NIGERIA: POPULAR PREACHER TO BE HANGED FOR BLASPHEMY

January 6, 2016: A very popular preacher, Abdulaziz Dauda, has been sentenced to death by hanging after a Kano upper Sharia court found him guilty of blasphemy against Prophet Mohammed.
Dauda who is popularly know as Abdul Inyas, was arrested on August 18, 2015 in Abuja and taken to Kano, where he faced trial on a two-count charge of blasphemy and inciting crisis that led to the burning of a Sharia court and some vehicles.
He reportedly made some blasphemous remarks against Prophet Muhammad during a Maulud festival held on June 31 last year.
The court upheld the death sentence passed on Dauda by a lower Sharia court.
State counsel, Lamido Sorondinki, said five witnesses, including the police, had testified before the court.
Counsel to the defendant, who craved anonymity, neither commented on the ruling nor possibility of appealing the judgement.
Premium Times Reports that five other accused persons had also received death sentence by the court in June.
It will be recalled that in June last year, an upper Sharia court, Rijiyar Lemo, in Kano, sentenced 9 persons: Abdul-Inyas, Hajiya Mairo and seven others to death for blasphemy against the Prophet of Islam. The trial was reportedly done in secret, and details of its proceedings were not made public.
A month earlier, the police had arrested six people in Kano, after youths set fire on a sharia court scheduled to hear a case of blasphemy. Those arrested were said to be accomplices of the sect leader, Abdul Inyas.
The Kano state government as led by Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, expressed satisfaction over the death sentence, noting that the judgment is a clear pointer to the fact that whoever breaks the law of the land will not be spared. (Sources: tatafonaija.com, 06/01/2016)