Extreme penalty

Editorial

A death sentence for alleged blasphemy is an extreme penalty. It is condemnable. Beyond this, it is questionable because it is inconsistent with Nigeria’s secularism.

It is disturbing that these considerations were insignificant to an Upper Sharia Court in Kano State, which found Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, 22, guilty of “insulting religious creed” based on a song he circulated via WhatsApp in March. The Islamic musician’s song was said to have elevated Senegalese Sheikh Ibrahim Niass of the Tijaniyyah Muslim sect above Prophet Muhammad.

The singer had gone into hiding, and protesters had burnt down his family house. The corps commander-general of the state Hisbah board, which is charged with the responsibility of enforcing Sharia, Dr  Sani Ibn-Sina, said the organisation had stopped protesters that gathered at its headquarters from taking the law into their own hands.

Judge Khadi Aliyu Muhammad Kani, who sentenced the singer to death by hanging, said he could appeal against the verdict, which was based on Section 382 (6) of Kano State Sharia Penal Code Law 2000. But that is beside the point.

This death sentence yet again raises fundamental issues about the operation of Sharia, or Islamic law, in a multi-religious but secular country such as Nigeria where the Islamic system of justice operates alongside a secular justice system.

The Sharia question is unavoidable given that 12 Muslim-majority states in the northern part of the country operate the Islamic system of justice. The Sharia system handles civil and criminal matters involving Muslims, and has a court of appeal. Its judgements can also be challenged in the country’s secular Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

Apart from the death penalty, Sharia courts also hand down sentences that include floggings and amputations, which are alien to the country’s secular justice system.

It is noteworthy that the Sharia court that sentenced the singer on August 10 also sentenced one Umar Farouq to 10 years imprisonment with hard labour for making derogatory statements about Allah in a public argument. Both convicts can appeal the verdicts within 30 days.

Obviously, there is a clash between Islamic law and secular law, and these cases reflect a fundamental divergence. The intense religion-driven negative reaction to the singer’s song in his local community showed that the locals had more respect for Islamic law than secular law.

Such elevation of sectarianism above secularism should be discouraged. There should be no question about the country’s adherence to the principle of separation of the state from religious institutions. Specifically, the supremacy of the country’s secular constitution should be sacrosanct.

The singer’s case justifiably generated public outrage in the larger society and beyond. Amnesty International observed that the death penalty for blasphemy under Sharia “violates Nigeria’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which restricts the use of the death penalty to the ‘most serious crimes’; which according to international law are crimes that involve intentional killing.”

It is true that federalism accommodates the distribution of power between a central authority and the constituent units, but such an arrangement in Nigeria must not be at the expense of the country’s pivotal secularism.

Notably, critics of the singer’s conviction rightly stress that it amounts to a violation of constitutional provisions protecting rights to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and expression.

Sharia has been controversial since its introduction in 1999. In 2002, for instance, Amina Lawal was sentenced to death by stoning under Sharia in Katsina State for conceiving a child out of wedlock. The conviction, condemned worldwide, was overturned by the Sharia Court of Appeal in 2004.

Also, one Abdulazeez Inyass, sentenced to death in Kano, in 2016, for blaspheming against Islam, is still on death row because executing a death penalty in Nigeria requires the approval of the state governor. This case should be revisited.

Indeed, the judicial and political authorities need to address the areas of conflict between Sharia and the country’s constitution. Overturning the singer’s death sentence on appeal should be part of a necessary reform.