KANO STATE BAN ALCOHOLIC DRINKS

AKPABIO ANIEMA

The Police enforcing Islamic law in the city of Kano publicly destroyed some 240, 000 bottles of beer on Wednesday, as the latest move in a wider crackdown on behaviour deemed ‘immoral’ in the area.
The banned substances had been confiscated from trucks coming into the city in recent weeks, said officials from the His-bah, the patrol tasked with enforcing strict Islamic law, known as sharia.

Kano’s Hisbah chief Aminu Daurawa said at the bottle breaking ceremony he had ‘the ardent hope this will bring an end to the consumption of such prohibited substances’.
A large bulldozer smashed the bottles to shouts of ‘’Allahu Ahkbar’’ (God is Great) from supporters outside the Hisbah headquarters in Kano, the largest city in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north.
Kegs containing more than 8,000 litres of a local alcoholic brew called ‘’burukutu’’ and 320,000 cigarettes were also destroyed.
‘’We hope this measure will help restore the tarnished image of Kano’’ said Daurawa.
Since September, the Hisbah have launched ‘Operation Sweeping Crackdowns’’ and made hundreds of arrest in Kano following a state –government directive to cleanse the commercial hub of so-called ‘’immoral practices’’.
The 9,000 strong moral police force works alongside the civilian police but also has other duties, including community development work and dispute resolution.
Sharia was reintroduced across northern Nigeria in 2001, but the code has been unevenly applied. Alcohol is typically easy to find in Kano, including at hotels and bars in neighbourhoods like Sabon Gari, inhabited by the city’s sizeable Christian minority. But the Hisbah boss vowed that this will have to come to an end.
‘’We hereby send warning to unrepentant offenders that Hibah personnel will soon embark on an operation into every nook and cranny of Kano state to put an end to the sale and consumption of alcohol and all other intoxicants’’ said Daurawa.
People accused of engaging in prostitution and homosexual activities have been among those arrested in the latest crackdown, along with alleged drunks and drug addicts.