Josephine Lohor
22 March 2002
Kaduna — The call by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Kanu Agabi, SAN, for self-restraint on the part of states implementing Sharia drew a sharp reaction from Zamfara State Governor, Alhaji Ahmed Sani, who accused the minister of overzealousness.
In a letter entitled "Prohibition of Discriminatory Punishment," Agabi had told all governors operating the Sharia legal system to modify all criminal laws of their states to exclude imposition of punishment that may infringe on the rights of Muslems to equality with other citizens under Section 42(1)(a) of the constitution.
But speaking on a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Hausa service monitored in Kaduna yesterday, Governor Yerima said the minister acted in ignorance, adding that he would write him a letter to "educate him" on the matter.
Said he: "It is an issue we discussed 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-believer to be tried with customary laws and the Christian with canon law."
The Zamfara governor described Agabi's letter as an attempt to raise an already settled issue.
He also expressed surprise at the reason given by the minister for writing such a letter to the governor of states practising Sharia. According to him, "what he wrote in his letter was because of the outcry by the international community, and if you look very well, these countries are not Muslim countries."
Yerima, who is the first to implement the Sharia legal system in the country, emphasised that "it will be wrong for the Federal Government, because of the outcry of one section of the international community to start writing this letter."
He urged government to seek the opinion of Muslim countries like Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan if it really wants to know whether the implementation of the legal system in some states in the country was Sharia-compliant or not.
According to the governor, if the opinion of Muslim countries is sought about Sharia implementation, Nigeria would be commended.
In the letter to the Sharia states, Agabi had said that it was unconstitutional for them to impose punishment that was more severe than that meted to other Nigerians for the same offence.
But the statement by Agabi seems to be a departure from the posture of the Federal Government in the past which bordered on aloofness. In response to calls for a categorical response of the government to Sharia first proclaimed by Zamfara State in 1999, for instance, President Olusegun Obasanjo had repeatedly said in the past that "the issue will whittle away."
Most of the states in the North have already adopted Sharia.
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