Shariacracy and Federal Models in the Era of Globalization: Nigeria in a Comparative Perspective Ali A. Mazrui Abstract Nigeria has Africa’s largest concentration of Muslims and the world’s largest concentration of black Muslims. As the twenty- first century began to unfold, more Muslim states in the Nigerian federation adopted some version of Islamic law, although the country as a whole is supposed to be secularist. The Shari`ah in northern Nigeria, which became a passionate protest against the political and economic marginalization of northern Muslims, is also sometimes a form of cultural resistance to western education and the wider forces of globalization. One systemic problem posed by shariacracy as a mode of governance is whether a fed- eral system can accommodate theocracy at the state level and still be a secular state at a federal level. Nigeria has a religious form of asymmetrical federalism that contrasts with the linguistic form of asymmetrical federalism successfully practiced in Switzerland. In May 1999 a new president was sworn into office in Nigeria – the first elected civilian president since the military coup of 1983. Retired General Olusegun Obasanjo was also the first non-Muslim to be popularly elected president nation-wide since independence.1 Ali A. Mazrui is currently editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences and president of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists of North America. He also serves as professor at Cornell University’s Africana Studies and Research Center and as professor in the State University of New York–Binghamton’s Department of Political Science and director of its Institute for Global Cultural Studies. The author or coauthor of more than twenty books on African politics, international political culture, political Islam, and North-South relations, he also created the television series The Africans: A Triple Heritage, which was jointly pro- duced by the BBC and PBS in association with the Nigerian Television Authority. ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 41 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com 42 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 26:3 Nigeria has the largest concentration of Muslims on the African conti- nent. It has more Muslims than any Arab country, including Egypt.2 In the fifteen months (approximately) since Olusegun Obasanjo became president, some predominantly Muslim states in the Nigerian federation took steps toward implementing the Shari`ah in their own states, although the country as a whole is supposed to be a secular republic.3 This has caused consterna- tion among non-Muslim Nigerians. Indeed in Kaduna state, during 2000 this Christian consternation exploded into inter-communal riots that cost hun- dreds of lives.4 But the momentum for shariacracy still continues. Globalization and Islamic Revivalism Many reasons have been advanced for the rise of Shari`ah advocacy and Sha- ri`ah implementation in northern Nigeria. One explanation is that the Niger- ian federation is becoming more decentralized and part of decentralization is taking the form of cultural self-determination. In Yorubaland it is taking the form of Yoruba nationalism, in Igboland it is taking the form of new demands for confederation, and in the Muslim north it is taking the form of shari- acracy. Another explanation for the rise of Shari`ah militancy is to regard it as a political bargaining chip. As the north is losing political influence in the federation, it is asserting new forms of autonomy in preparation for a new national compact among contending forces.5 What has not been discussed is whether the rise of Shari`ah militancy is itself a consequence of globalization. One of the repercussions of globaliza- tion worldwide has been the arousal of cultural insecurity and uncertainty about identities. Indeed, the paradox of globalization is that it both promotes enlargement of the economic scale and stimulates fragmentation of the eth- nic and cultural scales.6 The enlargement of the economic scale is illustrated by the rise of the European Union (EU) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).The fragmentation of the cultural and ethnic scales is illustrated by the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the collapse of Czechoslovakia into two countries, the rise of Hindu fundamentalism in India and Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan, the collapse of Somalia after its penetration by the Soviet Union and the United States, and the reactivation of genocidal behavior among the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi. Given that globalization is a special scale of westernization, it has trig- gered off identity crises from Uzbekistan to Somalia, and from Afghanistan to northern Nigeria. Fragile ethnic identities and endangered cultures are being forced into new forms of resistance. Resisting westernization becomes ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 42 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com indistinguishable from resisting globalization. In Nigeria, the south is part of the vanguard of westernization and therefore the first to respond to globaliza- tion. When the south also appears to be politically triumphant within Nigeria, alarm bells go off in parts of the north. This may not necessarily represent northern distrust of the Yoruba or Igbo cultures; in fact, it may be northern distrust of westernization. Is southern Nigeria a Trojan horse for globaliza- tion? And is globalization, in turn, a Trojan horse for westernization? Under this paradigm, the Shari`ah becomes a form of northern resistance – not to southern Nigeria, but to the forces of globalization and their western- izing consequences.7 Even the policy of privatizing public enterprises is prob- ably an aspect of the new globalizing ideology. Privatization in Nigeria may either lead to new transnational corporations establishing their roots or to private southern entrepreneurs outsmarting northerners and deepening the economic divide between the two regions. Again, the Shari`ah may be a northern gut response to these looming clouds of globalization. In Nigeria, the Shari`ah is caught between the forces of federal democra- tization and the forces of wider globalization. Let us look more closely at the complexities of globalization and the intricacies of democratic federalism. Globalization: Economic and Cultural Two forms of globalization have affected Nigeria in contradictory ways – economic globalization and cultural globalization. The forces of economic globalization in the world as a whole have deepened Nigeria’s marginaliza- tion, whereas those of cultural globalization have substantially penetrated and assimilated much of Nigeria. On attaining its independence, Nigeria’s economic marginalization was partly due to the fact that colonialism had created an “elite of consumption” rather than “an elite of productivity.” The postcolonial Nigerian elite was more adept at making money than at creating wealth. Money could be made in a network of capital transfers without generating genuine growth. The elite had learned the techniques of circulating money without acquiring a talent for creating new wealth.8 The colonial impact on Nigeria generated urbanization without industri- alization, fostered western consumption patterns without western productive techniques, cultivated among Nigerians western tastes without western skills, and initiated secularization without the scientific spirit. The stage was set for the country’s marginalization in the era of globalization. One had hoped that petroleum would enable Nigeria to join the more prosperous forces of globalization. Following OPEC’s dramatic rise, Nigeria Mazrui: Shariacracy and Federal Models in the Era of Globalization 43 ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 43 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com 44 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 26:3 became the world’s fifth largest oil producer.9 Yet the nature of the “elite of consumption” and the shortage of relevant skills plunged its economy into mismanagement, corruption, and debt. Long lines at gas stations and recur- rent fuel shortages were the order of the day. Commercial activity was often disrupted by shortages of diesel, kerosene, cooking gas, and other commodi- ties. Africa’s giant was in danger of becoming the world’s midget; Africa’s Gulliver was in danger of becoming the globe’s Lilliput. On the other hand, cultural globalization had already substantially coopted Nigeria to its ranks. Southern Nigeria especially has demonstrated a remarkable receptivity to the forces of cultural globalization through west- ernization. Although Christianity arrived in India eighteen centuries before it arrived in what is today Nigeria, the population of Indian Christians is still only 2.5%, whereas the Christians of Nigeria represent more than 35% of the national population.10 In one century, Christianity made more headway in southern Nigeria than it had in India in nearly 2,000 years. At least for a while, Nigeria was also very receptive to western edu- cation. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, it had exported more highly educated personnel to the United States (proportionally) than had any other country in the world. Of all of these new immigrants, Nigerians have the highest proportion of graduates,11 the great majority of whom are Igbo, Yoruba, and other southerners. In addition to religion and education as forces of cultural globalization, there has also been the impact of major European languages as international media of communication. In the case of Nigeria, the impact of English has been relatively profound. Nigeria has produced its own simplified version of English (Pidgin) as a grassroots lingua franca.12 But standard English has nev- ertheless made great strides – producing such world-class literary figures as Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, J. P. Clark, and the late Christopher Okigbo. The vast majority of Nigeria’s great writers in English are southerners – com- plete with the Nobel Literary Laureate Soyinka. Once again Nigeria has shown a great receptivity to cultural globalization in a European idiom. If, in global terms, Nigeria was economically on the periphery, north- ern Nigeria was the periphery’s periphery. The world economy had margin- alized Nigeria as a country, and the Nigerian economy had marginalized the north as a region. In spite of the fact that northern soldiers had ruled Nigeria for so long since independence, the nation’s economic elite was much larger in the south than in the north. The oil wealth and related industries were dis- proportionately located in the south, and the southern elite was, on the whole, more adept at making money than its northern counterparts.13 ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 44 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com One of the triggers of the shariacracy movement in some northern states was northern resentment of being the periphery’s periphery. When the north held political power, northerners could more easily accept their economic marginality. But the federal elections of 1999 shifted political power to the south without reducing the north’s economic marginality. The politics of shariacracy were, in part, a protest against regional economic inequalities.14 But what is shariacracy? We define it as governance according to the norms, principles, and rules laid down by Islamic law. Under British colonial rule, the Shari`ah was implemented for Muslims in the domain of family law and certain areas of civil suit. But the kadhis (Muslim judges and magistrates) were not normally authorized to administer the criminal side of Islamic law. In each British colony in Africa with a large Muslim population, there was a triple heritage of law – indigenous, Islamic, and British-derived. Criminal law tended to be British-derived with suitable imperial and colonial amend- ments.15 Issues like marriage, divorce, inheritance, succession, and certain forms of property, however, could be subjected to either the Shari`ah or African customary law. The Shari`ah, therefore, is nothing new in northern Nigeria. What is new is shariacracy – its adoption as the foundation of gov- ernance and its expansion into the criminal justice system. While northern Nigerians have deeply minded being economically mar- ginal, they have NOT minded being culturally authentic. Partly because of Islam and partly because of Lord Lugard’s policy of indirect rule during the colonial period, the Hausa-Fulani have been far less receptive to westerniza- tion than the southerners. To that extent, northern Nigeria had in any case remained more culturally authentic and less penetrated by the West even without adopting the Shari`ah.16 However, the new globalization in southern Nigeria was bound to cause cultural alarm bells to go off in the north. In the colonial era, Lord Lugard had kept Christianity at bay in the north through the shield of indirect rule.17 Postcolonial politicians in northern states are seeking to keep globalization at bay through the shield of the Shari`ah. If modernization is a higher phase of westernization and globalization is a higher phase of modernization, the stage is now being set for new kinds of normative responses. The Shari`ah is a form of passionate protest against economic marginalization, a cultural resistance to westernization against encroaching globalization. Northern Nigeria is engaged in both protest and resistance through the medium of the Shari`ah. Ordinary people in Africa are often ignorant of western-derived law; but if they are Muslim, they at least have some prior familiarity with the Shari`ah. Mazrui: Shariacracy and Federal Models in the Era of Globalization 45 ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 45 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com 46 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 26:3 Courts of law in postcolonial African countries south of the Sahara primarily use the imperial European language for adjudication, argument, verdict, and sentencing. The legal concepts and principles invoked are in English, French, Portuguese, or Latin, as the case may be. The defendants may be quite igno- rant of the particular European language as they stand in the dock, and thus terms like “accessory before the fact” or mutates mutandis are often beyond the comprehension of the average defendant or plaintiff. Debates that go on between lawyers in a western-style courtroom in Africa are almost literally “double-Dutch” to the accused. An Islamic court in sub-Saharan Africa, on the other hand, normally uses the language of the particular community within which the court operates. An Islamic court in Zanzibar or Kenya is likely to use Kiswahili, while an Islamic court in northern Nigeria uses Hausa. The Qur’an and the written parts of the Shari`ah may indeed remain in Arabic, but the legal discourse in the court is conducted mainly in the relevant African language.18 What is more, many of the basic phrases in the Shari`ah might already have entered the indigenous languages of African Muslims – Arabic words like haram (forbidden), halal (permissible), riba (usury), zina’ (adultery), and hukum (judgment) have already entered Kiswahili.19 Many of such legal and moral terms drawn from the Shari`ah have also been assimilated into Hausa. The gulf separating the language of lawyers from the language of everyday life is, therefore, far narrower in a postcolonial Muslim legal sys- tem than in a westernized African judicial order. Asymmetrical Federalism: Global Perspectives If Nigeria is a secular federation, can some of its constituent states neverthe- less be theocratic? Is national secularism compatible with official religions at the state level? This raises the issue of whether federations are viable if the constituent states are asymmetrical in their constitutional systems. Quebec has been demanding treatment as a distinct society. If Islamic law in Nigeria risks discriminating against non-Muslim Nigerians, the language policy in Quebec risks discriminating against English-speaking Canadians. There is a built-in asymmetry in the Canadian federation when one province can give French special status while the rest of the country is primarily English-speaking. French is the “Shari`ah” of Quebec.20 Comparable asym- metry exists in the Indian federation, in which the de facto status of Hindi differs between northern and southern states, although both Hindi and English are de jure national languages. ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 46 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com The United Kingdom virtually invented asymmetry as a constitutional order. Scotland had its own law and currency and, more recently, its own regional assembly under Tony Blair in the 1990s. Northern Ireland had a sep- arate regional assembly long before either Wales or Scotland did. As for England, it has no separate regional assembly distinct from the national par- liament of the whole country. In short, the United Kingdom has never tried to have symmetrical constitutional arrangements for its main constituent regions (viz., England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland).21 For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Scotland was the “Zamfara state” of the United Kingdom. During the twentieth century, Zam- fara turned to Islamic law. Much earlier, Scotland had turned for guidance to Roman law, as developed by the jurists of France and Holland. Scotland’s legal practices and judicial institutions differed greatly from those of England at that time, for its law was not based on Roman law. But it did con- tain, however, a considerable infusion of Roman principles. Like Zamfara, Scotland not only had a separate legal system from the rest of the country, it also declared allegiance to a different religion. Zamfara in the twenty-first century turned to Sunni Islam; Scotland continued its alle- giance to a separate Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) in 1707. A separate Scottish church and legal and judicial system have continued to the present day, although Scottish law has borrowed a good deal from English law in more recent times.22 Alongside the constitutional asymmetry, some degree of national integration was taking place among the United Kingdom’s con- stituent regions. The whole country was getting Anglicized and “Britishized” into a relatively coherent whole. Similarly, the decision of Zamfara, Kano, and other northern Nigerian states to go Islamic need not be incompatible with the wider process of Nigerianization and national integration. A less enduring asymmetry was the United States’ ban on alcoholic drinks. Initially, this ban was initiated by individual states. The first state law against alcohol was passed in Maine in 1850, and was soon followed by a wave of comparable legislation in other states. This was followed by two other waves of laws at various state levels.23 Meanwhile, a campaign for pro- hibition at the federal level had been gathering momentum. A constitutional amendment against alcohol needed a two-thirds majority in Congress and approval by three-quarters of the states. Such a constitutional change was ratified on 29 January 1919 and went into effect on 29 January 1920 as the Constitution’s Eighteenth Amendment.24 Just as the Shari`ah can work only where there is popular support for it, the Eighteenth Amendment only worked where public opinion was gen- Mazrui: Shariacracy and Federal Models in the Era of Globalization 47 ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 47 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com 48 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 26:3 uinely for temperance and against alcohol. Prohibition at the federal level created resentment in those states that were not against alcoholic drinks and in large cities where alcohol had long been part of normal life.25 Bootlegging emerged as a new kind of crime – the most dramatic embodiment of which was Al Capone and his bootlegging gang (illicit alco- hol underground) operating out of Chicago. Prohibition at the federal level created more problems than it solved, and in less than fifteen years the United States was ready to repeal it. In February 1933 Congress adopted a resolution proposing a new constitutional amendment to that effect. On 5 December 1933, Utah cast the thirty-sixth ratifying vote in favor of the Twenty-first Amendment, thereby making alcohol legal once again at the federal level.26 A few American states continued to remain “dry” and chose to maintain a state-wide ban. But the disenchantment which the federal-level prohibition had created adversely affected attitudes to temperance, even in those states that had once led the way in favor of prohibition. It is arguable that prohibi- tion at the state level might have lasted far longer if the original asymmetry (some states for and others against) had been respected and allowed to con- tinue. The Eighteenth Amendment was a pursuit of national symmetry in American attitudes to alcohol. It sought a premature national moral consen- sus on alcohol, and thereby hurt the cause of temperance in the country as a whole. By 1966 virtually all of the Union’s fifty states had legalized alco- holic drinks – though some preferred that drinking be restricted to homes and private clubs rather than be served in public bars and saloons. The most controversial elements of the Shari`ah are the hudud (Islamic punishments for criminal offenders). In a federation like Nigeria, do differ- ent punishments for the same offense in different states violate the principle of “equal protection before the law”? Saudi Arabia has been known to exe- cute even a princess on charges of adultery. While Zamfara has not invoked the death penalty for adultery and fornication, it has flogged an unmarried girl on the “evidence” of her pregnancy.27 I believe such punishments are too severe and ought to be reconsidered in the light of ijtihad. In this paper, however, I am focusing on the implica- tions of having differing punishments within states for the same offense. Is such a situation a denial of “equal protection before the law”? It is in the nature of federalism that some laws be state laws and others be federal enact- ments. Therefore, some offenses would be state offenses and others would be federal felonies. The state offenses are bound to differ from state to state. But can there really be “equal protection before the law” when a citizen can be subject to the death penalty in one state and receive a light sentence ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 48 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com in another state for the same offense? In reality, a similar asymmetry exists in the United States. First, the death penalty has been abolished or ceased to be carried out in some American states and not in others. Texas is the lead- ing executioner-state in the Union; Massachusetts has no death penalty at all. New York, which had no capital punishment under Governor Mario Cuomo, reinstated it Governor George Pataki. Even more controversial are the following two questions: Can the death penalty be applied to mentally retarded offenders? Can it be carried out on young offenders whose crimes were committed when they were still minors? Some states have said “YES” to both questions – “kill them!” Surprising as it may seem, the Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that it was perfectly constitu- tional to execute mentally retarded or young offenders whose offenses were committed when they were minors. In Penry v. Lynaugh (1989) it ruled that the execution of a “mildly to moderately retarded” person did not violate the Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment), and in Stanford v. Kentucky (1989) it ruled that the Eighth Amendment did not prohibit the death penalty for a defendant who was sixteen or seventeen at the time of committing the crime.28 Twelve years later, in the year 2001, the issue of executing the mentally retarded was back before the Supreme Court with the case of a convicted killer whose mental capacity was that of a seven-year-old child. The Supreme Court had previously said it was constitutional to execute this very offender, but new considerations had brought the case back to the court. No ruling has yet been made.29 Behind it all is a nation still divided on the death penalty, with some states upholding it and others rejecting it as “cruel and unusual punishment.” What all this means is that federalism can accommodate a lack of constitu- tional symmetry even when the areas of disagreement are about matters of life and death. The hudud in Nigeria and Sudan include matters of life and death; so does the debate about capital punishment in the United States. Can God’s Law Be Reviewed? To Nigerian Muslims the Shari`ah is an alternative paradigm of judicial order and law enforcement. Inherited colonial traditions of law enforcement and social responsibility are not working in the country as a whole. One solution is to go back to ancestry. Muslim Nigerians knew two ancient sys- tems: African law and the Shari`ah. African customary law was unwritten and uncodified. Did it allow the judge too much discretion? The Shari`ah is ancient and firmly rooted in sacred scriptures. Is it allowing the judge too lit- Mazrui: Shariacracy and Federal Models in the Era of Globalization 49 ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 49 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com 50 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 26:3 tle discretion? Muslim Nigerians have preferred too little discretion rather than too much. To Muslims the Shari`ah is God’s law. But it is God’s law as interpreted by human beings. Here on Earth there is no such thing as a law that is inde- pendent of human interpretation. God’s law is infallible, but its human inter- preters are not. Africa was the first asylum of persecuted Islam – the pre-hijrah migra- tion to Ethiopia of Islamized Arabs on the run from hostile Makkans. Will Africa be the final asylum of the Shari`ah under the persecution of material- ism, secularism, westernization, globalization, and ungodliness everywhere else in the world? Nascent Islam in the seventh century found refuge in the rising plateaus of Ethiopia. Will mature but harassed Islam in the twenty- first century find asylum in the grazing fields of Muslim Nigeria? This would be a great responsibility for Nigerian Muslims, for they would be mortals entrusted with an immortal law. What is crucial is that human interpreters should not act as if they are in direct communication with Allah. Humans should always allow for their own fallibility while interpret- ing the Shari`ah. For the Shari`ah to survive in Nigeria, the door of ijtihad (judicial review) would have to be reopened. Without saying so in so many words, the door of ijtihad in Sunni Islam has, in fact, been closed for nearly a thousand years.30 It was wide open during the days of the Prophet and the first four caliphs. But the consolidation of the four Sunni schools of legal thought into madhahib effectively closed the door of judicial review.31 The questions that now arise are whether Africa will eventually be the place that holds the key to the door of ijitihad and will Nigeria lead the way? Will the Shari`ah survive the governors who first initiated it in Northern Nigeria? Is the Shari`ah in Nigeria to stay? One scenario is that it will stay, but not necessarily in the form in which it was first implemented. The door of ijtihad may reopen in the form of fresh fatwas, new legal interpretations of God’s law. Few public ulama today would openly proclaim that slavery is compatible with Islam – although slavery was tolerated in the Prophet’s own time and long afterwards. Scholars like Taha Jabir al-Alwani have given learned fatwas that many of the Prophet’s sayings, as well as some verses of the Qur’an, showed that Islam favored emancipation. Islam was clearly in favor freeing individual slaves, but was Islam in favor of abolish- ing the institution of slavery? Thirteen centuries before William Wilberforce and Abraham Lincoln, Islam was on the verge of evolving from being pro-emancipation in the case of individual slaves to being pro-abolition in the case of slavery. What inter- ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 50 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com rupted this symphony of freedom was the historical accident that the Arabs went monarchical and royalist after the assassination of Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib. This royalization under the Umayyads and the Abbasids gave class and status among Muslims a new lease on life. Slavery became part of the interplay between servitude and privilege in the succeeding millennium of Muslim history. A new ijtihad against servitude, a new fatwa against slav- ery, had to wait for the ulama of the twentieth century.32 Similarly, a new ijtihad is needed about the death penalty for adultery and amputation of the hand for stealing. These Islamic punishments were first introduced when societies had no police force, no forensic science, nor crim- inologists or psychiatrists who could at least provide plausible reasons for the causes of crime. If all Muslim governments were to agree today that ampu- tating a thief’s hand is wrong, knowing that Prophet Muhammad had said: “My people will never agree on error,” then this new Muslim consensus would outlaw amputation as a punishment. If the whole ummah were to finally agree that the death penalty for fornication or adultery is no longer acceptable, this would mean that the ummah had reached consensus. And, as stated above, the Prophet said: “My people will never agree on error.” Both ijitihad and ijma` can be sources of fundamental legal review.33 Conclusion The globalization of the world economy has left Nigeria and much of the rest of Africa marginalized. Nigerians have been casualties, rather than gen- uine partners, of international capitalism. Cultural globalization, on the other hand, has found a ready receptivity in Nigeria. Large parts of the country were rapidly Christianized, and English acquired a Nigerian dialect. An earlier phase of cultural globalization was westernization. Nigeria inherited a legal system based primarily on British law and the English judi- cial traditions. Moreover, the language of interpreting this western-derived law and the constitution was the imperial language: English. If Nigeria as a whole was a periphery of the world economic system, northern Nigeria was economically a periphery of the periphery. But its eco- nomic marginalization was camouflaged for a while by the fact that north- erners held political power. After General Obasanjo was elected president in 1999, the north’s political decline exposed more mercilessly its economic marginality. The shariacracy initiative by some northern states is, in part, a protest against economic marginalization and, in part, a defense against unwanted cultural globalization. Mazrui: Shariacracy and Federal Models in the Era of Globalization 51 ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 51 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com 52 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 26:3 Nigeria is the only African country outside Arab Africa that has seri- ously debated an alternative to the western constitutional and legal inheri- tance. In part, this is what the shariacracy debate is all about. But Nigeria may need to use ijtihad as a process for reviewing the Shari`ah. After all, the Shari`ah is God’s law as interpreted by fallible human beings. Another problem posed by the Shari`ah debate is whether a federal sys- tem can support the cultural self-determination of its constituent parts and still retain its cohesion as a federation. Switzerland has conceded cultural auton- omy to its constituent cantons, but in terms of language (German, French, and Italian).34 Initially, the Nigerian federation allowed neither linguistic nor reli- gious self-determination at the state level. What the shariacracy debate has opened up is the possibility that religion, rather than language, could be the basis of cultural differentiation in an asymmetrical constitutional order. Nigeria has the largest concentration of Muslims in Africa. Its popula- tion, as we indicated, encompasses more Muslims than the population of any Arab country, including Egypt. But can the Shari`ah be implemented at the state level without compromising secularism at the federal level?35 I have tried to demonstrate that in terms of theories of asymmetrical fed- eralism, such a paradox of state theocracy combined with federal secularism is feasible. But it would only work if both political power and economic prosperity were more evenly distributed between north and south and when globalization in the wider world became more compatible with Nigeria’s national well-being. No wonder, then, that there are voices sincerely plead- ing for the postponement of shariacracy. In the name of Nigerian unity, should the Shari`ah be a dream deferred? Endnotes 1. For a report, see The Washington Post (30 May 2000), p. 1. 2. Nearly 50 percent of the estimated 128 million Nigerians are estimated to be Muslim; see Arthur S. Banks and Thomas C. Muller, eds., Political Handbook of the World, 1999 (Binghamton, NY: CSA Publications, 1999), 723 and The World Guide 1999/2000 (Oxford, UK: New Internationalist Publications, 1999), 429. 3. For a list of these states, consult Africa Research Bulletin 37, no. 8 (22 Sept. 2000), 14077. 4. See the reports in The Guardian (22 Feb. 2000), p. 1 and The Christian Science Monitor (26 May 2000), p. 1. 5. An overview of the North-South and other cleavages bedeviling Nigeria may be found in The Economist (15 Jan. 2000), 14-15 and (8 Jul. 2000), 47. For ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 52 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com longer analyses on earlier conflicts caused by the Shari`ah issue, see Toyin Falola, Violence in Nigeria: The Crisis of Religious Politics and Secular Ide- ologies (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1998), especially 77- 113; Simeon O. Ilesanmi, Religious Pluralism and the Nigerian State (Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1997), 174-207; M. H. Kukah and Toyin Falola, Religious Militancy and Self-Assertion: Islam and Politics in Nigeria (Aldershot, UK, and Brookfield, VT: Avebury Press, 1996), 117-39; and Pat A. T. Williams, “Religion, Violence, and Displacement in Nigeria,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, 32, nos. 1-2 (Jun. 1997): 33-49. 6. Consult Benjamin Barber, Jihad Vs. McWorld (New York: Times Books, 1995). 7. For an earlier example, consult Abdullah Mu’aza Saulawa, “Islam and its Anti- Colonial and Educational Contribution in West Africa and Northern Nigeria, 1800-1960,” Hamdard Islamicus 19, no. 1, (1996): 69-79 and Falola, Violence in Nigeria, 74-77. 8. The elite stole much of the fruits of Nigeria’s development; see A. A. Niwanko, Nigeria: The Stolen Billions (Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Pub., 1999). 9. Today Nigeria produces about 931 million metric tons of oil, about 2.9 percent of world output; see John B. Ejobowah, “Who Owns the Oil: The Politics of Ethnicity in the Niger Delta of Nigeria,” Africa Today 47 (winter 2000): 37; also see Sarah Ahmed Khan, Nigeria: The Political Economy of Oil (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies, 1994). 10. The figure for India is drawn from a report in U. S. News & World Report (25 Jan. 1999), p. 40, while the figure for Nigeria is drawn from Banks and Muller, The Political Handbook of the World, 723. 11. Some interesting research on African immigrants to the United States is con- tained in Yanyi K. Djamba, “African Immigrants in the United States of Amer- ica: Socio-Demographic Profile in Comparison to Native Blacks,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 34, no. 2 (Jun. 1999): 210-15. 12. On Nigerian English, see Ayo Bamgbose, “Post-Imperial English in Nigeria, 1940-1990,” in Post-Imperial English: Status Change in Former British and American Colonies, 1940-1990, ed. Joshua A. Fishman, Andrew Conrad, and Alma Rubal-Lopez, eds. (Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1996), 357-72. On regional variations, consult V. O. Awonusi, “Regional Accents and Internal Variability in Nigerian English: A Historical Analysis,” English Studies 67 (Dec. 1986): 555-60. 13. See, for instance, Minabere Ibelema, “Nigeria: The Politics of Marginaliza- tion,” Current History 99, no. 637 (May 2000): 213. 14. This resentment did have precedents in the 1970s and 1980s; see Roman Loimeier, Islamic Reform and Political Change in Northern Nigeria (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1997), 9-10. 15. This was due to the British discomfort with some of the harsher aspects of Islamic criminal punishment; see Kukah and Falola, Religious Militancy and Self-Assertion, 39-41. Mazrui: Shariacracy and Federal Models in the Era of Globalization 53 ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 53 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com 54 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 26:3 16. See Michael Crowder, “Lugard and Colonial Nigeria: Towards an Identity,” History Today 36 (Feb. 1986): 23-29. 17. Consult Pat Williams and Toyin Falola, Religious Impact on the Nation State: The Nigerian Predicament (Aldershot, UK and Brookfield, VT: Avebury Press, 1995): 16-17. 18. For an introduction to Islamic law, see, for example, R. Gleavy and E. Kermeli, eds., Islamic Law: Theory and Practice (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1997). 19. Consult Ali A. Mazrui and Pio Zirimu, “The Secularization of an Afro-Islamic Language: Church, State and Marketplace in the Spread of Kiswahili,” in The Power of Babel: Language and Governance in the African Experience, ed. Ali A. Mazrui and Alamin A. Mazrui (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 169-71. 20. For an interesting comparative work, see Amilcar A. Barretto, Language, Elites, and the State: Nationalism in Puerto Rico and Quebec (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998). 21. For an assessment of devolution in the United Kingdom, consult Jonathan Bradbury and James Mitchell, “Devolution: New Politics for Old?” Parlia- mentary Affairs (April 2001): 257-75. 22. A discussion on the origins and development of Scottish national conscious- ness and constitutional developments may be found in Robert McCreadie, “Scottish Identity and the Constitution,” in National Identities: The Constitut- ion of the United Kingdom, ed. Bernard Crick (Cambridge, MA and Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1991), 38-56. 23. See K. Austin Kerr, Organizing for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti- Saloon League (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985), 335. 24. Consult Thomas M. Coffey, The Long Thirst: Prohibition in America 1920- 1933 (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1975) and Kerr, Organizing for Prohi- bition, 185. 25. Kerr, Organizing for Prohibition, 275-79. 26. Coffey, The Long Thirst, 315. 27. However, the three men who the woman said had coerced her into having sex went unpunished; see The Guardian (23 Jan. 2001), p. 16. 28. These and other significant Supreme Court death penalty cases are discussed in Barry Latzer, Death Penalty Cases: Leading U. S. Supreme Court Cases on Capital Punishment (Boston, Oxford, et al: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998). 29. See the New York Times (22 Jun. 2001), p. 17 for a report on the case. 30. On ijtihad, see H. H. A. Rahman, “The Origin and Development of Ijtihad to Solve Complex Modern Legal Problems,” Bulletin of the Henry Martyn Institute of Islamic Studies 17 (Jan.-Jun. 1998): 7-21. 31. Consult Frank E. Vogel, “The Closing of the Door of Ijtihad and the Applica- tion of the Law,” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 10 (fall 1993): 396-401. ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 54 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com 32. Consult John R. Willis, Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, vol. 1, Islam and the Ideology of Slavery (Totowa, NJ and London: Frank Cass, 1985). 33. On ijma`, see M. N. Khan, “Ijma`: Third Source of Islamic Law,” Hamdard Islamicus 22 (Jan. 1999): 84-86. 34. Even the vaunted Swiss system is not a perfect model; consult, for instance, Clive Church, “Switzerland: A Paradigm in Evolution,” Parliamentary Affairs 53, no. 1 (Jan. 2000): 96-113. 35. Both religion and ethnicity are challenging aspects to developing a satisfactory Nigerian federal system. For an account of the development of various Niger- ian federal systems and the challenges, see Martin Dent, “Nigeria: Federalism and Ethnic Rivalry,” Parliamentary Affairs 53, no. 1 (Jan. 2000): 157-68. Mazrui: Shariacracy and Federal Models in the Era of Globalization 55 ajiss 26-3-final-obay.qxp 6/9/2010 4:11 PM Page 55 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.pdffactory.com