Sharia Police Destroy 240,000 Bottles Of Beer In Kano!
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.
Sharia enforcers called Hisbah destroy thousands of bottles
of beer outside northern Nigeria's largest city of Kano on
November 27, 2013. The Hisbah destroyed over 240,000
bottles of beer along with over 8,000 litres of local brew
called "Burukutu". AFP 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 sex 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.
Post a Comment