Obasanjo's caution over Sharia

Hundreds have died in the fighting

By Nigeria correspondent Barnaby Phillips

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo says his government will not take a political position on the issue of Sharia or Islamic law, which has caused deep divisions in the country.

Last month hundreds of people were killed in fighting between Christians and Muslims over proposals to extend the application of Sharia in northern Nigeria.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with the BBC, President Obasanjo said that the application of Sharia involved fundamental human rights but it was up to individual Nigerians to go to court, not the federal government.

He told the BBC that he believed that the state of Zamfara, which has carried out floggings and an amputation in its application of Sharia, was violating human rights but this was not an issue for the government to get involved in.

'No stone unturned'

He denied the government was being indecisive on an issue Christians and Muslims feel so passionately about.

Rather, he suggested that Sharia was being used by people who were losing out in the new democratic dispensation:

"We are going to leave no stone unturned and those people who have done wrong in the past will probably fight back," he said.

"What we are going through, what we are doing here, is a revolution of some sort and we expect that it will take some time before things settle.

The president told the BBC that he was relaxed and confident despite the upsurge in ethnic, religious and communal violence that has characterised the past year.

And although many Nigerians are calling for a loosening of the federal bonds as a way of reducing regional tensions, President Obasanjo said he would always resist this.

He described such calls as emotional.