When Mrs Chika left home for her wine shop on the evening of December 14, 2021, she had no idea what awaited her in the hands of the dreaded Islamic police, Kano State Hisbah Board.
Chika supports her husband in running his second wine shop in the bustling neighbourhood of Sabon Gari, Fagge Local Government Area of Kano State. Inhabited mainly by non-Muslims, Sabon Gari has been a safe haven for alcohol merchants, tavern owners and other players in Kano’s hospitality business since the 1980s.
However, the region has lately been on the radar of Kano’s moral watchdog which frowns on the sale of alcohol, a substance considered to be haram or forbidden, according to Islamic tenets. Poised to rid the state of the substance and those who consume it, the Kano State Hisbah Command, since 2003, has embarked on several raids, seizing alcoholic beverages, locking down shisha joints, raiding hotels and carting away and destroying goods worth hundreds of millions of naira.
In the wake of these raids, Kano residents have alleged countless cases of human rights abuses, with some alleging that the agency has since veered off its original mandate. Perhaps, no one upholds this claim more than Mrs Chika, who was arrested and allegedly manhandled by Hisbah operatives on the cold night of December 14, 2021. She was four months pregnant with her second child.
She said, “It happened in the evening, between 7pm and 8pm. I was sitting in my shop when I saw a group of people entering and packing my goods. I got up to check what was happening; then I noticed they were men in grey uniforms and black berets holding big sticks and koboko (horsewhip).
“I started asking, ‘what is happening?’ but no one answered me. So, as I picked up my phone to make a call, one of them pushed me aside and fell to the ground. My husband had just stepped out to buy fuel for our generators. Since he had not gone too far, I wanted to rush out to call him but one of the men started using an electric device to shock me. They were packing my wines, alcoholic and malt drinks.
“As I kept asking them to leave me alone while trying to dial my husband’s number, one of them started dragging my phone from my hand while another was applying electric shocks to my back with a device. They eventually collected the phone.’’
Sensing trouble from the unusual noise behind him, her husband raced back to his shop to see what was happening. When the Hisbah operatives identified him as the shop owner, Chika said they beat him with sticks but he managed flee to a nearby shop when the beating became too much.
“When they couldn’t find my husband, they grabbed me instead and kept torturing me with the electric device, forcing me to enter their vehicle. What pained me the most was that they kept beating me despite telling them I’m pregnant. They saw that I was pregnant but they did not care. I was four months and some weeks pregnant already,” she said, sobbing.
The ensuing chaos attracted the attention of passersby and other residents but none could intervene as the religious police were rounding up anyone found in the vicinity.
“Even some of my customers who tried to help me, their phones were seized. Some of them were arrested while the others fled,” Chika explained.
Upon her arrest, she was allegedly clamped into a van alongside other unlucky detainees who, as she puts it, were only at the wrong place at the wrong time. They will pay through their nose to regain their freedom.
According to her, “One man was sitting on my lap, pressing my stomach. My concern now was my baby. I kept shouting for them to get him off me and my stomach, and they didn’t even answer me. One of those arrested, an older man told them in Hausa to rearrange us because I was pregnant but someone landed him a hard slap because he tried to speak up for me.
“What made the matter worse was that they were speeding. I was crying. Someone from the back told me to calm down before they kill me; because if they kill me, the case will go nowhere. So, I just kept quiet while feeling severe pains.”
But her harrowing experience in transit was no match for what she would face at the board’s headquarters in the Sharada industrial area of Kano.
“When we arrived, they started pushing us down. I thought they would spare me from the beating because I was pregnant but they didn’t. When I came out, they started beating me from every angle. I started praying to God to protect my baby and me. Even the beatings on my back were not a problem. I just bent down, trying to cover my stomach because if they hit my stomach, my baby and I may not survive.
“Then one of the Hisbah men dragged me out of there so they wouldn’t beat me any further. By this time, I was already urinating on my body. Once inside, I fell on the floor. Some realised I was pregnant and begged the others to leave me alone. They handed me over to the female officials.
“Some of the women started mocking me. I felt like a thief, or like I had committed some unpardonable crime. I kept crying and telling them that I was not a thief or drug addict; I was a shop owner and ran my own business. I am only hustling for what my children and I will eat,’ she told .
At the women’s wing, Chika said she was asked to take off her clothes to reveal any weapons she may be hiding. But amid the shameful treatment, a fellow detainee decided to help.
“When they pushed me into the cell, the other women wouldn’t even shift for me to sit. I had to stand. I became the subject of discussion but a girl came to my rescue. She told me what brought her there.
“She was running for her life because her father said she must marry a man she didn’t want to marry. When she ran away to escape marriage, her father said anyone who finds her should kill her. That was how she came to Hisbah to secure her life, and we became friends.
“She was the one who cared to give me water. By that time, my mouth and throat were dry because I had cried so much and due to the harmattan period,” Chika said.
The incident triggered a riot as angry residents of Court Road and Enugu Road lit bonfires on major entry points into the neighbourhood. Chidindu, an eye witness, told our correspondent that contrary to earlier reports, there was no clash between residents and Hisbah operatives because they had left the scene before the riot broke out. But the mob destroyed properties, including tricycles popularly called A Daidaita Sahu.
“They (Hisbah personnel) left before the mob mobilised, and it would have been terrible if the mob met the Hisbah men on the ground. But they left as soon as possible. They even beat my uncle and arrested one of my friends in one of the nearby shops here,” he said.
As angry residents retreated into their homes that night, Mrs Chika’s husband was out in the cold trying to free his wife from detention. The alcohol dealer, who declined to give his name for safety reasons, said “At about 2 am the next day, I was called by the Fagge Local Government chairman, who took me in a Hilux vehicle to the Hisbah office. He wrote an undertaking and my wife was released that night. He was kind to me, though.
“He told me that since Hisbah had already seized my drinks, they were unlikely to return them. But there was a possibility that they would return the non-alcoholic beverages. It was God who saved my wife and our baby was able to survive. The baby is over six months old now.
“I spent so much to bring her back to form. We had to borrow money to foot hospital bills because a pregnant woman required extra care. She cries any time she remembers the experience. I am happy that my wife survived because if she had died, I wouldn’t have anyone to blame.”
Despite their ordeal, leaving Kano is not an option for the 37-year-old businessman who has been living in the city since 1996.
“If I decide to relocate somewhere else, starting life again would be difficult. That is the reason why I’m still here. We live in the hope that things will be better, even though some of us are in debt,” he said regretfully.
At the time of the interview, Mr Chika alleged that the religious police were still holding on to his wife’s mobile phone. Although it promised to return her personal belongings, nothing has been returned. “Not even the proceeds from the sales we made the day they raided our shop,” he lamented.
Mrs Promise, a mother of three who runs a beverage shop with her husband, alleged that a Hisbah operative threatened to stab her in late 2020.
“It was a Monday during the festive season. After going away with our goods, they later came back to look for my husband but found me still at the shop. One of them shouted at me, ‘what are you still doing here?’ I said, ‘I will not deny my husband because you people want to arrest him.’ So, he removed his dagger. Then I shouted, go ahead and stab me. It happened just here,” she said, pointing to a spot nearby.
In September 2022, Mrs Promise said her business lost N1.7m worth of beverages and they paid N300,000 to Hisbah operatives to release the Volkswagen Sharan conveying the goods.
Another wine dealer, who identified himself as God’s Own, has lost goods worth over N5m and paid heavily to bail some of his workers in custody.
He recounts, “They packed everything you see here, including the carton in which we keep our leather bags and non-alcoholic drinks. They packed everything and whisked away two boys and one of my customers.”
But despite the clampdown and destruction of alcoholic beverages, findings indicate that the state government collects taxes from the sale of the products declared as haram by the authorities.
Alcohol beverage distributors who spoke under strict anonymity alleged that they have collectively paid about N500,000 in taxes to state officials from January to November 2022. They tendered the tax receipts issued by the state government.
“We pay government officials. We don’t pay directly to government accounts. They send their officials to us. Last month, we lost about N100m worth of goods to Hisbah. It was a joint purchase where several of us chartered a trailer to convey the goods. Many of those involved in that deal have run out of business. They can’t even pay house rent or their children’s school fees today. But we don’t force anyone to buy these drinks from us,” a dealer lamented.
However, the Kano State Internal Revenue Service denied the claims. In a phone interview, the Head of Corporate Communication, KIRS, Rabiu Rimingado, argued that “it is currently illegal to import and sell alcohol in Kano State, let alone collect revenue from those who trade it. We can’t collect taxes on what we perceive to be Haram.”
Despite growing concerns about its operations and alleged disregard for human rights, Hisbah’s influence has continued to spread across the core north. Established by the Kwankwaso administration in 2003, the Kano State Hisbah Board is responsible for, among other things, enforcing Shari’a law across the state. It prohibits alcohol, gambling, prostitution, street begging and any emerging moral anomaly it identifies among the populace.
In an interview with in February 2022, the Hisbah Command-General, Sheikh Harun Ibn Sina revealed that the corps has about 15,700 men and women on its payroll spread across the 44 local government areas of the state.
Since 2003, the Kano State government has reviewed its laws affecting the operation of Shari’a and revoked all liquor licenses in its domain. It also proscribed the delivery of certificates of occupancy to any plot owner who plans to build brothels, clubs, and structures meant for immoral purposes.
As an Islamic police, the Hisbah Corps also enforces Ramadan fasts amongst Muslims and, in April 2021, arrested eight persons at Tudun Murtala over their alleged refusal to fast during Ramadan. Later that year, it ordered boutique owners to use only headless mannequins for displaying clothes.
According to a BBC report, the Hisbah chief, Ibn Sina said Islam frowns at idolatry because the heads of the mannequins make them look like human beings. He also noted that the mannequins should be covered because they depict a female’s breasts and other private parts, which should not be exposed.
Data from Hisbah’s department of operations showed that the agency seized over 302,863,127 bottles of alcoholic beverages between January 2020 and November 2022 in Kano. Since the declaration of Shari’a law in 12 northern states in the early 2000s, Hisbah and its variants now exist in at least 16 states, including Zamfara, Katsina, Jigawa, Kebbi, Borno, Gombe, Sokoto and Kebbi, which, in September 2022, co-opted Hisbah into a full-fledged security outfit.
Although Shari’a law in Nigeria was supposed to apply only to Muslims, non-Muslims have been punished for alleged breaches. Machalla, a storekeeper in Sabon Gari, was accompanying a truckload of alcoholic goods when Hisbah operatives intercepted him and two others along Kano-Zaria Road.
Though not a professing Muslim, he was arraigned at a Magistrate Court at Hajj Camp, Kofar Mazugal, Kano and allegedly tried under the Shari’a law.
“The judge sentenced me to one year in prison with an option of N40,000 fine without a lawyer. He even threatened me with a life sentence if I was caught next time. Before I knew it, someone dragged me into the black maria and led me to a cell. But my boss came to bail me the next day. They would have transferred me to prison if he did not come early,” he told our correspondent.
On the night of November 1, 2021, Hisbah operatives raided a recreational centre operated by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria along Airport Road by Pounded Yam Junction in Ungogo LGA, Kano.
“They arrested about 10 staff members, including our kitchen attendants. None of the affected staff was Muslim. Not one! We had to bail some of them with N100,000,” Chris, a FAAN Staff Club official, told .
Goods worth over N1m were reportedly seized that night. According to him, the facility serves a similar purpose as the Air Force and Army Officers’ Mess situated some minutes away.
— Hisbah
In an interview conducted at its headquarters, Hisbah’s Deputy Commander-General (Operations), Shehu Ishaq, told our correspondent that the group’s operations are legitimate and void of human rights abuses.
However, he said episodes of violence only emerge when operatives encounter hostile confrontations in their line of duty and act in self-defence.
“Our job does not entail beating or insulting anyone except if the culprit engages or confronts our workers. Our workers will have to defend themselves and we don’t allow our staff members to go out for operations in combat uniform. When we receive reports of violations perpetrated by our men, we sanction them accordingly,” he said in Hausa, just as he denied harassing Mrs Chika or any pregnant woman.
Ishaq said, “I am the operations leader, and I have not received any information that any woman or even a pregnant woman was involved in any confrontation in this job.”
On jurisprudence, he argued that Hisbah does not enforce the Shari’a law but the Penal Code (Amendment) Act 2004, which affects both Muslims and non-Muslims.
“There is Sharia law, and there is the Penal Code. Penal Code deals with laws pertaining to how people live in the state, irrespective of whether they are Muslim or non-Muslim. This law prohibits haulage, sale and ownership of any intoxicant that can be drunk, smoked or smeared on the body.
“This is the law that we use and anytime we want to take a culprit to court, we go to the Magistrate Court, not Shari’a court. I do not think they will use Shari’a law in a Magistrate court. And if they do, then they have erred because all courts have jurisdictions,” he explained.
When challenged about the state’s statutory allocations from the Federation Account, which also include proceeds from alcohol-trading states, Ishaq argued that Kano is not bothered about how the Federal Government generates its revenues but only receives its portion from the national coffers.
He also cited the provisions of section 38 (1) of the Nigerian Constitution, which he said gives every region the right to make laws to live by, a claim strongly refuted by legal experts.
“That’s actually not it because you’re looking at a state; you’re not looking at an individual. Once the law of a state runs in contract distinction to the provisions of the Constitution that is clear and unambiguous, that law to the extent of that inconsistency is null and void,” argues the Principal Partner at Jireh and Greys Attorneys, Norrison Quakers, SAN, in an interview with .
Quoting section 10 of the 1999 Constitution (Amended) which states: “The Government of the Federation or a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion,” Quakers argued that it is wrong to extend the implementation of such a law to those who are not adherents of the faith.
“It is obvious globally. For instance, in the UAE, I know that during Ramadan or other religious observances, they caution non-adherents not to do things that would perhaps lure others into disobeying their religious injunctions.
“For instance, if they are fasting, you can’t eat publicly but that is not to say you cannot eat. You also have designated places where people go to drink and unwind or live their lives. And that is even for an Islamic state,” he noted.
Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN, noted that section 38 (1) of the 1999 Constitution (Amended) only empowers citizens to manifest their religion, not states.
Therefore, when states try to enforce religious laws, he added, they expend resources contributed by the citizens residing within them, some of which do not uphold the beliefs being propagated.
He said, “The government has no right to enforce religion on behalf of an individual. The right granted by the Constitution is to the citizens, and it is a private right. So, it cannot be enforced by a government on behalf of citizens because there are many citizens in that state who may not subscribe to the particular religion that the government is trying to enforce or propagate.
“And if that is the case, then it has gotten to section 42, talking about discrimination on the grounds of religion because, to enforce that right of religion for individuals, state funds and resources will be used. These funds, which are contributed by people who do not belong to that particular religion, will be used to enforce a religion they don’t subscribe to.”
Regardless of the arguments of the experts and the provisions of the constitution, Today, Hisbah’s chief Ibn Sina continues to insist that the board’s jurisdiction ‘’covers both Muslim and non-Muslim communities.” For sellers and consumers of alcoholic beverages, the fear of the Hisbah Corps remains the beginning of wisdom and peace in Kano.
