Tuesday, March 26, 2002

A story released today by the BBC News reports that the Nigerian Government is coming under increasing international pressure to amend laws in northern Muslim areas which call for punishments such as stoning, amputation and flogging.

Although one woman has won her appeal on Monday against a sentence of death by stoning for committing adultery, another has now been sentenced to the same punishment.

Amina Lawal is from the small village of Kurami in Katsina, another of the northern Muslim states to have adopted the strict Sharia legal system.

The issue of Islamic law has provoked a deep constitutional crisis in Nigeria.

Under Sharia law as practiced in northern Nigeria, pregnancy outside marriage is sufficient evidence to convict a woman.

In contrast, four eye-witnesses are required for a man to be found guilty of adultery.

The man named by Ms. Lawal as the father of her baby girl admitted they had a relationship but denied having had sex with her.

Charges against him were dropped after no witnesses came forward.

Ms. Lawal now has 30 days to appeal against the sentence or she faces being stoned in eight months' time - when she has finished breast-feeding her daughter.

Nigeria's federal government - under severe international pressure - has condemned the strict punishments handed down by Sharia courts.

But in response, authorities in the north are equally adamant that the Sharia legal code is something all good Muslims should live their lives by.

Of particular concern to human rights organizations is the increasing unanimity among northern political leaders over the issue of Sharia punishments.

President Olusegun Obasanjo, himself a devout Christian, has said he would prefer more humane punishments to be handed down by the Sharia courts.

But he stopped short of condemning Islamic law outright, stressing that Nigeria is a complex multi-religious country.

Now that Justice Minister Kanu Agabi has declared certain Sharia punishments discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional, the government has for the first time made its position clear.

With the northern states indicating that they intend to ignore the minister's intervention, the stage is clearly set for a constitutional battle.