At least 10 people died in the first week of September in clashes between Muslims and Christians in the northern Nigerian state of Gombe, the BBC reported. Tension in Gombe has been growing for weeks over proposals to introduce Shari' a. On 10 September, the Abubakar Tafewa Balewa University in Bauchi, northern Nigeria, was closed indefinitely following clashes between Muslim and Christian students, media organisations reported. AFP said an office on the university compound was burnt and about 15 vehicles reported vandalised. Government discrimination based on religion and societal tension between different religious groups continued.
Nigerian law prohibits religious discrimination.
Nonetheless, reports were common that government officials discriminated against persons practicing a religion different from their own, notably in hiring or awarding contracts. Zamfara's law adopted traditional Shari' a in its entirety, with the exception that apostasy was not criminalized. Other Muslim communities, particularly from the states of Kano, Niger, Sokoto, Jigawa, Borno, Yobe, Kaduna, and Katsina states, began to echo the call for Shari' a in their states. Although Christians were exempt from the law, the societal ramifications of expanded Shari' a law infringed upon the rights of non-Muslims in the north to live in a society governed by secular laws. Plans to implement expanded Shari' a laws in Kaduna state, which has a large Christian population, sparked violence in February 2000 that lasted for several days and resulted in an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 deaths.