Nigeria: Harnessing the Potential of Women in Northern Nigeria

Kaduna — In what later turned out as a strategic plan to score cheap political points, Mr. Ahmed Yerima, early in the life of the current political dispensation, imposed Islamic law, known as Shari'a, in little known and impoverished Zamfara State. His action was to have reverberating effects during and long after he left office and became a senator. Certain parts of the north went up in flames and lives were lost. Majority of women in Northern Nigeria still hold him responsible for setting the region backwards hundreds of years after they had begun to achieve a measure of liberation previously denied them.

As one such female activist, Mrs. Aisha Umar, succinctly submitted, "Ahmed Yerima imposed Shari'a law for political reasons and then other governors caved in. What they did not know was that they gave more powers (actually yielded their own political powers) to the religious establishments and set Northern Nigeria backwards far more than they met it!"

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