Bauchi governor softens on stoning sentences

The governor of Nigeria’s northern Bauchi State on Wednesday directed Islamic court judges not to press charges of adultery against divorced women who become pregnant unless their former husbands complained. Under the controversial Islamic or Shari’ah legal system introduced by the state along with 11 others in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north, divorcees convicted of adultery face death by stoning. But governor Adamu Mu’azu said on state radio a divorced woman who is pregnant within five years of separating from her husband could be bearing his child according to the Shari‘ah code. For this reason he said it was for the man to file a complaint if he thought the woman had committed adultery. At least five people, including three women and two men have been sentenced to death by stoning under Shari’ah law in different parts of northern Nigeria since 12 states adopted the strict version of the law in the past two years. None of the sentences has been carried out. President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government has declared them unconstitutional and pledged not to allow their execution. Safiya Husseini, a 35-year-old divorced mother, who was the first to receive the stoning sentence, was acquitted by an appeal court in Sokoto State on 19 March. Another woman, Amina Lawal, who was given the death sentence in Katsina State same day Husseini was acquitted, saw her verdict upheld by a higher court in August. This drew outrage from local human rights groups and the international community. Two former lovers, a man and a woman, are also going through the appeal process in Niger State after getting the maximum sentence for adultery. A 54-year-old man in Jigawa State is also facing a similar sentence on a charge of raping a nine-year-old girl. The application of Islamic law in Nigeria’s largely Muslim north has heightened tension with southern non-Muslims, mainly Christians and a minority followers of traditional faiths. Thousands of people have died in Africa’s most populous country of 120 million people in ethno-religious violence linked to the advent of strict Shari’ah in the past three years.