The Federal Government has approved a directive that only 'Made in Nigeria' software should run on the IT systems of the nation's public offices and institutions. The approval follows an intense lobby by the Nigeria Software Development Initiative (NSDI), an industry lobby group led by CEO of Zenith Bank Plc, Jim Ovia.

Where does the intersection between activism and politics take place? Kayode Fayemi explores this sometimes complex relationship in the context of Nigeria’s fractured political landscape. He concludes: “I believe we can revive the State in a qualitative manner and make democracy more meaningful to our people, provide jobs for the jobless, improve healthcare, modernise agriculture and reclaim our young people from a future of violence, decadence and despair by linking activism to politics and not drawing artificial divisions.”

The topic of my presentation this afternoon gives the impression that there is a difference between activism and politics, and that it requires moving from one to the other. If one follows this line of thought, one might be tempted to assume that the two – politics and activism – are mutually exclusive. There have always been attempts both in recent times and in our not so recent past to make a distinction between those who stand at the barricades seeking change in their quest for a better society and those who wield power in politics in defence of the State. Indeed, theories have been propounded about State-society relations deepening the difference between civil society and political society. Activists are often seen as occupying the moral high ground, irrepressible in their campaign for what they believe in, often living in utopia in the quest of the unattainable and generally cantankerous and obstinate in the pursuit of their beliefs. On the other hand, politicians are seen to be janus-faced – on the one hand, charismatic, visionary, fascinating and sophisticated, and on the other, repulsive, cynical, calculating, and opportunistic. My own interest this afternoon is really not to indulge in any deep philosophical or political arguments about these distinctions many of which you are familiar with but to simply explore – based on my limited experience, the possibilities of harmony in this pseudo-dichotomy – to explain that this pattern of categorizing people is at best a luxury, and at worst irrelevant in our own setting.

I am going to suggest that this pseudo-divide of activism and politics has impeded our abilities to connect with each other and work together towards a more positive future. I am convinced that the structuring of actors on the basis of either/or, and us/them with one of the other being valued more leads to domination and we need to really try as much as possible to avoid such separation and fragmentation and work towards community and cohesion. Consequently, I intend to argue that politics – properly conducted - is a form of social activism and another stage in the struggle to restore the dignity of humankind – an integrated continuum rather than discretely compartmentalised oppositional phenomena, often complicated and contradictory, but mostly in the quest to make a fundamental difference.

Activists have always occupied that realm between the household and the State, populated by voluntary groups and associations, sharing common interests and largely autonomous from the State, but often promoting core values that are consistent with what the State ought to stand for – participatory involvement, transparency, accountability, openness, ownership, legitimacy, equality of opportunities and respect for fundamental human rights.

Many people always ask activists and politicians the same question: Why, with all the callings in this world that could perhaps earn one considerable social, financial and personal security, would anyone want to go into something like activism or politics, particularly in a setting as dangerous as Nigeria, unless one has a death wish? The unvarnished truth is that many activists and, I believe, even politicians love life too much to want to celebrate death. Many activists who make a transition into partisan politics have probably done so for the same reasons they embraced activism. It was not aimless boldness that drew many into activism. It was often a selfish desire to live their lives in freedom, peace and in a democracy that transformed ordinary folks into bold activists against all forms of oppression and in the service of their communities.

This is why perhaps the issue should not be one of transition from activism to politics, but the extent to which we are able to achieve citizen participation in our democracy. Our discussion should really focus more on the making of leaders and citizens in a good society because without direct citizen participation, the legitimacy of our political institutions will continue to decline. It is for this reason that I strongly believe that political leaders – be they politicians or activists should worry because their ability to lead effectively is being seriously undermined by the desertion of average citizens from the public space, deepening the crisis of legitimacy in our State. Yet, this lack of legitimacy cuts both ways. When we the people withdraw our trust in leaders or discountenance politicians, we make our democratic institutions less effective and risk making ourselves ungovernable.

While politics may have lost its edge globally - suffering a decline, apathy or disinterest, it is also true to say activism is on the rise in the form of single issues pressure groups which have continued to thrive around the world – whether in the form of campaigns like ‘Make Poverty History’ or in the promotion of an international rights regime in the form of an International Criminal Court or a fair trade regime in the world.

Yet even these popular campaigns still suffer from certain limitations in a world that is essentially statist and in which citizens’ rights are better protected locally, even if we subscribe to universal ideals. In our case, it is the belief that another Nigeria is possible – one that embraces democracy, fairness, equity and justice and the possibility of saying what we like, write what we think, participate in the political process without fear of intimidation, make our votes count so that our views will matter. These are the beliefs that have continued to propel the activists that I know in the struggle for a better society.

But let me back up a little and locate this discourse within the context of our recent history in Nigeria as it concerns the relationship between activism and politics in Nigeria. Many will recall that with the sudden demise of the dictator, General Sani Abacha in June 1998, things had begun to look up for the country. We saw the end of military dictatorship in sight. Those of us who were involved in the campaign to restore the mandate of Chief MKO Abiola, the winner of the annulled election of 1993 had expected that it was only a matter of time for Abiola to be installed as President and for him to convene a sovereign national conference. Our focus at the time was not elections, but the institutionalisation of a fundamental restructuring of the Nigerian state and the strategy in the democracy movement was to put pressure on the new military leadership to release Abiola and install him as President. The new military leader, General Abdul-Salami Abubakar was seen as a common sense choice amid a largely obdurate military clique determined to maintain the status quo.

Clearly under pressure locally and on the international scene, he made every effort to win the confidence of the civil society movement by releasing jailed leaders and requesting exiles to return home. And then, all of a sudden Chief Abiola died and this threw us into a deeper quandary in the democracy movement and the country tilted on the precipice. To arrest the religious and ethnic polarisation that had surfaced, General Abubakar went for elections, even at a time that many felt the national question had gone beyond simply organising elections and putting people in authority. Yet, because the military was so despised, the decision coupled with the sudden death of the most legitimate arrowhead of our struggle increased the urge for anything but the military, a mood which we shared but which equally caught us unawares in the democracy movement.

In the ensuing confusion, the central question for us in the democracy movement was: should the democracy community and the human rights movement participate in, or boycott the transition programme announced by General Abubakar? After extensive deliberations, we agreed that the new dispensation required new strategies, which should reflect a balance between principle and pragmatism. Some expressed strong views that the democracy movement’s capacity to influence change would be severely limited if it decided to boycott the transition programme. Equally, others felt that getting involved in the military-directed transition would amount to a betrayal of the last bastion of the people’s defence against oppression – especially as the professional politicians were eager to return to business as usual with the military, without addressing the root cause of the governance crisis in the first place. In the end, there was no consensus on the way the pro-democracy movement should proceed and we only agreed that individuals could participate while letting political groups stay out of the fray.

My own sentiment was with the latter group since I believed that the path, players, processes and patterns of the transition adopted by General Abubakar could only result in neo-militarism rather than a civilian, democratic dispensation. At the time, many of us were fond of saying that the path we were treading was one of transition without transformation. We argued severally that it was wrong to suggest that any opening after Nigeria’s prolonged authoritarian rule was inherently irreversible and would lead to the deepening of democracy without interrogating the nature of the opening itself. We felt at the time that we needed to think more carefully about the implications of what we considered to be a staged-managed democratic transition, especially in a setting where the ethos, language, and character of public discourse remain completely militarised.

Looking back, the civil society leadership may have been correct to be cautious about embracing the military transition of 1999, but I now believe we were tactically wrong for completely eschewing participation in politics. The fact that the military had not responded to a full-scale defeat by the democracy movement could hardly be discounted in understanding the nature of post-military governance. The eventual dominance of the party hierarchy by retired military generals and civilians closely connected to them certainly set the tone for party formation and also resulted in authoritarian presidential governance. Essentially, the nature of that transition ensured a mere reconfiguration of the political space, rather than a transformation of politics.

Given this context, the eventual election of an ex-military General with significant support from the military constituency was seen by many of us in civil society as an extension of continued military rule. The fact that most of the governors elected (save in the South West) were all what we referred to derisorily at the time as “Abacha politicians” was further confirmation to some of us that we had no business being involved. Yet, even with all of this, we could have started the process of organising along political lines, rather than agonising about the dominance of these elements. After all, we were the ones who risked our lives to fight for the restoration of democracy in Nigeria – only to vacate the space when power was literally lying on the streets. Indeed, as Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, recently noted,

“…one ceaseless complaint against the democratic movement is that its protagonists carried out this struggle at immense personal sacrifices of varying dimensions, only to hand over future responsibilities to proven reprobates and opportunists…whatever self retiring principles may have governed the impulses of a number of us in that struggle…we have indeed left the field to brigands, parasites and unworthy custodians of power and authority, including even collaborators, that is those who have not only made such struggles necessary in the first place, but contributed to our personal woes, and even stained their hands with the blood of our fallen comrades.” [1]

So, we ended up having a democracy without democrats and the result is clear before our very eyes. In spite of the current government’s best effort, the crisis of governance remains deep-seated. Yet, for many of our citizens – democracy was supposed to bring the end of military dictatorship in form and content; they hoped that it would bring greater involvement of ordinary people in politics, whether in state institutions or in civil society ones. They hoped for real and immediate dividends in employment, clean water, better shelter, accessible health care, improved education, reliable and consistent power supply, rehabilitated roads and food on the table. Beyond electoral democracy though, it was also obvious that the nation-state has become a source of unending conflict itself. Many Nigerians of unquestionable nationalist credentials had begun to question the very viability of Nigeria, especially if left in the hands of a centralised state. Constitutional reform was therefore seen as a major pivot for creating and sustaining democratic institutions that can address deepening conflict in Nigeria. To our people, the rising disquiet in the Niger Delta and other parts of Nigeria, for example, may not be a sign of a failing democracy but a sign of a maturing democracy that is conflictual and contradictory – which should find its own level through mediation, deliberation and negotiations.

Although the challenge of reforming the State is fundamentally structural, the issue of leadership – particularly how we conceptualise leadership is central to it. For too long, our political culture has perpetuated the myth that strong leaders can bring about change single-handedly – rather than convert the formal authority derived from their electoral mandate into a process of democratic renewal. In my own view, real leadership ought to involve motivating people to solve problems within their own communities, rather than reinforcing the over-lordship of the state over its citizens and to build and strengthen political institutions that can mediate between individual and group interests. The authoritarian residues of politics over the last seven years have achieved the purpose of turning many away from politics even if they are still active in their neighbourhood associations and their community projects. The main challenge of political leadership therefore is to reconnect democratic choices with people’s day-to-day experience and to extend democratic principles to everyday situations in citizens’ communities and constituencies.

Understandably, if you make political discourse more negative as some do – you deliberately turn ordinary people off politics; more people grow cynical and stop paying attention to politics. This experience is not unique to us in Nigeria; in fact it is the crisis that democracy is experiencing all over the world, with low turn out at the polls and scant regard for political leaders. Yet, if we as citizens choose not to play a part in this process of activism in our communities and our State, we will get the politicians we deserve, allow the hijack of the political realm by special interests and ethnic jingoists only keen in the promotion of their narrow agendas.

To avoid this problem, many of us in the Nigerian civil society sought the middle way after the election of the new government in Nigeria in 1999, even as we were lukewarm about the dawn of electoral democracy in the country. We put skills that were abundant in civil society to the service of the new government as a way of helping to bridge the gap between civil society and an elected government. At our own level in my institution - the Centre for Democracy & Development - we became associated with government at several policy and practical levels – assisting with the shaping and running of the Human Rights Violations Investigations Commission (the Oputa Commission); promoting an agenda for constitutional reform, helping with the reform of the security sector and democratic control of the defence and security establishments, building civil society capacity and pursuing issues of transparency and accountability. Our point always was that democracy is not an abstract concept. It must be relevant to people’s lives. If democracy is not capable of curbing corruption, guaranteeing transparency and improving people’s well being and quality of life, it is at best an empty concept, at worst a sham. Poverty and despair, oppression and humiliation, economic and social insecurities are breeding grounds – even if not the only reasons – for violence and conflict and as much as Nigerians want democracy, they also want to see concrete evidence of democracy making a difference in their lives.

My own experience of working with government over the past seven years as an outsider looking in is captured by the African adage that it’s not possible to shave someone’s head in his absence. The wheel of government bureaucracy turns very slowly and frustratingly so if the central actors are not alive to issues of transformation. No matter how good the policies formulated by outsiders are, implementation is key to transformation. It is for this reason that those who want to re-draw the map of Nigeria’s future must return to more solid grounds rather than tie themselves to the apron strings of power-holders that neither have a track record nor demonstrate a vision that they are better than what we can offer our people. This solid ground must be within a larger movement though, one that accommodates the place of political institutions and not simply the celebration of astute individuals as the ultimate panacea to our crisis of governance. The most practical way to link individual choice to collective responsibility is to participate in the institutions that influence our lives. We must ensure that formal and informal institutions are democratised and given more responsibilities for exercising state power. To do it well, we have to see Nigeria as a permanent enterprise that has to be fought over and restructured in order to provide cover for all Nigerians.

This is why I see the debate about whether activists should become politicians superfluous. Important as they are, the institutions of direct state power and electoralism are just the tip of the iceberg in the democratisation complex. Indeed, genuine democracy ought to rest on a much richer ecology of associational and organisational life and should be nourished and reproduced through every-day struggles of the citizens. But when we broadly define these everyday struggles as simply the handiwork of ‘civil society’, we strip it bare of its spontaneity and deeper meaning and romanticise the civil society as the rationally ordered, codified and all-knowing alternative to government and overplay our abilities as activists to counter the inherent inequities of class and markets. Even worse, we are presented or we present ourselves as antidotes to globalisation, which is why causes like ‘Make Poverty History’ have been hugely successful in form but exaggerated in their expectations. The reason for this crisis of exaggerated expectation that activists suffer is not far fetched. The truth is that as long as we live in the post-Westphalian world of sovereign states, we exaggerate the ability of the civil society to stand up to the power of the nation-state or the mega corporations on its own steam.

This is why I am not sure that the solution to the current deficit that our democracy is experiencing can be solved with posing activism as a counterpunch to politics. For autonomous institutions to play a different role in mediating citizens’ democratic choices, their organic development must be combined in a more nuanced manner and a more systematic way with the use of public and state power. The choice is therefore simple: one can continue to snipe on the fringe and complain that government is not listening to the yearning of the people. Alternatively, one can stop agonising about missed policy opportunities and organise in a manner that places citizens as drivers of change in our quest to restore communitarian values and a future of hope and possibilities for our people.

I know the world sees us - Africans - as incurable optimists and hope mongers. The other day, the New York Times, attempting to unravel the roots of the consistent optimism of the average African asked for my thoughts and I argued that while it may be difficult to find a verifiable basis for our collective and individual optimism amid unremitting misery – hope is God’s last bastion for the African, the evidence of the unseen future of a life more abundant – since, for many, things can hardly get worse than they are. [2]

Yet, as I said earlier, this is not bleary-eyed optimism. It is not the optimism that believes that the crisis of governance in our land will simply go away; it is not the hope that we will all be winners of million dollar lottery tickets today. I am talking about the hope of our founding fathers in the struggle for independence and freedom and their unshaken belief in our inalienable right to rule ourselves. It is the hope of the freedom fighters resisting apartheid and racial discrimination in Southern Africa; the audacity of hope and the determination of optimism that led us to resist the military oppression in our land because of our belief that another Nigeria is possible – one that will be accountable to its citizens, legitimate in their eyes, transparent and respected around the world; the hope that allows us to hold our heads high, proud of our accomplishments and contributions to humankind - the hope that help is on the way.

I believe we can revive the State in a qualitative manner and make democracy more meaningful to our people, provide jobs for the jobless, improve healthcare, modernise agriculture and reclaim our young people from a future of violence, decadence and despair by linking activism to politics and not drawing artificial divisions. It seems to me a self-evident truth that where there is no civil society engaged actively in social activism and the promotion of core values in society, there can be no political society and the state runs the risk of decay and illegitimacy. Renewing our democracy through the strengthening of institutions and public participation increases our collective capacity to tackle the major problems facing our society – with a corresponding achievement of individual contentment even as we pursue the common good. This is where we ought to be headed and I am convinced we will get there in our lifetime.

* This is the text of a lecture presented at the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center, Howard University, Washington, D.C., USA on Thursday, March 16, 2006.

* Until recently Director of the Centre for Democracy & Development, Dr Fayemi is an advisor to the Nigerian government on NEPAD and Security Sector Reform and to ECOWAS, African Union Secretariat, NEPAD Secretariat and Economic Commission for Africa. He now aspires to the Governorship of Ekiti State in Nigeria.

References

[1] Wole Soyinka, “A Nigerian Morality Tale”, Foreword in Kayode Fayemi, Out of the Shadows: The struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Nigeria, (Lagos: CDD & BookCraft, 2005), p.viii. Also see an interesting interview with Olisa Agbakoba, former President of Nigeria’s Civil Liberties Organisation in The Guardian (Lagos) on July 20 & 21, 2004 – “I am tired of being an armchair critic”

[2] See New York Times, March 5, 2006 or International Herald Tribune, March 6, 2006

Nigerian police on Wednesday blocked a meeting of politicians who oppose a campaign to extend President Olusegun Obasanjo's time in power, opposition officials said. Police surrounded the conference centre at the Sheraton Hotel in Abuja, where the politicians were scheduled to meet to discuss strategies to prevent Obasanjo from obtaining a third term in office, and stopped anyone from going in. Authorities have in recent weeks stepped up their actions against opposition groups, who accuse the government of becoming increasingly intolerant of dissent, particularly on the controversial question of a third presidential term.

As Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo prepared to visit the United States, he was urged to reaffirm his commitment to the human rights of all Nigerians and withdraw proposed legislation to introduce criminal penalties for same-sex relationships and marriage ceremonies, as well as for public advocacy or associations supporting the rights of lesbian and gay people. In a letter to President Obasanjo, a coalition of 16 human rights organizations urged him to disavow the bill, which contravenes international law and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights that ensure rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly.

"Nothing has changed," says Patterson Ogon, founding director of the Ijaw Council for Human Rights in the Niger Delta. "Since 1995 when Ken Saro-Wiwa was hung, [Shell's] public relations and glossy reports seem to indicate that they're doing so much in the Niger Delta. But we are still waiting to see any practical change." Over a decade has passed since the Nigerian government killed Ken Saro-Wiwa. The Niger Delta is once again making international headlines. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) is a well-armed, well-organized group of youth who aim to localize control of the Niger Delta's oil wealth.

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who disappeared from his residence in southeastern Nigeria one day ago, was on Wednesday detained in a state bordering Cameroon and could be expelled soon to his homeland. A top government official who asked not to be named said Taylor, wanted for war crimes by a UN-backed special court in Sierra Leone, was arrested in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno, bordering Cameroon, Niger and Lake Chad.
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Reacting to reports that former Liberian president Charles Taylor has "escaped" from his home in Calabar, Nigeria, Amnesty International said "any country in which he is found has a responsibility to arrest and surrender Charles Taylor immediately to the Special Court in Sierra Leone." The organization said that the warrant for Charles Taylor's arrest issued by the Special Court, an international court, remains in effect, and that if he has left Nigeria he should now be considered an "international fugitive".

Nigeria and Russia are now pitched in an emotive diplomatic row following a resolve by the Russian government to side track the agenda of New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) from the overall programme of G8, ahead of the next G8 meeting to be held in Moscow, Sunday Tribune can report. Russia, the current chairman of G8 has tactically been distancing itself from NEPAD and has been indicating that NEPAD will not form part of issues that the G8 would deliberate upon during its next summer meeting in Moscow, a development said to have angered President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Peddlers of pirated software now hold sway on the very streets where drug dealers and prostitutes plied their wares a decade ago in Nigeria's biggest city. Every building in the Ikeja district is now packed with computer and cellphone ware. Business is done on the streets.

In preparation for the Second Nigerian Youth Leadership Summit scheduled for Enugu during July 4-5, 2006, development Partnership International along with other partners is organizing consultative sessions in all the geopolitical zones of Nigeria and in the Diaspora from May- June 2006. The purpose of the consultation is to find out what young people perceive as their most important priorities, what efforts and interventions they are undertaking to address these important priority areas, what challenges they are facing, both as young people and at the level of their work, identify and document best practices emerging from their work, and recommendations on how they can further improve their work. The consultation in the Diaspora, will focus more on health policy, health sector reforms, and how those in the Diaspora can contribute to Nigeria’s health sector development.

The streets of Nigeria's main cities are quiet, as people have been told to stay at home and wait to be counted in the first census for 15 years. The headcount is sensitive, as funding and political representation depend on the results but questions of religion and ethnicity have been left out. There is frustration in many places that the process has started slowly. Nigeria's president has stressed that the five-day census is not political and urged people to remain calm. Nigeria is Africa's most populous country but estimates of its population range from 120 to 150 million.

Seventy-four antiretroviral therapy treatment centers have been established across Nigeria to help provide antiretroviral drugs to HIV-positive people, Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo said last Thursday in a statement, AFP/Yahoo! News reports. Nigeria in December 2005 announced it would begin a program that aims to provide antiretroviral drugs at no cost to about 250,000 HIV-positive residents.

Green Earth Resources Network International and the Centre for Gender Studies at Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria present the international conference "Gender, poverty and environment in Africa: A challenge for African leaders" in Nigeria, 25-29 April 2006.

Heavyweight politicians and other notable Nigerians, yesterday (March 10), stoutly rose against Thursday's decision by the Constitution Review Committee on the 1999 Constitution to extend the two-year tenure of executive office holders at the federal and state levels. The Committee, chaired by the Deputy Senate President, Alhaji Ibrahim Mantu had given elected officers at those levels the opportunity of holding office for three terms of four years each.

The Nigerian Army Headquarters in Abuja confirmed the exchange of gunfire between its men and the militants in the Okerenkoko area, Delta State. It said that three of its soldiers were wounded in the offensive. The Director of Army Public Relations, Col Mohammed Yussuf, said that the exchange occurred when the militants attacked and tried to hijack two tankers going to berth in Warri, Delta State

ABA/Africa is looking for a Country Director to handle a Four Year Anti-Trafficking Program in Nigeria. The ideal candidate for the Anti-Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Advisor is a senior legal professional with demonstrated success in the area of criminal prosecution, including sex crimes and domestic violence, as well as rule of law programming and management in Africa.

Lawyers say they have shut down court proceedings across Nigeria, claiming their boycott is a complete success. The Nigerian Bar Association says the protest is over the "failure of the government to comply with court orders and the violation of human rights". President Lanke Odogiyon said disregard for the rule of law was reminiscent of Nigeria under the military. He said the only case in the capital, Abuja, was the government failing to get a court order to stop the strike. The Bar Association says most of its 50,000 membership followed the call on the first day of the two-day boycott and stayed away.

To mark International Women's Day, we publish today a number of articles on Islam and human rights. In this compelling article by Ayesha Imam, women’s reproductive and sexual rights within Muslim Nigeria are considered. With the recent “Sharianization” of parts of the country, new offences have been created, mostly surrounding sexuality, which has had a negative effect on women’s rights. Imam argues that while Sharia (Muslim laws) are neither uniform nor God given, the opposition between conservative and liberal jurisprudence has prevented progressive scholars and activists from establishing Muslim laws that ensure and protects the rights of women. She highlights what can be done to oppose these forces, and argues that one of the most important aspects of this task involves a “demystification” of Sharia for the Muslim communities of Nigeria (and elsewhere).

Amina Lawal was convicted of adultery in March 2002 and sentenced to stoning to death. In the wake of a new Sharia Penal Code in Katsina State, religious right vigilantes instigated a case against her for having a child after divorce without remarrying. The alleged father swore that he had not had sexual relations with her and was released. These events occurred during a heated controversy in Nigeria about the nature and desirability of Sharia (Muslim laws), rights in Muslim laws, constitutional rights, international human rights and their relationship(s) to each other. Ms. Lawal’s case was immediately adopted by a coalition of Nigerian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provided her with lawyers, safe houses, medical care, and emotional support over the eighteen-month ordeal. She also became the object of world attention, media and protest campaigns, many of which excoriated “Islamic law” as brutal and called on Nigeria’s president to pardon her and repeal the Sharia Acts. In September 2003, Amina Lawal won her appeal in the state Sharia Court of Appeal and was acquitted (Lawal Kurami v. the State).

This case is perhaps one of the best known concerning the introduction of Sharia Penal Codes in several Nigerian states in 2000. Zina, or unlawful sexual intercourse, includes adultery, punished by stoning to death, and fornication, penalized by whipping. In some of the states, men may be imprisoned in addition. These cases have been integral to the opening up of issues relevant to ensuring and developing women’s reproductive and sexual rights, and to understanding them in ways that recognises and respects both local cultures and contexts, as well as international rights agreements. The tensions between conservative religious politics and crude antiterrorism policies which are often blatantly Islamphobic must be considered in this discussion, which also involves local cultures containing a complicated mixture of ideologies and social practices, structured by power relations.

International human rights treaties and agreements, like local cultures, must thus require a “claim and critique” strategy – being aware of both local cultures and international human rights discourse, while at the same time not privileging either as superior, and thus being able to critique both. This is important so that human rights principles actually guarantee people their rights in their day to day lives; this requires that they are claimed and respected by local cultures, and are not merely written texts, so that they are seen as social and historical products, affected by the power politics and of the cultural traditions of the dominant groups in their own contexts.

Understanding that human rights constructions are themselves subject to power structures makes it possible to recognise the Western European influences on the construction of rights today. But it is also possible to accept the universality of the notion of rights, which are not static and are constantly reconstructed by those whose lives are impacted by them.

Approaches to human rights must also be constantly reconstructed. It is important that local cultural-religious norms and traditions, as well as formal national and international rights regimes must be simultaneously drawn from and negotiated with. Women’s rights groups have been integral to this process. Even though many of these groups are often regarded as in opposition to family, religious or ethnic community, they are in fact challenging not the communities themselves, but the current definitions of culture and norms of that community, and the powers of the cultural gatekeepers to maintain those definitions. It is with this background in mind that this article looks at the politics and activities surrounding zina cases under the Sharia Penal Codes in Nigeria.

Nigeria has seen a growth in religious essentialism and conservatism. However, the introduction of Sharia in Nigeria has had more to do with emotional political appeal, especially due to economic and educational issues, rather than religious sentiment.

Reactions to Sharianization were many. Christian and non-Muslims feared the imposition of Muslim religious laws on them. Human rights and other NGOs activists (including Muslims) were concerned about the religious rights of non-Muslims and the violation of constitutional provisions of secularity. Both Muslim and non-Muslim women’s rights activists were concerned that Sharia would be used as a rationale to discriminate against women and restrict their rights.

Muslim communities reactions to Sharianization were also varied – Ibrahim el-Zakzaky of the Muslim Brothers, who had previously called for the Islamization of Nigeria, opposed Sharianization on the grounds that passing and implementing harsh punishments without first ensuring just socioeconomic relations was not Islamic. Others were afraid of political abuse by those with power; as Muslims they did not want to oppose Sharia, but they did not feel they had the skills to criticize potential corruption without the ability to read Arabic or years of study of Islamic jurisprudence. Thus, there was an “uneasy public silence.” However, upon the passing of the laws there was much celebration, as many associated Sharia with morality. Morality was seen not only as sexuality, but also in terms of safety and anti-corruption, which the poor suffer most from.

The Sharia Penal Codes have created some new offences in Nigerian law, mostly around sexuality. They also recognise stoning, retributive punishments and blood fines. In theory, these laws apply to Muslims only, but it remains an open question whether Muslims have the right to choose to be governed by general Nigerian law, without having to renounce their religious identity.

Also still unresolved and ambiguous is that of the contradictions and gaps between the new Sharia Penal Codes and the Criminal Procedure Codes that determine procedures and evidence: What counts as evidence? What are the procedures? How are offenses actually defined? Further, whether the Sharia acts themselves or the nature of the punishments are subject to international human rights law has been debated. Nigeria is in fact a state party to several international human rights covenants. However, although such agreements may give rise to obligations under international law, unless they have been specifically incorporated into domestic law, they give no basis for claims in national courts. The interplay between domestic Nigerian multiple and parallel legal systems of secular, Muslim and customary laws is also problematic as they give differential rights on different issues, and jurisdiction can be contentious. Whose version of Sharia is to be upheld is another area that requires further definition.

Sharia is neither directly God given, nor uniform through Muslim history or different communities. In principle, Muslim laws are to be developed by reliance on the Qu’ran. The second source is the sunnah – traditions of the Prophet. Next is ijma, consensus about what that law is, by qiyas (analogy) and ijtihad (interpretive reasoning). At each stage there are disagreements that have led to diversities – thus, Muslim laws are and always have been subject to discussion or controversy.

Further, there are four main schools of Islamic jurisprudence among Sunni Muslims (who constitute about 80% of all Muslims). There are many similarities, as well as wide divergences. However, the scholars behind these schools did not see themselves as setting down a God-given legal code to be obeyed by all Muslims for all time. On the contrary, they were quite categorical that Muslims were not obliged to follow them if they did not believe that their reasoning from the Qu’ran and the sunnah were right. They had no intention of making their views final and binding on all Muslims. The stereotype of a single, uniform or divinely revealed Islamic law is false. However, this myth has been useful for Muslim conservatives and this can indeed by seen in Nigeria regarding reproductive and sexual rights.

In terms of zina, there are three main possibilities: zina can be seen as a sin that Allah will punish directly, except where there are voluntary or repeated confessions; the law can be seen as a deterrent but which requires high standards of proof and evidence which result in few prosecutions and rare convictions; and the politically motivated aggressive enforcing of morality through restrictive legislation and enthusiastic prosecutions. This latter case is what has been happening in Nigeria. In terms of reproductive rights for women, Sharia is equally diverse. Most Muslim jurists agree that fertility management is permissible, and that pleasure in sexual intercourse is a right for both men and women. Most also agree that Islam does not sanction female genital mutilation. Despite this, the religious right in Nigeria have described fertility management as promoting immorality and zina, and have thus attempted to prevent it.

This opposition between conservative and liberal constructions of Muslim laws, and the myth of a single uniform (conservative) Sharia, has enabled the Muslim religious rightwing to prevent progressive Muslim scholars and rights activists from establishing the legitimacy of their positions in fiqh (jurisprudence), Sharia, or non-religious laws. Ironically, many progressives and leftists in the West do the same, dismissing critical voices from within the Muslim world as “Westernized” and inauthentic. It is important to recognize dissenters as equally authentic members of the community.

Many groups are actively organising in Nigeria to establish protection for women’s rights under this new Sharianization. The primary strategy of these organisations is defending those convicted by focusing on appeals in the Sharia courts, thus buying much needed time as well as getting closer to the higher courts, which have been historically more fair to women. Appealing, with the use of arguments in fiqh, deficiencies in the acts and the bias against women in their implementation could be recognised. Alternative Muslim juristic views can also be cited. Gaining an acquittal also serves to indicate that no conviction should have been made, and is thus a vindication of the person wrongly convicted. Pursuing appeals also serves to demonstrate that people have the right to appeal and challenge injustice, including those perpetuated in the name of religion. The success of those appeals shows that it does make a difference – far fewer women and men have been charged with zina or sentenced to stoning since Amina’s case, and the two that were, have successfully appealed and were discharged within three months.

These same women’s and rights groups have also sought to demystify Sharia to the general public, through seminars, workshops, training, public discussion, lectures, articles, pamphlets, books and radio and television talk shows. This includes groups like the Constitutional Rights Project, BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, the Women’s Action Collective with Women’s Action Research and Documentation, and the Nigerian office of the International Human Rights Law Group.

Demystifying Sharianization in Nigeria also involves critiques of the current class- and gender-bias in content and implementation. The poor have been the most subjected to harsh punishments. There have been fewer convictions of men than of women for adultery or fornication. Moreover, men convicted of violent sexual offences, like rape and sexual assault, have received less severe punishments (usually fines, imprisonment, or acceptance of pleas of illness and insanity), despite the stronger punishments available in the Sharia Penal Codes that are routinely meted out for consensual sex outside marriage. Women have clearly been discriminated against. Judges have ignored or dismissed women’s allegations of rape and coercion in zina cases. Before Amina Lawal’s acquittal, convictions of adultery/fornication brought against women used different and discriminatory standards of evidence than those used for men – that of pregnancy outside marriage.

The task at hand is therefore much larger than simply working to make Sharia work for women – it includes reeducation and awareness raising to change age old attitudes, while at the same time valuing local traditions and culture.

International media coverage of these cases, and of the Amina Lawal case in particular, has been staggering, relatively speaking. News reporting and petitions that have appealed to human rights have had conflicting results. While a growing awareness of rights abuses has been gained, a certain amount of hypocritical action is identified: the response of many Nigerians has frequently been to ask why people in the West are apparently so concerned about the life of one Muslim woman in Nigeria, when they have been killing large numbers of Muslim men, women, and children and are responsible for the horrors of war and its aftermath in Iraq.

While international solidarity is important to local rights struggles, and campaigns and petitions have the potential to be successful, it must be done in a way that does not portray stereotypes, nor hinder the actual protection and defense of women’s and human rights. Further, the international media and protests have largely ignored the existence of dissent among Muslims, and have downplayed the existence of protests and campaigns enacted within Nigeria. The tendency to treat the Muslim world as uniform only helps to legitimize the religious right’s monopolistic claim to speak for all Muslims and to de-legitimize the assertions of progressive scholars and rights activists. Downplaying local organizing has the clear implication that it is the pressure and power of external foreign interests that is important and not the strengthening of local cultures of rights.

In order to move forward, using local structures and mechanisms (judicial appeals, informal dispute resolution, mock tribunals organized by local NGOs, networks of sympathizers and campaigns) to resist retrogressive laws or interpretations of laws and the forces behind them is the priority. Doing so strengthens local counter-discourses and often carries greater legitimacy than outside pressure. Further, using local structures and discourses can really address the local political power struggles that are behind the political use of religions and ethnicities.

Reforming laws is of utmost importance, and will require expanding public education on Muslim laws, juristic opinions and debate on the contents of laws. This task also necessitates building solidarity among a variety of stakeholders to develop shared understanding and common strategies and platforms for women’s and human rights. Local groups must find ways to interact with and influence mass international media, to make it more accurate and nuanced. These groups must also negotiate with and influence the policies of international agencies to create informed and respectful solidarity. Campaigning for governments and media to support international policies that sustain economic justice and rights would give hope worldwide so that poverty and uncertainty do not continue to be conditions in which religious right sentiments and actors find support for discourses and laws that violate rights.

* This up-dated paper contains both summary and extracts from a longer paper, which is an edited version of a paper published in “Where Human Rights Begin—Health, Sexuality, and Women in the New Millennium,” edited by Wendy Chavkin and Ellen Chesler, Rutgers University Press, November 2005.

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