Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State has briefed President Muhammadu Buhari of the case of Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, a musician sentenced to death in Kano for allegedly singing a song deemed blasphemous against Prophet Mohammed.
Ganduje disclosed this when he spoke with journalists at the State House in Abuja on Tuesday, PUNCH reports.
Ganduje, who said the President had been put on notice, refused to disclose the position of Buhari on the matter.
He said that the house of the father of the accused was burnt by locals “but the boy was secured, charged to court and sentenced to death”
Kano State Government and the Sharia Council have come under intense attack following the death sentence of the musician.
Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has petitioned the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Banjul, The Gambia, over the decision of an Upper Sharia Court in Kano State sentencing Sharif-Aminu to death over the song.
Falana is asking the commission to exercise its mandate and authority under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and pursuant to the commission’s order 100(1) of the commission’s Rules of Procedure, 2020.
Amnesty International has also called on the state government to quash the conviction and death sentence of Sharif-Aminu.
The musician was on August 10, 2020 sentenced to death for the alleged offence.
Appealing the death sentence in a suit filed on Thursday at the Kano State High Court by his lawyer, Kola Alapini, Sharif-Aminu said he was dissatisfied with the judgment of the Shari’a court.
He described the Kano State Penal Law 2000 as unconstitutional, null and void, having grossly violated and conflicted with the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) as amended. (SaharaReporters)
