Mob kills student over ‘blasphemy’ in northern Nigerian college

A college in the northwestern Nigerian state of Sokoto has been indefinitely shut after a female student in the school was killed over alleged blasphemy.

The yet-to-be-identified student was accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad, which led to a mobbing that resulted in her death on Thursday, according to reports from local media. Her body was also allegedly burned afterwards within the school premises.

Sokoto state’s Governor Aminu Tambuwal ordered the closure of the school and directed the Ministry of Higher Education and relevant security agencies to investigate the incident. This came after outrage on social media against the killing, the state’s Commissioner of Information Isa Bajini Galadanchi told reporters.

“The governor has called on the people of the state to remain calm and maintain peace as the government would take appropriate actions on the investigation findings,” Bajini said.

The school’s management described the incident as an “early morning students rampage” in a circular dated May 12 and directed all students to “vacate the college campus immediately”.

Nigerians are using Twitter to protest the killing, calling on the government to ensure that justice was served.

“Murderers of Christian woman in Sokoto must be arrested & punished!” Farooq Kperogi, a journalism professor at Kennesaw State University, said in a tweet.

“Sadly, this sort of consequence-free murder of people in the name of avenging “blasphemy” has been going on for far too long in the North. This must stop! The monsters in that video are easily identifiable. The Sokoto State government must immediately apprehend them and make an example of them. If that doesn’t happen, this kind of murderous barbarism will continue,” he added.

Popular human rights activist Aisha Yesufu, herself a Muslim, also condemned the act saying “no one has the right in anyway whatsoever to kill another”.

Cases of mob attacks against alleged blasphemy happen intermittently in Nigeria, as “many Shariah laws in northern Nigeria continue to criminalise blasphemy and result in harsh punishments for blasphemers,” according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The north of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is majority Muslim while the south is predominantly Christian.

The country’s Criminal Code prohibits any act that publicly insults any religion and stipulates a prison sentence of up to two years, while there are Islamic laws against blasphemy by sharia courts in 12 northern states.

The latter are “exclusively concerned with actions considered insulting to Muslims, the punishment for which can be as severe as execution”, according to the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University.

“Most blasphemy accusations are made by Muslims against Christians and frequently trigger mob violence before any official actions like police arrests and judicial trials can be taken. Blasphemy is thus primarily a driver of sectarian violence rather than legal proceedings in the Nigerian context,” the Berkley Center said.

In April, a Nigerian court sentenced an atheist to 24 years in prison for making social media posts considered blasphemous against Islam. Mubarak Bala, a former Muslim, was sentenced after pleading guilty following a lengthy trial during which he spent nearly two years in prison.

In 2020, a sharia court sentenced Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, a 22-year-old Muslim gospel musician, to death for committing blasphemy in a series of private WhatsApp messages. 

Al Jazeera

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Nigeria’s ‘Incredible Kids’ Gain Popularity on Internet

A Nigerian dance group with a disabled member has suddenly gained popularity after posting their videos to social media.

One video has tens of thousands of views. The dancers are children as young as five years old. They are called “The Incredible Kids.”

Their videos have been posted to the video sharing service Instagram. The children dance quickly to popular Nigerian songs. And they are busy performing in cities like Abuja and Lagos, Nigeria.

One dancer is 15-year-old Joshua Anum. Joshua has a disability. He lost his arm after an accident at the age of five. Joshua’s father left him and his 8 brothers and sisters. They did not have much to eat when growing up. But that has not stopped Joshua from dancing, and it has changed his life.

"Before I came here I used to go to parties, I used to fight anywhere I went and I was not going to school," said Joshua. "Since coming here I have started school and I read and dance.

Vera Anum is Joshua’s mother. She said that she was very sad when the doctors removed his arm. But now she is happy and proud of him.

"Everybody thought...he will not be useful in life. Our people at home said he is finished because somebody whose hand has been amputated from childhood, what can he do?” Vera said.

She said, “See him today, at least the whole world is seeing him, watching him how he is performing."

Maliki Emmanuel is the dance group’s creator. Emmanuel said that many of the dancers do not have a good family life, so he has offered them support and a home.

The students often gather around Emmanuel in his chair at his home and watch music videos together so they can get new ideas for the dance moves and performances.

Emmanuel hopes to expand his group with more children who need a home and love to dance. "I can teach them then we will bring them to the crew,” Emmanuel said.

Money from the dancers’ performances helps pay the cost of the children’s education.

By Faith Pirlo

Abraham Achirga reported this story for Reuters. Faith Pirlo adapted it for VOA Learning English.

VOA

Ex-Nigerian President Jonathan dissociates self from 2023 bid

Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan will not seek the governing party ticket to contest presidential elections next year, his spokesman has said, ending months of speculation of a planned return to national politics.

A group of supporters from northern Nigeria had bought nomination forms for Jonathan to take part in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party’s primary elections scheduled for later this month.

But in a statement late on Monday, his spokesman Ikechukwu Eze said the former president did not authorise the purchase of the nomination forms, a requirement for candidates to take part in primary elections.

Jonathan was president between 2010 and 2015, under the People’s Democratic Party, now in opposition.

“While we appreciate the overwhelming request by a cross-section of Nigerians, for Dr Jonathan to make himself available for the 2023 presidential election, we wish to state that he has not in any way, committed himself to this request,” Eze said.

“We wish to categorically state that Dr Jonathan was not aware of this bid and did not authorise it.”

It is common for Nigerian politicians to switch sides during elections, but it would have been a surprising about-turn if the APC had decided to embrace a candidate it once derided as incompetent when he was president.

With President Muhammadu Buhari due to step down next year after serving two full terms, the race to succeed him is wide open with more than 20 governing party candidates registering to contest the primary vote.

Registration will end on Tuesday and a party committee will screen the candidates, who include Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, former Lagos state governor and party heavyweight Bola Tinubu, Minister of Petroleum Timipre Sylva and several ministers and state governors. Central bank governor, Godwin Emefiele, is also making an unprecedented presidential run.

But the field is expected to narrow once political horse-trading starts, which will lead to some candidates dropping out.

Al Jazeera

‘Bandits’ kill 48 in northwest Nigeria attacks: Local officials

Gunmen have killed at least 48 people in attacks on three villages in northwest Nigeria’s Zamfara state, a local official and residents said.

Dozens of gunmen on motorcycles entered the three villages in coordinated attacks, shooting people as they tried to flee, Aminu Suleiman, administrative head of Bakura district where the villages are located, said on Sunday.

“A total of 48 people were killed by the bandits in the three villages [Damri, Kalahe and Sabon Garin] attacked Friday afternoon,” Suleiman said.

The worst hit was Damri, where the gunmen killed 32 people, Suleiman told AFP. The victims included patients at a hospital.

“They burned a police patrol vehicle, killing two security personnel.”

Since 2010, gangs of bandits have run riot in vast swaths of northern Nigeria, but only in the last few years has the crisis ballooned into national prominence in Africa’s most populous country.

The term “bandits” is a catchall for the criminal gangs masterminding frequent bouts of abduction, maiming, sexual violence and killings of citizens across northern parts of the country.

Data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project shows that bandits were responsible for more than 2,600 civilian deaths in 2021 – many more than those attributed to rebel groups Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province in the same year – and almost three times the number of victims in 2020.

Troops deployed in the three villagers raided on Friday by bandits engaged the attackers in a gun battle, forcing them to withdraw, Suleiman said.

Abubakar Maigoro, a Damri resident, said the gunmen who attacked his village went on a shooting spree before looting livestock and food supplies.

“We buried 48 people killed in the attacks,” Maigoro said.

Nigerian police did not respond to requests for comment.

The criminals have recently stepped up their assaults despite military operations against their hideouts.

The so-called bandits maintain camps in a vast forest, straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states.

In the past two months, they have attacked a train travelling between the capital Abuja and Kaduna city, kidnapping dozens of passengers; massacred more than 100 villagers; and killed a dozen members of vigilante groups.

In early January, gunmen killed more than 200 people in Zamfara state.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, a former army commander, has been under intense pressure to end bandit violence before he leaves office next year at the end of his two terms in power.

Buhari called on security forces to “do all that can be done to bring an immediate end to the horrific killings”.

“The rural folk in Zamfara and elsewhere must be allowed to have peace,” he said in a statement on Sunday.

Officials in Zamfara say more than 700,000 people have been displaced by the violence, prompting the opening of eight camps to accommodate them.


The escalating violence has also forced thousands to flee to neighbouring Niger, with over 11,000 seeking refuge in November, according to the United Nations.

AFP