Some people in Nigeria’s second
city have been picked up for sporting hair styles inspired by prominent
international football players, said Mohammed Yusuf Yola, spokesman for
Kano’s sharia police, or Hisbah.
Others were thrown in jail and
fined for wearing their trousers too low on their waists, mimicking a
style that became prominent in the 1990s, partly through the influence
of some American hip hop artists.
The arrests have followed an
order by Kano state Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso to cleanse the city of
immoral practices and the trend is set to continue in the weeks ahead,
said Hisbah Director-General Abba Sufi.
The Hisbah is a state police force funded by state government and is not part of the federal police.
“We
have arrested 150 men and wom
en in the past week, including prostitutes
and their boyfriends, transvestites, alcoholics and those engaged in
indecent dressing in contravention of the sharia legal code,” Yola told
AFP.
Religion has repeatedly been used as a political issue in
Kano and the governor, seen as a moderate, has been accused by rivals of
lacking commitment to sharia’s guidelines.
Yola insisted the
operation was launched to reverse disturbing trends in the city of some
five million people and is targetting people of various faiths.
“Those arrested include Muslims and non-Muslims and we treat them equally because this is about morality,” he said.
Kano, like the rest of northern Nigeria, is majority Muslim, but the city has a sizeable Christian minority.
Some
of those arrested have been released after paying fines ranging from
10,000 naira ($63, 46 euros) to 15,000 naira, Yola said.
“Those
who could not afford the fine are being kept in prison,” he added, but
he would not specify the number of people currently being held.
At
the restoration of civilian rule in 1999, 12 northern states, including
Kano, formally adopted sharia, but the Islamic legal system has been
unevenly applied.
The Hisbah was formed in 2001, largely to
enforce sharia, but the force has other duties, including some community
development work and alternative dispute resolution.
The southern half of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is mostly Christian.
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