Ganduje’s signature

Hardball

 

KANO State  Governor Abdullahi Ganduje can’t wait to sign the death warrant of Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, the 22-year-old singer sentenced to death by hanging, for “blasphemy,” by a Sharia court on August 10.

“I will not waste time in signing the warrant for the execution of the man who blasphemed our holy prophet of Islam,” the governor said, perhaps self-righteously, during a meeting with clerics at the government house in Kano on August 27.

“Lawyers just told us that the case could go up to the Supreme Court. So if that happens, I will not waste time in approving the verdict right away. And the second issue is, if the victim did not take up the case to appellate courts, I will not waste time to give the approval for the execution. I will not take more than a few minutes to accept the verdict,” Ganduje said.

He is obviously unmoved by the opposition to the controversial verdict in some quarters. The criticism that execution is an extreme penalty in the circumstances doesn’t make sense to him. “What the court did is absolutely right. And we support it completely,” he said.

The Kano Upper Sharia Court had found Sharif-Aminu 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.

This suggests that the governor toed the line by supporting the verdict. But his position demands more than robotic conformity. He is the governor of a secular state in a secular country.

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 in 12 Muslim-majority states in the northern part of the country alongside a secular justice system.

Ganduje, though a Muslim, is nevertheless expected to rise above religion in this matter, considering the country’s overriding secularism, and constitutional provisions protecting rights to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and expression.

His enthusiasm about signing the Sharia-based death warrant calls into question his understanding of his position as a secular governor.