An upper Shariah court in Kano state has sentenced a 13-year-old boy for 10 years in jail.
The boy, Umar Farouq, was jailed for making derogatory statements towards Allah in an argument with a freind.
Farouq was convicted on August 10, 202o, by Aliyu Kanu, the same judge who sentenced a Musician, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, to death for blaspheming Prophet Mohammed.
Baba-Jibo Ibrahim, spokesman for Kano Region Justice Ministry, said the court handed down the death sentence as enshrined in Islamic laws based on irrefutable evidence and the convict’s admission of guilt.
Although Farouq is a minor by Nigerian law and should not have been tried as an adult, Islamic canons regard anyone who has begun puberty as an adult.
Kano, a predominantly Muslim northern Nigerian state, has Islamic Sharia courts that function alongside civil courts and introduced Sharia law in 2000.
President of the African Bar Association, Mr Hannibal Uwaifo, described the verdict on Farouq as unconstitutional, calling on the Attorney General of the Federation to stop the Sharia court from making a mockery of Nigerian on the international scene.
Uwaifo said, “I call on the Attorney General of the Federation to step in and to stop this kind of sectional court from making mockery of Nigeria. This is a country where people are stealing billions of naira and being given a pat on the back; then you say someone committed blasphemy, according to your own religion, and then you sentence him to death or sentence a teenager to 10 years’ imprisonment. I think we should stop making a laughing stock.”
