Shari'ah Implementation in Northern Nigeria: Yarima or Shekarau Model?

Ahmed Magaji Mansur

Zoo Road Kano

In January 2000 Zamfara State Governor Ahmed Sani Yarima formally inaugurated legal reforms that incorporated Islamic Penal Laws as interpreted by the Maliki School of Islamic Law. Other Northern States were forced to follow the steps of Zamfara State since then Ahmed Sani Yarima became popular and prominent in the Muslim community of Nigeria. Through out his first term of four years he kept emphasizing the punitive aspects of the Shari'ah Law attracting widespread condemnation of the Muslim elites and the followers of the Western ideas. He does not strictly adhere to Islamic principles of good governance and due process but compromises in order to remain in power and he cajoled many of the outspoken Muslim scholars through material largesse.

The clamor for Shari'ah spread to most of the northern states. Kano State which is the most populous and most politically complex state in Nigeria had to follow suit grudgingly. Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau was removed from his position as a permanent secretary partly because of his support for Shari'ah. He later joined partisan politics and contested elections under the platform of the ANPP and won against the incumbent PDP Governor.

Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau made it clear at his inauguration that his administration shall prove to the world that Shari'ah is more than punitive measures but establishing the frame work that will discourage crime and build the individual. The administration established three Shari'ah bodies by enacting the relevant laws. They are the Shari'ah Commission, Hisbah Board and the Zakat Commission. The administration also initiated the most comprehensive governance reforms ever in the state. For almost twenty years project monitoring was abandoned in the state. The administration restored it by establishing the Project Monitoring Bureau in line with the Islamic principle of self critical appraisal. The reports of the bureau have assisted the government in correcting mistakes and lapses. This is one of the most important initiatives in this republic that ensures accountability but nobody appreciates it in Kano because it is mostly an illiterate and backward community. This institutional reform was aimed at achieving one of the broader goals of Shari'ah implementation that involves the imbibing of modern bureaucratic techniques that are in agreement with Islamic principles and values. There was no such resourcefulness in Zamfara State which lacks the sophistication of Kano.

For more than ten years the appropriation law in Kano State was never published in fact it was never published throughout the last PDP administration and that government was not guided by any norms of civilized budgetary discipline. The Shekarau Administration published its two appropriation laws nobody values in a society with limited level of education. It is also the only administration in the country that gives its monthly balance of accounts. It adheres strictly to the budget. Contracts are only awarded when funds are available. The preceding administration left behind contract liabilities worth over N3 billion while it inherited less than N130 million liabilities as acknowledged in their official publication. Kano State account is now always in credit ready to pay contractual obligations. This transparent behavior of Kano State Government under the leadership of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau earned it the respect and admiration of even the Federal Government which has been desperately looking for exemplary good governance to show case to the world because of Nigeria's bartered image. President Olusegun Obasanjo was reported in a TV program to have said that there are only three honest surviving Nigerian leaders, himself, General Buhari and Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau. Instead of this to be a source of encouragement for the Islamists the extremists Wahhabis are now in a dogged war against Shekarau in Kano and they are now in alliance with the decadent PDP. The Wahhabis in their narrowness are not aware that the strategy is designed to destroy all traces of Islamism for eventual wholesale secularization. Ahmad Sani does not believe in good governance and procedural discipline he rules like an autocrat.

During the last PDP administration in Kano there was deliberate attempt to destroy the bureaucracy, encourage brigandage and the whims of the governor who was assuming an autocratic status. That governor sacked teachers of public schools including science teachers which should be considered a crime in a society that is suffering from the highest rate of manpower deficiency in the whole country. Kano State earned a high reputation of innovativeness because of the science secondary schools but there came a governor who was committed to the destruction of that legacy by sacking science teachers because they were contract workers. The state was heading to a precipice which the ordinary people could not discern and there was constant propaganda in the state media that Government was the best thing that ever happened to the state. There was also the deliberate attempt to destroy the legacy bequeathed by other leaders in order to glorify that administration's trivialities such as the renaming of the street along the government house as well as the state television from CTV to STV were employed.

As a heartless governor he refused to pay the workers he sacked their entitlements as well as those of others who served the state. One of the first acts of the Shekarau administration was to pay the pension and gratuity arrears that caused so much social disharmony because of over 9000 families who were deprived as a result of that irresponsibility. Those who did not get their retirement benefits in the last two decades were all paid in less than a year by the Shekarau administration all within the broader strategy of Shari'ah implementation an all-embracing system of social justice. Prior to the assumption of office by Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau there were constant agitations and apprehensions by the deprived pensioners. They held several prayer sessions at the famous Kano Central Mosque and at the highly respected Gidan Rumfa or Emirs Palace. Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso in his high handedness was even reported to have said that he has dealt with the living therefore the dying pensioners cannot do anything to him.

The PDP administration of Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso spent more than one billion naira for the governor's luxury by renovating the Government House Kano at over N56O million and building a Governor's Lodge in Abuja at over N700 million yet it refused to pay the entitlements of the poor people who served the state. The Shekarau Administration paid over one billion naira in pension and gratuity arrears in less than one year. This is part of the initiative to properly implement the Shari'ah in a socially harmonious environment.

One of the most assertive acts of Governor Ahmed Sani Yarima was the implementation of the hadd. His trademark of Shari'ah is amputation and not compassion and strategies of implementation of Islamic models of social justice such as mass employment, poverty alleviation and qualitative education. Governor Ibrahim Shekarau on the other hand started by mass employment in less than one hundred days over 2000 workers were employed as casual workers to clean Kano City. Also with high sense of responsibility the government went ahead and employed more than 2000 skilled workers as teachers and medical workers. It should be recalled that the previous administration sacked teachers and medical workers in order to finance its grandeur projects, which it now flaunts as achievements. In the two years of the Shekarau administration about 10000 skilled and unskilled citizens have been offered jobs in Kano. The Shekarau administration considers gainful and secured employment as one of the best ways of ensuring peace and stability. While the Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso was more interested in ensuring fuel scarcity so that the youths will engage in black market the Shekarau administration on the other hand introduced the most thorough Youth Development Policy in northern Nigeria. Over 2000 youths were targeted and they received leadership training that incorporated Islamic moral enhancement and they are now undergoing skill acquisition.

Although most of the northern states are educationally disadvantaged none of the states that are implementing Shari'ah reforms including Zamfara State under Ahmed Sani has made any major effort to improve Islamic Education as well as rehabilitate the dilapidating infrastructure of the secondary schools. As part of the effort to properly implement the Shari'ah the Shekarau Administration introduced a very comprehensive reform program of the Islamic Education in northern Nigeria which has now been adopted by other northern states. Previously northern elites always lament that begging should be banned but there was no program of systematic intervention to boost the economic capacities of the Qur'anic teachers. Kano State has over 20000 Qur'anic and Islamiyya Schools and less than half were registered. Hence when the Shekarau team assumed office, enumerators were drafted and they surveyed all these schools in the state which was like a census of more than a quarter of the total population. It was based on the data from that survey that the government made its plans and began to execute them. The needs of the schools and the teachers were assessed. Several training workshops were organized for the Qur'anic School teachers for the first time in decades. Some were even given computer training to assist them in their Qur'anic and Arabic Studies which they could use to develop their skills in several areas including calligraphy or zayana (in Hausa) a very popular art. The government also intervened with poverty alleviating measures such as providing ox-driven ploughs and fertilizer for farmers as well as sowing machines for tailors. In the first year over N90 million was spent on these programs. On the other hand Governor Ahmed Sani Yarima is very prominent in empowering the prominent Ulama from various parts of Nigeria many of them troop to Zamfara because of his generosity It should also be noted that his state has one of the highest number of child beggars many of whom find their way to Kano where they study with various Mallams. One of the major grievances of the Wahhabi Ulama against Governor Ibrahim Shekarau is that he is not as generous as Governor Yarima. Many of the outspoken big time Wahhabi Ulama have benefited from the Zamfara Governor some of them were even given cars. This is one of the reasons why some of these Ulama are now against Shekarau.

The other reason why some of the Wahhabi Ulama are against Shekarau is their exclusive tendency. They had wanted to appropriate him and get the plumb Shari'ah jobs that attract prestige but Kano being a big city with several Ulama, a small fish that could be a big fish elsewhere is nothing in Kano. The disgruntled Wahhabis have only two Juma'at Mosques out of the over twenty in Kano City, when two of their Imams and their leader resigned from the Hisbah Board and Shari'ah Commission they made headlines. The BBC Hausa Service kept the story alive because their correspondent is a Wahhabi a fact unknown to his bosses in London. There was absolutely no logic in over blowing the resignation of three members out of over thirty members except for the sake of the mischief that was intended. It should also be noted that the BBC Hausa Service and Freedom Radio in Kano have no sense of public responsibility whatsoever. They don't have the progress of Kano or Northern Nigeria in their philosophy all they are after is propaganda in the case of BBC and money in the case of Radio Freedom. The Wahhabi Ulama accused Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau of lukewarm attitude towards Shari'ah because he has not been implementing the hadd as they wanted it. They want him be militant and hypocritical as the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia. Beer parlors and hotels should be attacked and alcohol destroyed thereafter the government should pay the proprietors as they did in the previous regime. Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau on the other hand believes that cordial working relationship should be established with the police to properly implement the ban on alcohol. The State Government demolished the sports club and stopped the illegal dramas at one of the theatres which are owned by the government that were active during the previous regime. This has been confirmed by anti-government writer who was defending Freedom Radio in an essay in the Weekly Trust (24^th June-1^st July 2005). These actions of the Shekarau administration are not satisfactory as far as the Wahhabis are concerned because they want to push the state to the wall and bring about religious turbulence so that state of emergency would be declared in Kano.

As noted earlier Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau has always emphasized that human development within the framework of the Shari'ah is the focus of his administration. No other state in Nigeria has pursued employment generation policies as his administration but this is not a source of commendation from the Wahhabis. Even in implementing the Shari'ah employment generation was considered because the singular fact of engaging over 8000 people by providing paid jobs in the Hisbah Board is enough for any sensible Mallam to give the government a break. But as usual with Wahhabi sadism they gave no consideration that the formation of an organization from the scratch is a meticulous process that requires professionalism and the proper bureaucratic procedure. To the Wahhabis, Shari'ah is only complete when there is implementation of the hadd with qausi-sadistic alacrity in a mob fashion to attract the populism of the mostly illiterate population. They have no time for learning and training of Hisbah or even the welfare packages provided by the Zakat and Hubusi Board. There was no complete Shari'ah implementation in more than a century since the British started its piece meal destruction but the Wahhabis want it restored in two years by Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau. Many of them are totally ill-informed about the process of modern governance they have never been in engaged in any public responsibility except that they took the loudspeaker after completing their half baked university education in Saudi Arabia. Now they want to steer a whole society without any experience and they are promoted by the media which is interested in de-harmonizing the society. It is only people with such a mindset that would ever attempt to bring down a government that has provided more jobs to the jobless than any other government. The leader of these Wahhabis was reported as raising the hand of a politician as their gubernatorial candidate in 2007 because they believe the people of Kano are there for a ride.

Governor Ahmed Sani Yarima has a good fraternal relationship with the disgruntled Wahhabis of Kano largely because of his reaching out to all Ulama and Muslim activists with the intention of putting them in a bag for a Presidential bargain in 2007. Governor Yarima needs another political adventure since the Zamfara era has come to a close. Governor Ibrahim Shekarau on the other hand believes that Shari'ah implementation needs institutions and the cultivating of the people to carry on the total restoration process. This is very crucial to him because he has been associated with Islamic activities for more than three decades at every point of his life not just at foray of partisan politics. The two models and experiences are lessons for the Muslims of northern Nigeria for improvement.