Police enforcing Islamic law in the city of Kano publicly
destroyed some 240,000 bottles of beer on Wednesday, the latest move in a wider
crackdown on behaviour deemed “immoral” in the area.
The banned booze had been confiscated from trucks coming
into the city in recent weeks, said officials from the Hisbah, the patrol
tasked with enforcing the strict Islamic law, known as sharia.
Kano’s Hisbah chief Aminu Daurawa said at the
bottle-breaking ceremony he had “the ardent hope this will bring an end to the
consumption of such prohibited substances”.
A large bulldozer smashed the bottles to shouts of “Allahu
Ahkbar” (God is Great) from supporters outside the Hisbah headquarters in Kano,
the largest city in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north.
Kegs containing more than 8,000 litres of a local alcoholic
brew called “burukutu” and 320,000 cigarettes were also destroyed.
“We hope this measure will help restore the tarnished image
of Kano,” said Daurawa.
Since September, the Hisbah have launched sweeping
crackdowns and made hundreds of arrests in Kano following a state-government
directive to cleanse the commercial hub of so-called “immoral” practices.
The 9,000-strong moral police force works alongside the
civilian police but also has other duties, including community development work
and dispute resolution.
Sharia was reintroduced across northern Nigeria in 2001, but
the code has been unevenly applied.
Alcohol is typically easy to find in Kano, including at
hotels and bars in neighbourhoods like Sabon Gari, inhabited by the city’s
sizeable Christian minority.
But the Hisbah boss vowed that this was set to change.
“We hereby send warning to unrepentant offenders that Hisbah
personnel will soon embark on an operation into every nook and corner of (Kano)
state to put an end to the sale and consumption of alcohol and all other
intoxicants,” Daurawa said.
People accused of engaging in prostitution and homosexual
s*x have been among those arrested in the latest crackdown, along with alleged
drunks and drug addicts.
Nigeria is divided between a mostly Christian south and a
predominately Muslim north. [AFP]
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