Deborah Samuel: Another Victim Of Nigeria’s Blasphemy Law In A Long Line Of Senseless Religious Killings
On Thursday, May 12, 2022, a group of students of the Shehu Shagari College of Education, joined by a mob of religious fanatics, besieged the security post of the school where a student, Deborah Samuel, was being kept and dragged her out. Despite the reported effort of the school security to prevent a lynching, the mob pulled her out and beat the 200-level student to death chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ as her lifeless body was stuck repeatedly before it was set on fire.
Her offence? She was accused of insulting Prophet Muhammad in a voice note she sent to a class WhatsApp group. Another student had reportedly dropped a religious message in the group and Deborah reacted to it in a voice note. Her statement was deemed blasphemous by the students who took laws into their own hands and killed the 22-year old.
In reaction, the Sokoto state government shut down the school and ordered an investigation to be carried out while calling for peace. The Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar who is considered the leader of the Muslims in Nigeria, in a statement condemned the killing.
“The Sultanate Council condemned the incident in its totality and has urged the security agencies to bring perpetrators of the unjustifiable incident to justice.”
In a statement sent to Neusroom, the spokesperson of the Sokoto state police command, Sanusi Abubakar, said tight security has been provided for the school and that two persons connected to the incident have been arrested.
But many Nigerians are not optimistic that the perpetrators of the crime will be brought to book due to the long history of perpetrators of jungle justice in reaction to blasphemy going scotfree.
The crime of blasphemy in Sharia-controlled northern Nigeria
Efforts to establish Sharia Law in Nigeria began shortly after Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999 with Zamfara state under then Governor Ahmad Sani Yerima leading the charge and formally establishing it in 2000. Since then, Kano, Sokoto, Katsina, Bauchi, Borno, Jigawa, Kebbi, Yobe, Kaduna, Niger and Gombe states have enacted one form of Sharia law or the other.
The law is supposed to be based on Islamic jurisdiction and criminalises actions and utterances considered unIslamic. Critics however have noted the danger of subjecting people in a place to Islamic laws irrespective of their religious affiliation. The adoption of Sharia law in Kano in 2001 led to a series of protests and riots in the state that left 100 people dead.
Among the actions criminalised by the Sharia law is blasphemy. A semblance of the same law exists in Nigeria’s criminal code section 204:
“Any person who does an act which any class of persons consider as a public insult on their religion, with the intention that they should consider the act such an insult, and any person who does an unlawful act with the knowledge that any class of persons will consider it such an insult, is guilty of a misdemeanour and is liable to imprisonment for two years.”
Under Sharia law, however, the crime of blasphemy is considered heinous and can be punishable by death. Utterances or actions deemed to insult God or Prophet Muhammad carry heavy punishment which many believe contravenes the Nigerian constitution.
In October 2007, a Christian, Sani Kabili was convicted of blasphemy by a Sharia court in Kano and sentenced to three years in prison. His sentencing was overturned after an appeal in February 2009.
In 2015, nine Muslims of the Tijjaniyya sect were sentenced to death in Kano for blasphemy after they were reported to have said that “Niasse (their leader) was bigger than Prophet Muhammad”. President Muhammadu Buhari’s personal assistant on new media, Bashir Ahmad, in a tweet, expressed support for the death sentence meted out to them.
“I can’t pretend or keep silent. I support the death penalty for BLASPHEMY. That’s my belief and I do not and will never support #SaveKanoNine”, he tweeted.
On August 10, 2020, a Kano state Shariah Court sentenced 22-year-old Yahaya Sharifo to death by hanging for blasphemy against the prophet. He was accused of having blasphemed in his song which he circulated on WhatsApp in March 2020. A 13-year-old, Omar Farouq, was also sentenced to 10 years in prison for blasphemy in 2020.
Many, however, consider those who appear before the Sharia court as fortunate as the region has had a long history of citizens taking laws into their own hands to punish anyone accused of blasphemy. And there are a lot of sermons from highly referred Islamic clerics and preachers in the North supporting their action.
A video of an Islamic cleric resurfaced in the controversy surrounding blasphemy urging his followers to kill anyone who insults the prophet.
“They can only do that in Sokoto, if they do it here, they will be killed,” he declared in his terse sermon which has since gone viral on the internet.
Nigeria’s Communication Minister, Isa Pantami, was also accused of inciting violence that led to the killing of Sunday Achi, a student of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, in 2004.
He would later claim he was young and naive at the time.
When citizens become judge, jury and executioner
In 2002, a reporter for ThisDay Newspaper, Isioma Daniels, fled Nigeria after a fatwa was issued over an article she wrote about the Miss Nigeria pageant hosted in Nigeria. The article was considered blasphemous and triggered a widespread riot leading to the death of 250 people while the office of the newspaper in Kaduna was set on fire.
In March 2007, a Christian teacher, Christianah Oluwatoyin Oluwasesin, was lynched by a mob in Gombe state after being accused of desecrating the Qur’an, an action considered blasphemous.
A similar situation occurred in the town of Sara in Jigawa state where 12 people were injured and a police post was set on fire over the allegation that someone distributing offensive materials to Islam was being protected by the police.
Experts believe that the criminalisation of blasphemy has given rise to mob action and jungle justice as perpetrators believe they are duly carrying out the law. Lack of strong condemnation and criminalisation of jungle justice is also believed to be a factor that has emboldened this practice. The statement of the Chief Imam of Abuja mosque, Professor Ibrahim Maqari, that Muslims have redlines that must not be crossed has further incensed Nigerians, particularly in the south and given credence to the perspective that mob action in reaction to blasphemy is not only allowed by encouraged by the region’s leaders.
He wrote: “It should be known to everyone that we the Muslims have some redlines beyond which MUST NOT be crossed. The dignity of the Prophet (PBUH) is at the forefront of the redlines. If our grievances are not properly addressed, then we should not be criticized for addressing them ourselves.”
In the southern part of Nigeria, however, religious killings and criminalisation of blasphemy are almost non-existent. Sheikh Usman Abubakar of Aranse Oluwa mosque in the Agege area of Lagos condemned the mob attack against Deborah saying it was a bad representation of Islam that has no logical justification. He told Neusroom that the prophet was a compassionate person when he was alive.
“The prophet never killed anyone that insulted him and he never fought a war of blame. All his battles were defensive ones.”
Reactions
The tragic killing of Deborah has received condemnation from Nigerians and the international community. The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Mathew Kukah, called for calm and urged the police to bridge the perpetrators to justice. Catriona Laing, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria condemned the murder and urged “the police and relevant authorities to ensure the perpetrators of this horrific act are made to face justice in line with the law.”
Political elites in both the ruling All Progressives Congress and Peoples Democratic Party have been uncharacteristically quiet, an (in)action many say is because of the coming 2023 general elections and the political influence of the northern region. Atiku Abubakar, former vice president and PDP presidential hopeful in a now-deleted tweet and Facebook post, condemned the killing of the students. The statement elicited condemnation from some northerners who vowed to withdraw their political support of the Waziri of Adamawa.
“You just lost my vote and my family members’ votes”, one of the reactions read. A few hours after the statement was deleted, Atiku took to his Facebook Hausa page to deny putting out the post. He wrote:
“This evening I received information that a post was made that doesn’t agree with my orders. I use this to announce that any post without AA is not from me. May God protect – AA”
A lawyer and human rights activist, Princewill Akpakpan, condemned the killing saying it has no basis in the Nigerian constitution.
“This is a clear case of murder and those involved are entitled to the sentence of death. By virtue of our constitution, Nigeria is a secular State and crime is only prescribed under the penal code in the North. Therefore no religious beliefs should prescribe the death sentence as punishment under our laws. Those involved in this dastardly act of taking the life of an innocent girl should be prosecuted.”
As Nigerians grapple with the senseless killing of the young student by her schoolmates who are supposedly educated people within the enclave of a citadel of knowledge, their action defies the long-held perception that lack of education has been responsible for these actions.
If gold rusts, what shall iron do?
