World Tour: Nigeria’s blasphemy laws on trial

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: a World Tour special report.

Last month, Nigeria’s Supreme Court granted an appeal to a minority Muslim facing the death penalty for blasphemy allegations.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Legal advocates say the outcome of the case could potentially overturn blasphemy laws and mob violence in a country where persecution targeting Christians remains high.

Here’s WORLD Africa reporter Onize Oduah.

ONIZE ODUAH: Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, a musician from the Sufi minority Muslim sect, recorded an audio message five years ago and shared it on WhatsApp.

In the audio file, he praised an imam from his sect. But some devout Muslims accused him of elevating the leader over the prophet Muhammed.

NELSON: A mob began to form after his message was circulated. His home was burned down. People immediately called for his arrest.

Sean Nelson is the legal counsel for global religious freedom at the Alliance Defending Freedom International.

Shortly after Sharif-Aminu's arrest in 2020 in northern Kano state, a Sharia court in the state found him guilty of blasphemy and sentenced him to death by hanging. He appealed the ruling.

NELSON: A few months later, Yahaya’s conviction was overturned because you can’t convict somebody of a capital offense without a lawyer present during their trial. But he was ordered to go back to a retrial so he would face the exact same death penalty.

In 2022, Sharif-Aminu appealed to the Supreme Court, which finally agreed to hear his case last month. But his state government is still backing the guilty verdict.

Lamido Abba Sorondinki is the lawyer for the Kano state government.

SORONDINKI: We will not condone it. Anybody that has uttered any word that touches the integrity of the Holy Prophet, we will punish him.

He says the state will punish anyone who touches the integrity of the prophet. He vowed Sharif-Aminu will face a public execution if the court affirms the earlier ruling.

Nelson says Sorondinki’s comments highlight the urgency behind Sharif-Aminu’s case.

States in Nigeria’s Muslim majority north implement both constitutional and Sharia law, unlike the majority Christian south, which does not follow Sharia law.

Sharia law officially applies only to Muslims, but Christians can be tried for blasphemy under Nigeria’s criminal law. And non-Muslims can face pressure to abide by mandates from Sharia morality police. Blasphemy allegations also trigger mob violence.

NELSON: That area of Nigeria is one of only seven places in the world that you can receive the death penalty for blasphemy, and the law actually mandates the death penalty for blasphemy against the Quran or any of its prophets.

Nelson believes that Sharif-Aminu’s case could affect the fate of thousands of Christians also facing persecution in Nigeria.

According to the Nigeria-based nonprofit InterSociety, Islamists murdered more than 7,000 Christians in Nigeria during the first seven months of this year. That’s an average of 30 Christians dying each day.

Three years ago, a mob in northern Sokoto state beat and burned Christian student Deborah Samuel to death.

NELSON: She had just shared in her classroom chat that she thanked Jesus for helping her pass some exams after a student asked her, Why did she do so well? And so other people within her class did not like that.

Back in December, a High Court in northern Bauchi state acquitted Christian nurse Rhoda Jatau of blasphemy allegations. She had shared in a WhatsApp group a video that criticized Samuel’s killing.

In August, a mob stoned and burned a food vendor to death in northcentral Niger state.

And last week, more than 5,000 Nigerians fled to bordering Cameroon after Boko Haram insurgents captured their town in northeast Borno state.

These cases are now drawing more international attention.

Sam Brownback is the former U.S. ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom. He recently told Fox News that Nigeria’s insurgency is growing.

BROWNBACK: You’ve got more terrorist groups in the area, you’ve got more weapons coming in, you’ve got more Christians being killed. And it’s spreading throughout the region. You could have a caliphate, an Islamic radical caliphate throughout the middle of Africa that would have 500 million people if you don’t get on top of this.

Last month, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz from Texas introduced a bill called the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025. It targets Nigerian officials who enable jihadist violence or enforce blasphemy laws.

Nelson believes the outcome of Sharif-Aminu’s case could also pressure officials to act, both in Nigeria and elsewhere.

NELSON: There's a real chance that that could overturn all of the similar death penalty blasphemy laws within the north. And this would also be of world significance as well, because again, only seven countries in the world have this kind of a law, but all of the other countries are specifically Islamic republics or Sharia-based countries.

That’s this week’s World Tour. I’m Onize Oduah.

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