KANO, Nigeria: The Sharia police chief in Kano state in northern Nigeria announced his resignation on Friday after the governor accused his force in the state of offensive attacks and a crackdown on social media influencers.
Sheikh Aminu al-Dawlah resigned a day after Governor Abba Kabir Youssef accused the Sharia police, known as Hisbah, of attacking suspects and inhumane practices during operations against hotels, brothels and immoral shops.
The divide underscores how social media influencers are managed in northern Nigeria’s conservative Muslim community, with clerics opting for a hardline approach and politicians favouring a more conciliatory engagement.
“I apologise to the governor who is infuriated by what we have done and hereby resign,” Daurawa said in a video posted on social media Friday.
He said that his aim was “instilling moral sanity” and that he tried encouraging filmmakers and TikTok users to “sanitise” their content to “make them tally with religious and cultural values”.
“Some of them have continued with the immoral acts and we have done what we believe is the best in that regard,” Daurawa added.
He was apparently referring to the arrest and trial in court of social media influencers who posted half-nude videos and other obscenities deemed immoral.
Murja Kunya, a TikTok celebrity with a huge following, is on trial for immoral videos on social media, and popular singer Ado Gwanja is wanted by a judge for releasing a song that Hisba deems immoral.
Kano is one of the 12 Muslim-majority northern states where Islamic Sharia law is enforced alongside customary law.
The state government established Hisbah in 2000 to enforce Sharia law and is tasked with raiding pubs and brothels and cracking down on all forms of immorality.
The force also has the power to sanction filmmakers and social media influencers for content it deems to violate Sharia ethics.
‘Serious mistake’
During a meeting with Muslim clerics in his office a day earlier, Yusuf chided the Hisbah for high-handedness in carrying out raids that endangered the lives of suspects and exposed them to abuse.
“I saw a video clip that disturbed me… Young men and women were pursued with sticks to make them trip and fall,” Yusuf told the gathering.
“They were being seized like goats and thrown into vans… We think this is a serious mistake,” Yusuf added.
He called on a change in Hisbah strategy also warning that such strictness would only harden the young people need to be reformed.
In order to apprehend individuals and turn them over to the appropriate authorities for prosecution, Yusuf proposed that Hisbah, police, and paramilitary civil defence forces conduct coordinated raids on suspected immoral locations.
He called for a change in the strategy and warned that such inhumane behaviour and harshness will only harden the youth who need to be reformed.
Yusuf was of the view that Hisbeh, paramilitary civil defence personnel and police jointly search suspected immoral places, nab the suspects and hand them over to the relevant authorities for prosecution.
