Islamic Cleric Bags Death Sentence For Blasphemy

• Also accused of incitement, sundry offences by Kano State govt

A Kano State Upper Sharia Court has sentenced a controversial Islamic cleric, Abduljabbar Nasiru Kabara, to death by hanging after being found guilty of the four-count charge of blasphemy filed against him by the Kano State government.

Mr Kabara was arrested at his home in Kano and arraigned on 16 July 2021, before an Upper Sharia Court at ‘Kofar Kudu’, Emir’s palace. On July 17, 2021, Abduljabbar was remanded in custody over pending allegation of blasphemy towards the Prophet.

The Kano State government had charged the cleric with blasphemy, incitement, and sundry offences, claiming that he was famous for controversial religious commentaries and statements, which were regarded as embarrassing to the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

On Thursday, the judge, Ibrahim Sarki-Yola, reviewed the court proceedings from last year, for about four hours. The proceedings reviewed include the hearing of witnesses and objections by the defendant with the court declaring satisfaction the accused is medically okay following a psychiatric certification.

The judge noted that Kabara sacked his lawyers on the accusations that they were working against him. And at a point, he opted to defend himself without a lawyer, to which the court disagreed and provided a lawyer for him because of the gravity of the allegations against him.

The judge said he is satisfied that the state has proven the four-count charge filed against the cleric. The judge also dismissed the cleric’s arguments as a mere ‘academic exercise’.

The witnesses who testified against the cleric narrated how Mr Kabara on 10 August 2019 made allegedly blasphemous comments against the Holy Prophet Muhammad at two different religious gatherings in his mosque within Kano’s metropolis.

But the accused objected and dismissed the witnesses saying that their testimonies against him were based on differences in the understanding of the Islamic religion.

However, in accepting the statements of the witnesses, the judge also relied on an audio recording, admitted to by the accused, in which he made the alleged blasphemous comments.

According to the Judge; “The court admitted that the comments were made at a gathering at the cleric’s mosque at ‘Gwale Filin Mushe’ while addressing his followers who hailed him as he made the comments.

“The court after citing several references agreed that those comments by the cleric were admitted by the court as blasphemous comments against the Holy Prophet Muhammad.

“The prosecutors also convinced the court that the accused person deliberately interpreted the religious books and fabricated the blasphemous comments against the Holy Prophet Muhammad”.

When asked whether he has anything to say before the final judgment was delivered by the court, the defence counsel, Abubakar Ado, pleaded for leniency on the ground that his client made the comments out of ignorance and asked to court to consider that the accused person was a breadwinner with wives and children.

However, while the defence counsel was making the plea for his client, the accused person, Mr Kabara, interrupted, saying he did not request any lawyer to speak on his behalf and that whatever the lawyer said did not represent him.

He sought the court’s permission to speak for himself for the last time before the judgment was read and the judge obliged his request.

Thereafter, the defendant launched a verbal attack at the judge, accusing him of being unfair while also challenging him to pass the death sentence as the Court pleases.

Pointing at the judge, Mr Kabara said; “You Ibrahim Sarki Sani Yola, changed the whole narration about the case go ahead and sentence me to death, I will die honourably meeting my God”.

Before returning to his seat in the accused box, Kabara; “And I am pleading to my followers not to worry about the sentencing as I will die as a righteous person”.

After proceeding on a short break, the judge, Mr Sarki-Yola, then returned at about 1:10 pm to sentence Mr Kabara to death by hanging, saying the Court relies on ‘Section 382 subsection (B) of the Shariah appeal court 2000,’ Kano State’s laws.

“Whoever in any means publicly insults by using words or expression in writing, verbal means or gesture which shows or demonstrates in form or contempt or abuse against the Holy Quran or any prophet of God shall be liable to death”, the judge said while delivering his judgement.

He ordered the seizure of all the 189 books brought by the Cleric to defend himself in the Court while also banning the use of his religious preachings as well as photographs across Kano State.

While ordering that the two mosques where the cleric made the comments against the prophet be confisticated by the State, the judge said Mr Kabara has up to 30 days to appeal the judgement.

A prominent scholar of the Qadiriyya Islamic sect, in Kano, Nigeria, the 52-year-old Islamic cleric is the son of Sheikh Nasiru Kabara, a former leader of the Qadiriyya sect of West Africa, and a younger brother of Karibullah Nasiru Kabara, the successor of their late father.

He attended ATC Gwale in Kano, before moving to Iraq for further studies in Islamic theology, claiming that for about 25 years, he mostly benefitted from his father’s tutelege .

Following in his father’s footsteps, Abduljabbar was well known as a Qadiriyya adherent and a Sunni scholar in Muslim communities in Nigeria.