Nigeria: Senator marries 13-year old, rights activists appalled, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Nigeria: Senator marries 13-year old, rights activists appalled

A Nigerian senator, who introduced and implemented Sharia Law in a Northern Nigeria state, has married a 13 year old girl from Egypt, and women rights group have sprung in protest against the allegedly disingenuous senator. An investigation into his marriage to a minor has been demanded by the Nigerian senate.

Reports claim that Ahmad Sani Yerima, 49, married a 13 year old Egyptian girl at the national mosque in Abuja. Nigeria’s human rights commission has already begun an investigation, following reports of the marriage in newspapers.

"What we are concerned with is that our minors, the girl child, should be allowed to mature, before going into marriage. This very evil act should not be seen to be perpetrated by one of our distinguished legislators ... that is what we are saying," President of the Women’s Medical Association, Mma Wokocha was quoted by reporters.

Ms. Wokocha who is behind the petition demanding that the Senator be taken to court, to face a fine and a jail sentence.

According to reports, the whereabouts of the teenager are unknown - and it is not clear whether she has any parent or guardian with her.

Senator sani Yerima has also been accused of having previously married a 15-year-old girl in 2006. He is reported to have paid a dowry of $100,000 to the parents of his latest teenage bride - and to have the minor flown into Nigeria from Egypt.

However, an investigation into these claims is to be carried out by a Senate committee. In 1999, Senator Sani Yerima oversaw the introduction of Sharia law - for the first time in northern Nigeria, while he was the governor of Zamfara state.

http://newageislam.com/nigeria--senator-marries-13-year-old,-rights-activists-appalled/islamic-world-news/d/2776

Al Qaeda’s safari, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Al Qaeda’s safari

Melanie Phillips

January 6th, 2010

There has been general shock at the attempted downing of Northwest Airlines flight 253 over Detroit. It isn’t just that yet another aeroplane terrorist atrocity was averted only by luck and courage after US and British intelligence were caught with their pants down once again. Nor is it just the lax airport security.

No, the real amazement has been that the perpetrator, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is a Nigerian who apparently got his orders from Al Qaeda in Yemen; that the genesis of the pants bomber’s radical journey lies not in Iraq or Afghanistan, nor in Israel/Palestine, but in Africa.

It was while at school in Toga that Abdulmutallab reportedly adopted the most belligerent version of Islam. As a fully fledged Islamic extremist, he was naturally received with open arms in “Londonistan”, where he was further radicalised to terrorism before being kitted out in Yemen with the latest accessories of mass murder.

He is first and foremost a religious fanatic — and the crucial context for his extremism is Africa. Radical Islamists in countries such as Abdulmutallab’s Nigeria, Somalia or the Sudan have been steadily butchering, ethnically cleansing or brutally converting Christians and other “infidels”, imposing Sharia law at gunpoint and radicalising the continent to the cause of Islamic holy war.

http://newageislam.com/al-qaeda%E2%80%99s-safari/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/2352

The Islam-Christian, North-South Divide in Africa and False Gods, Islam and Pluralism, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Pluralism

The Islam-Christian, North-South Divide in Africa and False Gods

By Dr. Charles Quist-Adade

Religious Intolerance in Africa

Abstract

Religion and politics are a dangerous mix the world over. Africa is no exception. From Nigeria to Sudan, from the Ivory Coast to the Gambia, and from Egypt to Swaziland, religious conflicts have left in their trail death and destruction. The ongoing Darfur crisis on the Sudan is the latest in the long saga of religious conflicts in Africa. The most notorious religious conflicts are in Nigeria and Sudan. In Nigeria, intermittent clashes between Christians and Moslems in the northern states over Sharia (Islamic fundamentalist laws) crises have claimed the lives of thousands of Christians and Moslems. According to United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, “since 1999, a disturbingly large number of Nigerians; 12,000, if not more; have been killed in sectarian and communal attacks and reprisals between Muslims and Christians.” The most recent examples of this strife, in the city of Jos and in parts of the Bauchi state, have resulted in hundreds if not thousands of deaths as well as 10,000 or more Nigerians displaced. The Sudan conflict, which has been raging for more than two decades and has claimed tens of thousands of lives, was ignited by the dominant Islamic North’s hegemony over the largely Christian South. What makes Africa’s case even most tragic and ironic is that none of the religions that are causing antagonism and wreaking havoc on the continent are indigenous to Africa, at least not in their current forms! The question is why two Nigerians who speak the same language and share the same substrate culture are slaughtering each other in the name of alien religions. The answers are legion. I shall try to explain some of them.

http://newageislam.com/the-islam-christian,-north-south-divide-in-africa-and-false-gods/islam-and-pluralism/d/1823