The relations between sharia and national law in Nigeria have varied
widely from time to time and from place to place within the
country – which after all was first brought under a single administration
only in 1914. In sections 1-4 of this paper the complex history
of our subject is sketched, culminating in the programmes of
‘sharia implementation’ that began in 1999 in twelve of Nigeria’s
northern states. Sections 5-9 concentrate thematically upon the present
day. Many details of the incorporation of sharia in the laws
of Nigeria are discussed, including the Sharia Courts and the
Sharia Penal and Criminal Procedure Codes now in place in the
sharia states, the continuing application of uncodified Islamic personal
law and other Islamic civil law throughout the north, the effects
of sharia implementation on women and non-Muslims, and
the constitutional questions the sharia implementation programmes
raise. The conclusion, section 10, discusses the likely
fate of Islamic criminal law in the sharia states, and gives some
reason to think that sharia implementation has on the whole been
a positive development for Nigeria.