The head of Sharia police in northern Nigeria’s Kano state announced his resignation on Friday after the governor accused his force of abusive raids and crackdowns on social media influencers.
Sheikh Aminu Daurawa stepped down a day after state governor Abba Kabir Yusuf accused the Sharia police, called Hisbah, of assaults and dehumanising suspects during operations against hotels, brothels and immoral joints.
The rift highlights the divisions over how social media influencers are managed in northern Nigeria’s conservative Muslim society, with clerics opting for a harsh approach and politicians preferring more conciliatory engagement.
“I apologise to the governor who is infuriated by what we have done and hereby resign,” Daurawa said in a video he posted online Friday.
He said that his aim was “instilling moral sanity” and that he tried encouraging filmmakers and TikTok users to “sanitise” their content to “make them tally with religious and cultural values”.
“Some of them have continued with the immoral acts and we have done what we believe is the best in that regard,” Daurawa said.
He was apparently referring to the arrest and arraignment in court of social media influencers for posting semi-nude videos and others containing obscenities considered immoral.
Murja Kunya, a TikTok celebrity with a huge following, is on trial for immoral social media videos while Ado Gwanja, a popular singer, was declared wanted by a judge for releasing a song the Hisbah deemed immoral.
Kano is one of 12 predominantly Muslim northern states where Islamic Sharia law runs side by side with common law.
The state government established the Hisbah in 2000 to enforce Sharia provisions, which mandated it to raid taverns and brothels and crack down on all forms of immorality.
The force is also empowered to sanction filmmakers and social media influencers over content deemed to contravene Sharia morality.
‘Serious mistake’
During a meeting with Muslim clerics in his office on Thursday, Yusuf chided the Hisbah for high-handedness in carrying out raids that endangered the lives of suspects and exposed them to abuse.
“I saw a video clip that disturbed me… Young men and women were pursued with sticks to make them trip and fall,” Yusuf told the gathering.
“They were being seized like goats and thrown into vans… We think this is a serious mistake,” Yusuf said.
He called on a change in Hisbah strategy and warned that such dehumanisation and strictness would only harden the young people they were meant to reform.
Yusuf suggested joint raids of suspected immoral spots by Hisbah, police and paramilitary civil defence personnel who would arrest suspects and hand them over to relevant authorities for prosecution.
“Preaching with wisdom, compassion and understanding is what brings a delinquent back to his senses and leads him to repentance and be reintegrated into society,” Yusuf said.
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