Half of the state's cabinet posts are held by Muslims, half by Christians. The fact that politicians, not Muslim clerics, have pressed for Sharia suggests that the move is political, not religious, said the Rev. Victor Musa, national president of the Evangelical church of West Africa, and the Rt. Rev. Alfred A. Martins, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Abeokuta. Many Nigerians believe that officers President Olusegun Obasanjo purged from the military shortly after he took office in May are behind the Sharia conflict, Martins said. Nigeria's military has had a history of ousting democratically elected leaders during four decades of independence.
Most senior officers are Muslim.
Obasanjo is Christian. Most of those who were asked to leave were Muslim and part of the privileged class. There is a belief that they are behind the trouble now. Under colonial rule the British allowed different land laws in northern and southern Nigeria, and prohibited Christians and Muslims form evangelizing. After independence, he said, the conflict assumed a new dimension with Christians and Muslims each trying to evangelize the other.