Chief of Nigeria’s Sharia Police Resigns Following Abusive Raids on Social Media Influencers and Brothels

The governor of Kano State in northern Nigeria accused the head of the Sharia police force of abusive raids and crackdowns on social media influencers, prompting the police chief to announce his resignation on Friday.

A day after state governor Abba Kabir Yusuf accused the Sharia police, known as Hisbah, of attacking and dehumanizing individuals during operations against hotels, brothels, and immoral establishments, Sheikh Aminu Daurawa resigned.

The schism reveals the differences in the conservative Muslim community of northern Nigeria regarding the management of social media influencers, with politicians favoring more conciliatory interaction and clerics taking a harsher stance.

In a video he uploaded on the internet on Friday, Daurawa stated, “I apologize to the governor who is infuriated by what we have done and hereby resign.”

“Instilling moral sanity” was his stated goal, and he made an effort to encourage TikTok users and producers to “sanitize” their material in order to “make them tally with religious and cultural values.”

“We have taken the best action we think is appropriate in that regard, but some of them have persisted in their immoral acts,” Daurawa said.

It seems that he was alluding to social media influencers who had been arrested and charged with a crime after sharing videos of themselves in semi-nakedness and other content that included offensive language.

Popular musician Ado Gwanja was ordered wanted by a court for publishing a song that the Hisbah considered immoral, while TikTok sensation Murja Kunya, who has a large fan base, is on trial for posting immoral social media videos.

Kano is one of the twelve mostly Muslim states in the north where common law coexists with Islamic Sharia law.

The Hisbah was created by the state government in 2000 to carry out Sharia law, which required it to raid brothels and pubs and to clamp down on immoral behavior in all its manifestations.

In addition, the force has the authority to penalize filmmakers and social media influencers for anything that they believe goes against Sharia morals.

“HUGE MISTAKE”
In his office on Thursday, Yusuf held a conference with Muslim clerics and chastised the Hisbah for their hedonistic raids that put detainees’ lives in peril and subjected them to mistreatment.

“I was concerned to see this video clip… Yusuf addressed the assembly, saying, “Young men and women were pursued with sticks to make them trip and fall.”

They were being tossed into vehicles and grabbed like animals. We believe that this is a grave error, Yusuf said.

He demanded a revision of Hisbah’s approach and forewarned that treating young people harshly and dehumanizing them would only make them more resistant to change.

In order to apprehend individuals and turn them over to the appropriate authorities for prosecution, Yusuf proposed that Hisbah, police, and paramilitary civil defense forces conduct coordinated raids on suspected immoral locations.

“What brings a delinquent back to his senses and leads him to repentance and be reintegrated into society is preaching with wisdom, compassion, and understanding,” Yusuf said.