Jangedi's hand, and are threatening to stone Safiya to death for adultery, they depart from the norms of modern conduct under Western liberal democracy. When Agabi makes this point he is taken out of context most conveniently, and accused of saying "Sharia Ba Mu So" (that is Sharia, we do not want). The Hausa-Fulani hegemony finds it easy to refer to countries like Libya, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and so on, because let's face it, these countries are the ones financing the folly of the Sharia fundamentalists. The northern elite, I have always argued do not believe in Nigeria; they are more committed to these foreign countries, and which is why they do not behave like citizens among us. In 1986, the Babangida government had forced the issue by making Nigeria a member of the Organisation of Islamic Countries, whereas the Constitution is very clear that ours is a secular country. The late Sardauna was the leader of Northern politics, but he derived greater pleasure from the recognition that he received in his later life from other Islamic countries. Emir Sanusi of Kano used to go to the outskirts of Kano to listen to the speeches of Nasser of Egypt on radio. In the North today, Osama Bin Laden is something of a local hero.
The irony is that there are many enlightened persons in the North but even such persons use their Western education to defend the interests of the Northern hegemony and oppose liberal democracy. They talk with their mouth full of kolanut. When Mohammed Haruna became Managing Director of the New Nigerian, he did not hide the fact that the duty of the New Nigerian was to defend Islam and the Sharia. During the controversy over the OIC, Haruna's New Nigerian naturally defended the Federal Government. The same pretences coloured the editorial direction of the FRCN, Kaduna, the Citizen magazine and now, the Daily and Weekly Trust publications. Bala Usman is easily one of the best from the North, but when it comes to matters of Islam, he too often sounds as if he does not believe in the existence of other Nigerians. I repeat that the Northern hegemony understands the same concepts at the heart of liberal democracy, except that when we speak of freedom, freedom in their view means the freedom of the man in power to remain there for ever, and to loot the treasury without any questions being asked; freedom of expression means that the poor people must obey their rulers, freedom of religion means that Islam is the only true religion and that only Allah can save. When you speak of justice, they consider justice to mean the right of the ulamas to interpret the Koran as they wish. Equity means that people must know their station in life and be content with the wish of the Almighty Allah. When a Kanu Agabi purports to question these beliefs which indeed form the basis of a way of life, he is easily dismissed as a charlatan. That is why a Sani Ahmed can insist that he will educate the Attorney-General!
All said and done, I do not think that Kanu Agabi's letter will change anything. The truest test of the Sharia is for the rulings of the Sharia Appeal court to be contested at the Supreme court, and brought under the laws of the land to the extent of its infractions from same. But what if the brainwashed victims of the Sharia law, as we have seen, choose not to push their rights? Jangedi's hand was caught off, the man was very happy about it. If Safiya is stoned to death, she would also probably say that Allah's will has been done. Now, how do you preach natural law and justice to such persons? As it were, Northern Muslims would continue to insist that they should be allowed to live under the Sharia. Any talk about human rights will continue to be dismissed as Western and Southern Christian propaganda. And recommendations of a return to the penal code will be considered an assault on Islam. In the face of this, the only other option is for the Federal Government to force a reconsideration of the Sharia, by re-opening the debate that was started in 1900, re-tabled in 1978 and again in 1988 -89. But what is the guarantee that the Obasanjo government would be able to find the courage to take on such a dangerous task in a season of elections and re-election? I don't see President Obasanjo going that far. If he attempts it, the ulamas and imams, whose source of livelihood will be threatened will engineer afresh round of religious riots, the end of which no one may be able to tell. We are confronted in the end with the conflict of laws in our country and the refusal of a minority elite to behave like citizens. The Sharia poses the biggest threat to national unity. But let Kanu Agabi beware of his own shadow. Let him remember that the last Attorney-General was assassinated, for yet unknown reasons, by yet unknown forces.
March 2002