—Kano Islamic Cleric React
By Abdussamad Ahmad
Kano is one of the States in Northern Nigeria that in 1999, assented to into law, Islamic legal system — Shari’a. This came after numerous calls by various pressure-groups, influencers and public opinion-makers, politician, cleric and intellectuals.
Kano complemented this development by establishing Shari’a courts, State Shari’a Commission and Hizba moral police among others, to enforce the enacted laws drawn from primary and secondry Islamic source of shari’a.
Since then, the state is guided by the shari’a principles despites setback and challenges.
Thus, it come with less surprise to some, when on Wednesday morning, a story circulate social media with the title ‘Bill to ban female driving in Kano underway’. However, to others, who usually expresses fear on the type of shari’a in operation, the bill is consider anti-modernism.
This newspaper SKYDAILY fact-check the story.
Firstly, the opening paragraph states clearly, the Kano state government draft the bill in conjuction with council of Ulema. Council of Ulema is an unbrella of Kano Islamic scholars.
Kano council of ulema consist Islamic scholars from all the major sects exisiting in Kano — Qadiriyya, Tijjaniyya, JIBWIS and the ahl Sunnah. But names mentioned in the purported news reflects only a section of them from the Izala/ahl-sunnah. This is a point to critically invalidate the claim as a major decision like this can not be done without major consensus.
Secondly, Sheikh Abdallah Usman G/kaya the news quoted him to have “vociferously canvassed for the total ban, as according to him “allowing women driving in the state representa the darkest momenta in our lives as muslims” “ In a facebook post, Dr. G/Kaya falsify the story writing “Be ware of fake news. There is a concocted story in circulation alleging that Kano state government and Council of Ulema is preparing bill to ban women from driving.”
“In the end, we caution citizens to desist from further belief in stories about us [council of ulema] that did not emanate from our mouth or our undersigned social media handles” Dr. G/Kaya concluded.
Prof. Salisu Shehu, another mentioned Islamic scholar in the news, when contacted, describe the story as “completely false” meant to cause confusion.
Further media analysis reveals the story may not be unconnected to the re-arraignment of controvertial Kano scholar Sheikh Abduljabbar Kabara, cooked to divert attention and create confusion owing to the fact the scholars named are his known antagonists.
