Nigerian state lawmakers burned Danish and Norwegian flags on Tuesday and cancelled a €23-million ($27-million) contract to import buses in protest at cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.
A rowdy session of the Kano House of Assembly also voted unanimously to ban the sale of all Danish and Norwegian products in the state, a mainly-Muslim region and the main commercial centre of northern Nigeria.
”If Denmark or Norway were within our reach the world would have seen what would happen to them,” house speaker Sa’idu Gani declared, as lawmakers torched the banners and a crowd of supporters chanted ”Allahu Akbar”.
Aside from removing Scandinavian imports from Kano’s shops and markets, the main practical effect of the vote was to cancel a contract to import 70 commuter
buses from Denmark, he said.
A Danish firm has also been removed from the shortlist of bidders for a deal to provide the state with an eight-billion-naira (€52-million) electric power plant, he added. Canadian and Dutch firms remain in the running.
Kano’s Islamist governor, Ibrahim Shekarau, endorsed the law.
Nigeria’s approximately 60-million Muslims have shared in the anger sweeping around the Islamic world since the publication in several European newspapers of charicatures of Islam’s holiest prophet, Muhammad.
So far, however, protests here have proved peaceful. – Sapa-AFP