A Shari’a court in northern Nigeria town of Kano on Monday sentenced 22-year-old singer to death by hanging for allegedly blaspheming Prophet Muhammad.

 

The Presiding Judge of the Upper Shari’a Court, Khadi Aliyu Muhammad Kani, gave the judgement after he found the accused, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu,  guilty of the offence.

 

Sharif-Aminu was accused of committing blasphemy against the Prophet in a song he circulated via WhatsApp in March 2020.

 

Following the sentencing, protesters burned down the singer’s family house and led a procession to the Kano Hisbah Command’s headquarters in protest against the singer’s action.

 

Similarly, the court also sentenced another person, Umar Farouq of Sharada quarters in Kano metropolis to 10-year imprisonment for making “derogatory statements concerning the Almighty Allah in a public argument.”

 

Aggrieved youths on March 4 staged a protest on the premises of the Kano Hisbah office, over what they described as an alleged blasphemous song against Prophet Muhammad.

 

In his address to the protesters, the Kano Hisbah Commander, Harun Ibn-Sina, declared that officials in the state were on top of the situation and that the man’s parents had been arrested and were under Police custody.

 

The protesters alleged that the nonchalant attitude of the government and the security agents in the state over the issue informed their decision to embark on the protest.

 

The convener of the protest, Idris Ibrahim, declared: “Our mission is to alert the government to do the needful; otherwise, we will take the law into our own hands.”

 

He said the relevant authorities had warned that they would not allow Sharif-Aminu’s case to go unpunished.

 

Sharif-Aminu had composed a song containing alleged derogatory verses against Prophet Muhammad, which ignited violence against his family members.

 

But the family house of the singer, located at Sharifai quarters in the Kano Municipal Local Government Area, was set ablaze by irate youths who described the song as blasphemous.

 

The singer is said to be a follower of Tijjaniya sect and a member of Faidha group. The group is  known for its preference of Ibrahim Nyass (a famous Senegalese Islamic scholar), over Prophet Muhammad.