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The
World of Northern Nigerian Women
By Muyiwa
Akintunde, Abuja, Nigeria
The weather
is chilly but the bumpy road to Kurami in the remote northern Nigerian
district of Funtua is so sandy that the reporter and his rider arrive
on the motorbike dust-caked. To arrive here, you have to travel
over 600 kilometres from Abuja, the Nigerian capital to Funtua,
in northwestern Nigeria and then pick a bus to Tulfa from where
no vehicle is willing to dare the decrepit road to Kurami. It’s
getting close to 7 p.m. and the whole village is in some panic.
This is a muslim community and we are in the month of Ramadan when
devote faithful abstain from food and vices all day. It’s time to
rush to the mosque to offer prayers and thereafter settle down heavy
meals to break the fast. This is Amina Lawal’s village but you will
not see her sex mates in the mosques.
They are confined
to the inner chambers of the homes where only their husbands or
his trusted associates have access. Amina is not in the village.
Neither her lead counsel Aliyu Musa Yawuri nor the villagers would
volunteer information on her whereabouts. “She’s doing very fine,”
Yawuri told CRONICA in Abuja. He is acting on the instructions of
the Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA),
the advocacy group that engaged his services for Amina, that the
woman be kept away from Islamic extremists who may want to execute
the death sentence passed on her by the Sharia court. Amina’s appeal
may be heard in December after the Ramadan. The extremists are truly
alive and well. In Kaduna, on the way to Funtua and Kurami, none
of the photojournalists would agree to accompany the reporter on
the mission to take shots of Amina’s village.
The passion
over a newspaper report, which muslims considered disparaging of
Prophet Mohammed, is thick. Carcasses litter the major highways
with some houses still smouldering from the aftermath of the bloody
religious riots of the last two weeks. “This is not the time for
such an adventure,” declares a photojournalist who had accompanied
the reporter on many assignments in the past. “As journalists, we
have to keep our heads low because the muslims are angry that a
newspaper blasphemed their leader and they are up in war against
any of us who venture into their den.” In Kurami, the mere mention
of Amina keeps heads turning in the direction of the reporter. They
look at him with trepidation, as if he’s Osama bin Laden arriving
White House in Washington D C. No one is willing to lead the visitor
to the residence of the most important figure in the community.
It’s impossible to think of anyone in the village as an interpreter
between the reporter and his ultimate target. It’s getting dark.
The motorbike
rider and his passenger wander around the village that is dotted
with mini-huts thatched with palm leaves and an array of well-positioned
pots on a neat and large expanse of land. Even a four-footer has
to bend to get into the houses. But the houses are well spaced which
provides good ventilation day and night. The reporter’s companion
is worried that the longer we hang around the village the greater
the risk of being mobbed by young men who consider themselves Sharia
law enforcers. Amina and her ilk who get pregnant outside wedlock
are regarded as taboo in this typical northern village where Islam
is a way of life. It is the fear of this terrifying gang that is
making Amina campaigners shield her away from the public glare.
“When the appeal opens she will appear in the public,” says Mariam
Imhanobe, head of WRAPA’s legal department. WRAPA with headquarters
in a quiet neighbourhood in the Nigerian capital city, Abuja has
been in the vanguard of the Amina Lawal campaign for justice.
Former Nigerian
First Lady Mrs Fati Abubakar who retired as a high court judge a
few years ago leads its board of trustees. As in the rest of the
muslim north, women in Amina’s village work on the farm with the
face covered up. They must not be seen in public with any man who
is not their husband or a relative. They hew wood for the fire places,
make the fire, fill sand and fetch water for the cooking processing.
Widows observe four-month mourning period in seclusion, talking
to no one and sitting in a place. After the mourning, the bereaved
woman is free to remarry within or outside the family of his late
husband. Literacy level is generally low in the north compared to
the far advanced south. But it is even worse among northern women.
Amina cannot speak a word of her country’s lingua franca, English.
You have to speak with her through an interpreter. But in many part
of northern Nigeria, adult education centres allow married women
complete their studies and learn one skill or the other.
Presidential
aspirant Abubakar Rimi donated 10 sewing machines and five knitting
machines to a centre in Kano. He had established the centre in 1981
as governor of the northwestern state of Kano. “Women education
must be encouraged, especially at a time like this when bread winners
are frequently retired, some sacked and others victimised. Educated
housewives can easily assist to sustain their families before their
husbands get back on their feet,” Rimi preached. In the crusade
to save her life, which the international community is deeply involved
in, Amina herself is not so unwavering. She had once said: “God
is in control. I believe He will vindicate me.” Her lawyer Yawuri
told CRONICA: “She is a muslim and she has indicated on a number
of occasions that she resolved to leave everything with Allah. And
therefore she has a free mind. She does not suffer any anxiety.
I do know that
she’s been suffering from some ailments that I cannot now recall.
She’s been receiving treatment back there in her community. She
said she’s been suffering the ailments for quite some time.” If
she loses ultimately, Amina’s death sentence by an Islamic Sharia
court for adultery will be carried out in 2004 after she must have
weaned Wasila, her 10-month-old son who is the product of her illicit
affair with her boyfriend Yahaya Mahmud. The Islamic code provides
that she be buried alive with only her head shooting out, and stoned
to death. Her legal team believes that things would not come to
this sorry state. “We are very optimistic that we have a very good
case, from the point of procedure and the point of evidence and
from the point of Islamic law. We’ve done everything humanly possible;
conducted our researches, consulted legal experts to ensure the
success of the case,” Yawuri declares. The Nigerian government had
pledged that Amina would not die. That commitment was made to pacify
the protesting participating countries in the now botched Miss World
beauty pageant earlier scheduled for Nigeria. The preliminary stages
were being concluded when religious riots in parts of the volatile
country forced the organised to shift the last stage to London.
The bloody clashes were sparked off by a Nigerian newspaper’s commentary
considered blasphemous of Prophet Mohammed by Nigeria muslims.
The event was
moved to London “in the overall interests of Nigeria and the contestants,”
announced Guy Murray-Bruce whose Silverbird Organisation had won
the rights to stage the show. Islamic groups say beauty pageants
promote promiscuity and should not have been staged in the holy
month of Ramadan. The original grand finale date was shifted from
November 30 to December 7 to allow muslims concluded their annual
30-day abstinence and celebrate Eid-el-Fitri. ThisDay, the offending
Nigerian daily, had suggested that Prophet Mohammed would have endorsed
the pageant. “What would Mohammed think? In all honesty, he would
probably have chosen a wife from among them (the beauty queens from
92 nations).” The newspaper immediately offered apology in a brief
column on its front page on Monday and Tuesday and following with
a detailed message of regret two days later. At that time, Kaduna,
the political capital city of northern Nigerian, was already boiling.
Over 200 deaths were reported and about 30,000 people displaced
in Kaduna. In London, Miss World organisers face threat of cancellation.
It was difficult securing a suitable venue and critics flood the
media with biting comments. In an article in The Guardian of London
entitled:
“The show goes
on, so does the killing,” Muriel Gray wrote: “If I were Ken Livingstone
(Mayor of London), I’d have refused to let it go ahead. I am especially
ashamed that Miss England and Miss Scotland are still taking part.
I would have thought that they had more sense. These girls will
be wearing swimwear dripping with blood.” International conspiracy
was at work. A British tabloid spearheaded a boggy amputation story.
In the end, The Sun celebrated the cancellation: “The Sun rescues
92 Miss World girls.” It wrote: “The Sun yesterday rescued the 92
Miss World beauties holed up in massacre-ravaged Nigeria. We dashed
to their aid after terrified contestants – including the four British
hopefuls rang our newsdesk and begged: ‘Get us out of here (Nigeria).’”
Murray-Bruce blamed the international press for the disaster that
befell Nigeria. He said the international media’s highlighting of
an “isolated riot in Kaduna” raised concern on the safety of the
contestants.
“The international
press blamed the riots on Miss World beauty pageant, but that’s
not the case.” While in Nigeria, the pageant contestants expressed
delight at the warmth of their hosts. “Nigeria is safe for us and
we cannot abandon the Miss World contest midway.” Miss Columbia
said: I enjoy a lot to be here. The people have been friendly and
I do like in future to come back to Nigeria. I would like to tell
my people to visit Nigeria.” The situation was compounded by the
Fatwa (Islamic death sentence) pronounced on the writer of the “offensive
article” by deputy governor of the northwestern Zamfara state Aliyu
Shinkafi on the order of his boss, Governor Ahmed Sani Yerima who
is on a religious mission to Saudi Arabia.
The new wave
of Sharia code was first launched in that state late 1999. The Nigerian
government quickly condemned the death sentence, while 1986 Nobel
Laureate Wole Soyinka thundered: “Deputy Governor Shinkafi’s call
for the death of a Nigerian citizen under a so-called fatwa makes
him a common criminal who should be hauled up before the courts
and charged with incitement to murder. If, wherever she is, any
harm comes to the menaced journalist, let Deputy Governor Shinkafi
understand that there will be no hiding place for him on this globe
and he will be brought to justice as a common felon, no matter how
long it takes.” If the international campaign must eventually save
Amina’s neck, her lawyer counsels that there should be a change
of approach. Yawuri says: “I have always held the view that the
international community should be away of the sensibilities of the
Nigerian muslim community.
The Nigerian
muslim community on grounds of morality feel that it is wrong to
hold the pageant. Granted that this matter involves human life,
I do not feel that this case should attract international outcry
the way it did because other states implementing Sharia are daily
trying Sharia cases. At the end of the day, the outcry may not really
serve her case because she is a muslim, she lives in a muslim community,
she believes in Islam, her community believes in Islam and any opinion
that has the effect of saying that Islamic law is barbaric or uncivilised
is not likely to go down well with Amina or her immediate community.
I would have been more comfortable if the opinion being expressed
by the international community is that indigent prisoners should
be accorded free legal counsel because almost 95 per cent of the
people who appear before Sharia courts don’t have the wherewithal
to engage the services of a counsel. That would have helped in a
greater degree than portraying Islamic faith in the way the international
community is doing. I don’t believe that is helping her case anyway.
” This article
was first published in Spanish in the December 1, 2002 edition of
CRONICA, the Sunday magazine of El Mundo newspaper
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