Nigeria’s Supreme Court held its first hearing on Thursday in a landmark blasphemy case that defence lawyers hope will result in limits on the application of sharia law.
Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, a Sufi Muslim musician, received a death sentence from a sharia court in northern Kano State in 2020 after he shared song lyrics considered insulting to the Prophet Mohammed.
The Kano State High Court later overturned the sentence but ordered a retrial — a decision his legal team is seeking to block while pursuing a broader ruling on sharia punishments, including death penalties for blasphemy and adultery.
“All aspects of the sharia penal code that violate the constitution and Nigeria’s international obligations should not remain on our statute books,” lawyer Kola Alapinni told reporters after the court granted his team more time to submit their appeal.
Although Nigeria’s federal government remains secular, sharia law operates alongside common law in 12 predominantly Muslim northern states.
Harsh sentences under Islamic law are rarely imposed and almost never carried out. Death sentences for blasphemy or adultery handed down in the past 25 years have been overturned or delayed pending appeal.
However, vigilante groups in the socially conservative north have sometimes taken the law into their own hands in cases of alleged blasphemy.
As the case progressed to Nigeria’s highest court, civil and religious rights advocates from the United States, European Union, and United Nations expressed support for Sharif-Aminu.
In April, the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) ruled that Kano’s death sentence for blasphemy was “excessive and disproportionate.” Nigeria has yet to comply with the decision.
Sharif-Aminu allegedly shared lyrics in a WhatsApp group claiming that a religious leader he followed was more pious than the Prophet Mohammed, Alapinni told AFP.
Lamido Abba Sorondinki, counsel for the Kano state government, told reporters, “Anyone who utters words that harm the integrity of the Holy Prophet will be punished.”
Standing beside him, Alapinni laughed and replied: “My learned friend is not the Supreme Court — that’s just his opinion.”
Sharif-Aminu remains in detention as his appeal proceeds.