Hundreds died in bloody riots Hundreds of people died in bloody religious riots in Kaduna last week after Christians staged a protest march over plans to introduce Sharia there. Hundreds more were killed in the largely Christian southeast this week in a backlash against Moslems. Muslim prayers took place in the city of Kano, the state capital, on Friday without incident. Observers had feared a violent reaction in the sprawling city to the killings of Muslims in Aba between Monday and Wednesday. Some people are still searching for missing family members more than a week after the violence.
Businessmen complain they've lost everything, and students say they fear returning to school.
Date of law's signing disputed Kano state's commissioner for information, Yusuf Beita, said the Sharia law was signed by the governor on February 27. But other official sources told Reuters it was signed on March 1, hours after Nigeria's advisory National Council of State met in crisis in the capital Abuja over rioting in the northern city of Kaduna. Vice-President Atiku Abubakar told a news conference later that the Council, which includes former heads of state and state governors, had agreed that no state should proceed with plans to introduce strict Sharia law. He said northern state governors had agreed to revert to the penal code, based largely on Muslim law but excluding the severe Sharia sanctions, which has been applied in northern Nigeria since before independence in 1960. The Council of State meeting has since stirred heated controversy, with one former head of state denying that there had been any agreement to suspend Sharia and another saying Sharia was not even discussed.