Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies (2001)
ISSN: 1530-5686
NIGERIA: SPINSTERS FLEE TO BARRACKS IN MINNA
|
Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies (2001) ISSN: 1530-5686 NIGERIA: SPINSTERS FLEE TO BARRACKS IN MINNA |
|
Abubakar Muhammed
Post Express, Lagos
November 2000
Free and single girls in Minna, the Niger State capital, earlier given a week’s ultimatum by the state’s Sharia Implementation Board to get married or quit the state, have invaded military and police barracks for refuge as the board commences a house-to-house search for them.
The Post Express gathered in Minna that following the development, some of the girls have now resorted to squatting with unmarried soldiers and policemen in barracks where the board’s operations are restricted.
Some of the girls, it was gathered, have converted a block of vacant flats at the 31 Artillery Brigade Barracks to their use.
Also in Bida, some of the girls now squat with unmarried soldiers in the barracks while others throng beer parlours for men that need them. Those without alternative arrangement have begun to flee the state en masse.
Though the state Governor, Alhaji Abdulkadir Kure, had earlier said single ladies would not be embarrassed in the course of the board’s assignment, the police, on the instructions of the board, have embarked on the mass arrest of the ladies.
A female corper [National Youth Service Corp member] recently arrested by the board told the Post Express that “I was staying in front of our lodge when they came, saying that don’t I know that there is sharia here. Why should I move in with a man in the night.”
The corper who has since been released further stated that “I really went through hell before they released me.”
Contacted, the Board Chairman, Alhaji Awal Bida, said “we exempt spinsters who are employed, students and corpers.”
On the indiscriminate arrest, he said, “I am telling you that no body is arresting indiscriminately, we must do our job the right way.”
Copyright 2001 Africa Resource Center, Inc.
Citation Format
Muhammed, Abubakar (2001). NIGERIA: SPINSTERS FLEE TO BARRACKS IN MINNA. Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies: 1, 1.