SEGUN ARIBIKE, Nigeria | Tuesday
A MIDDLE-aged Nigerian man is expected to be stoned to death next month after confessing to sodomising a seven-year-old boy.
Attahiru Umaru’s death sentence is the first in Nigeria by a Islamic Sharia Court since a religious justice system was implemented in 10 northern Nigerian states last year.
Umaru told the court in Birnin Kebbi, in Kebbi State, that he was overcome by lust and attacked the boy at a local Quaranic school.
The boy was a student at the religious school, which teaches Islamic children the Arabic language and the holy Qua’ran.
Court prosecutors told the court that the boy’s pained screams attracted the attention of nearby classmates, who literally caught Umaru with his pants down.
Umaru confessed to the attack but promised to reform and pleaded for leniency.
Judge Abubakar Bena described the crime as an abomination, and said the Sharia legal code did not allow any leniency for sodomists.
“I therefore have no choice but to sentence you to death by stoning, as prescribed by our scriptures. You have 30 days to appeal against this sentence. If you do not, the sentence will forwarded to the Sharia Implementation Committee for authorisation to be carried out in a public place,” said Judge Bena.
Kebbi State adopted Sharia law in December last year, joining nine other northern states who have embraced the fundamentalist legal code.
Sharia law prescribes stiff physical punishment including public beatings and amputations for stealing, prostitution, gambling and drinking alcohol.
Nigeria’s national government disapproves of the ‘eye-for-an-eye’ judicial system and has warned provincial officials that Sharia sentences violate international human rights treaties.
The national government appears helpless to stop the practice, however, and its protests have been ignored in a string of cases since 1999.
Islamic fundamentalists first took advantage of a loophole in the country’s first civilian democratic constitution to introduce the Sharia system in Zamfara State in October 1999.
Neighbouring Jigawa, Kebbi, Katsina, Kano, Sokoto, Niger, Borno, Bauchi and Yobe states have since adopted the code. – African Eye News Service