Operating room - Arm amputation

Corcoran: At first glance it’s just another ordinary surgical procedure. But this is a perfectly healthy man about to have his hand amputated. A convicted cattle thief - he’s the first person to be punished under Islamic or Sharia law now sweeping across the Muslim north of Nigeria. These images - recorded by Sharia activists keen to display their civilised method of punishment.

00:00

Super:

Alhaji Sami Ahmed – Zamfara State Governor

Governor Sami: We are telling people, look, this is what God said in his rule whoever dares to commit an offence against God and against humanity will receive that punishment.

00:43

Music

Recovery room

Corcoran: Later, in recovery, the hapless thief begins his second sentence, learning how to cope with a lifelong disfigurement. But there’s much more at stake than just medieval forms of punishment.

00:48

Protest signs

Sharia now threatens to dismember a nation divided between Muslim north and largely Christian south. It’s not a story Nigerian authorities want told. Halfway through filming this report we were detained as the secret police attempted unsuccessfully to seize our tapes.

01:08

Governor and secret police

They fear the growing popularity of this man – the Governor of Zamfara State, who has risen from obscurity to lead this Islamic revival. Seven other Muslim states now have heeded his call. He says he won’t stop until all Nigeria is under Sharia rule.

01:24

Corcoran: Do you think Nigeria should become a Sharia nation?

Governor Sami: That is my ambition and that is the ambition of every Muslim in this country.

Graphic: Nigerian map

Music/singing

02:00

Anglican church

Corcoran: They gather in St Andrews Anglican Church Kaduna, to count their blessings. Many are Christian refugees from the newly declared Sharia states. All Nigerians are deeply spiritual - be they Christian or Muslim.

02:10

Released last year from the shackles of 15 years of military dictatorship, they’re embracing their separate faiths with a renewed vigour.

Singing

REV. BULUS YASHIM: Let us pray for our members, the members of this diocese, that the fear of God will be in our mind.

Singing

Ruins of Kaduna

Corcoran: They pray for paradise, but twice this year have found themselves in the midst of a living hell that left more than a thousand people dead as Christian and Muslim butchered their fellow man in the name of God.

03:15

Sharia had swept across the Muslim north unopposed until it collided with Kaduna’s sizeable Christian minority - who fear persecution under Islamic law.

Islamic fundamentalists quickly discovered that one man’s jihad is another’s crusade.

SUPER:

Rev. Bulus Yashim – Anglican Minister, Kaduna

KADUNA PRIEST INTERVIEW: It is just like, when you fight me, you push me to the wall. What next? I have to retaliate. This is how the Christians did.

Corcoran

SUPER:

Mark Corcoran

Corcoran: This is what much of Kaduna looks like today, after the rioting that claimed more than a thousand lives, but it’s not as simple as just a dispute between Christian and Muslim. There are a whole range of issues here that threaten to fragment Nigerian society. There’s an ongoing conflict between the country’s three major tribal groups, a growing gap between rich and poor and a continuing struggle for power, between those who support this nation’s fledgling democracy, and those who prefer the bad old days of military rule. (00; 41)

Crowd

04:35

Election day

Corcoran: Striding into the midst of this chaos - Nigeria’s new political Messiah. Olesgun Obasanjo - was elected President last year after 15 years of military dictatorship.

He’s a leader who had defied the odds -- an army general who retired, turned democrat and won the polls. Also a fundamentalist Christian who broke the political and military monopoly of the Muslim north.

He claims Muslim political opponents are brandishing Sharia as a weapon to bring about his downfall.

Music

Ruins of Kaduna

Corcoran: Back amid the ruins of Kaduna, the graffiti provides a clear indication of who prevailed here in Reverend Yashim’s parish - but it’s a hollow victory.

Before the rioting, this was a mixed community of Christians and Muslims. And like most Nigerians they shared a bond of abject poverty -seeing none of the country’s vast oil wealth that lined the pockets of the military dictatorship.

05:17

The reverend says the Sharia riots were about politics, not religion.

He claims the Islamic activists who confronted local Christians were outsiders.

Hired by supporters of the old dictatorship, who now cynically and dangerously playing the religion card in a bid to destabilise President Obasanjo.

Yashim

REV. YASHIM: The truth is that Sharia law that they are trying to - is not religious as such completely, but is political.

Corcoran: What do you mean?

REV. YASHIM: What I mean is that if you can hear there are a lot of plans to get it off the present head of state, and this is a man that is sent by the Lord to lead this country, because we have been in bondage.

06:19

Corcoran: President Obasanjo’s army now keeps an uneasy truce in Kaduna. The once feared foot soldiers of the former dictatorship transformed into unlikely saviours.

KADUNA PRIEST: They are to make sure there is peace among us.

Corcoran: As you were saying earlier, you feel if the army moves out of here things will get…

KADUNA PRIEST: Will get worse.

Corcoran: Get worse.

KADUNA PRIEST: That is why they are here.

Corcoran: The Obasanjo government is reluctant to reimpose this sort of authority over the Sharia states to the north - fearful that it may trigger civil war.

There are still strong memories of the last major internal conflict in the 60’s - the Biafran War - an inter- ethnic Armageddon that left one million dead.

Today the stakes are high - and all Nigeria is watching Kaduna.

Yashim

KADUNA PRIEST: If there is peace in Kaduna there is peace in Nigeria. If there is no peace in Kaduna there will be no peace in Nigeria – that is why because here is a liberal state where everybody could come.

07:38

Music

Sate Compound

Corcoran: The man who leads this so-called liberal state lives in a compound now defended by tanks.

Kaduna’s state governor is charged with holding the Federal Government’s secular line.

Ironically, he’s a devout Muslim who refuses to heed the call to implement Sharia.

But Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi offers no real solution.

07:47

Makafi

GOVERNOR MAKARFI: I am accused by both Muslims and Christians because I want to be fair to both sides. I cannot speak for either, in respect of my faith. I was brought into office by both Christians and Muslims and even people who don’t believe in either of these religions. And once you are trying to be fair and just, of course you find dissatisfaction from both sides from time to time.

08:17

Music

Zamfara boundary marker

Corcoran: Just a couple of hours north lies the heartland of the Islamic revival. “Zamfara - Home of Farming and Sharia” proclaims the state boundary marker.

08:41

In contrast to his Kaduna colleague, Zamfara’s Governor, Alhaji Sami Ahmed, has the aura of a political winner.

He’s become a powerful new political player - loved in the Muslim north - loathed in the Christian south.

Dubbed the Butcher of Zamfara by the Christian dominated press.

Accused by the tabloids of profiting from the very corruption he’s vowed to eradicate by lining his pockets during an earlier career as a government finance official.

Sami Ahmed takes it all in his stride - he can afford to.

Sami

Corcoran: You were the first governor to introduce Sharia law.

Sami Ahmed: Yes.

Corcoran: Others have followed.

Sami Ahmed: Yes.

Corcoran: In other states there has been huge loss of life as a result of the law change or people wanting to change the law. Has it all been worth it? I mean lots of people have lost their lives.

Sami Ahmed: I don’t think it was the reason why there was that crisis particularly in Kaduna. Sharia was never the reason

09:45

You see, most of it are communal and tribal clashes, political and social interests of different groups of people, who happen to be Muslim and Christian. Not because of Sharia.

Gusau city

Corcoran: But Sharia is steadily making its mark on the streets of Zamfara’s state capital Gusau.

Cinemas have closed. Under Islamic law it’s an offence to replicate the human image - unless it happens to be the governor on the TV news.

And gone are the colourful women's headscarves - replaced by the sombre tones of Islam.

Matched by the mood of many women - sitting silently in their newly segregated buses and taxis - now forbidden from talking to us.

It’s just a small part of Governor Sami’s Islamic new order.

10:13

Sami

GOVERNOR SAMI: It is all determined and defined – the type of education, the responsibility and the role of the child when he grow up in the society, up until the time he is going to die and then be buried in the grave. Even how to go to toilet – you have to enter with the left leg – you say certain prayers – seeking refuge and protection from the evils that are in the toilets. And when you come out, you come out with the right leg thanking God for removing the dirty things that are in your stomach.

10:57

FX: School bell

Zamfara schoolyard

Corcoran: Zamfara’s schools are now segregated by sex - but not by religion.

Children: Zamfara is our state...we have 36 states....

Corcoran: Daughters of the few remaining Christian families distinguishable by their shorter headscarves.

11:25

Theoretically they’re exempt from Sharia, their lives still governed by the national civil law code.

But in reality, those who stay toe the line. Christian girls forced to attend compulsory Koranic studies classes.

And since our visit, a 17-year-old Muslim girl has been sentenced to 180 lashes for falling pregnant out of wedlock.

A relatively benevolent ruling - given some of the other punishments now in store.

Sami

SUPER:

Alhaji Sami Ahmed

Zamfara State Governor

Corcoran: And you’re prepared to order the beheading of people if they commit an offence?

Governor Ahmed: Yes, that is the dictates of Sharia – all Muslims know about it.

Corcoran: What’s happened to the crime rate here since you introduced this?

Governor Sami: Very, in fact it’s virtually no crime – it’s crime free – because the percentage of crime compared to what obtained before Sharia I think over 90 percent has been eradicated completely.

12:28

Zamfara public meeting

Corcoran: Sharia has proved to be hugely popular in this community sick of the crime and corruption that inflicts all Nigeria.

Discrimination against Christians and women deemed a small price to pay.

In a deliberate display of transparency, Zamfara’s administrators now meet in public.

Governor Sami knows politics is all about perception and pragmatism.

12:53

The beard is now obligatory for every pious Muslim male. No one seems to notice the clean-shaven pre-Sharia portrait of the Governor taken barely 12 months ago.

But Sami Ahmed is on a dangerous political pilgrimage. He’s turned Zamfara State away from Nigeria’s secular ideals - and is now faced firmly towards Mecca.

Sami

GOV. AHMED: You see if you want to know what Sharia is all about, the true model of Sharia, you go to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is a country, the number one country in the world that is implementing Sharia according to Islamic rules and regulations.

13:56

Corcoran: So is Saudi Arabia a role model for you?

Governor Sami: Yes that is our model.

Band

National Youth Service corps.

Corcoran: It’s the kind of provocative statement that sends shudders through Nigeria’s secular Federal Government.

14:16

And we are about to witness the fragility of Christian Muslim unity as Governor Sami Ahmed officiates over the annual induction ceremony of the National Youth Service Corps.

All university graduates are required to undergo 10 months community service before starting their careers.

It’s intended as a nation building exercise. Christian southerners serving here in the north, Muslim northerners go south to the big smoke of the cities.

Swearing in: A free…egalitarian…society and a great nation… so help me God

GOVERNOR SAMI: Allah Ul Akbar! Allah Ul Akbar!

Corcoran: Both sides use today's parade as a political point scoring exercise.

For the Federal Government, it’s living proof that Nigeria’s youth will put nationalism before religion.

But for Governor Sami, a very different spin. Their presence, he says, evidence that Christian south is prepared to endorse his Sharia state by sending their sons and daughters north for national service.

GOVERNOR SAMI: I stand before you here today and assure you that you are safe and sound in Zamfara State – inshallah.

15:53

Crowd: Hip hip hooray!..hip hip hooray!...hip hip hooray!...

Corcoran: As the official entourage departs, parade suddenly unravels into protest.

Crowd

Allowance… we need allowance.

(Singing)

Oh my home… oh my home…

When shall I see my home?

Corcoran: The truth is, this great show of national unity in the face of adversity - as nothing more than a fabrication.

(Singing)

Corcoran: Most of these students are Christians - they claim the Governor has lured them north with promises of extra allowances, or “danger money”.

Man: Many of us came from far distant places because of the promises we saw on papers – the Governor of Zamfara State promised us a lot of things.

2^nd Man: Because the more the risk the more the benefit – we are expecting more benefit to accommodate Sharia.

Corcoran: So they promised money - but the money is not there?

Man: Yes!

Woman: We don’t know our fate after here – we are given assurance that everything is calm now – outside we really don’t know.

16:56

Corcoran: Furious Federal security officials who minutes earlier welcomed our presence, now ordered troops to silence the students and stop us filming.

They were angered by this PR disaster - and by the amount of time we're spending with the Governor - whose growing popularity and militancy they regard as a threat to national security.

Gov. Sami

Corcoran: Do you think Nigeria should become a Sharia nation?

Governor Sami: That is my ambition and that is ambition of every Muslim in this country. We want Sharia to be implemented, all Muslims in Nigeria. While the Christians will be governed by the common law.

Corcoran: Christians watching this in Nigeria would be very angered by those comments, by what you’ve said just then.

Governor Sami: How will they be angered? That is my own opinion and I’m entitled to my own opinion in a democratic society.

17:57

Secret police compound

Corcoran: These inflammatory remarks are the last straw for the Secret Police.

The Federal Government’s State Security Service, or SSS, escorts us to their compound for questioning.

18:26

Corcoran to driver: And that’s the security service headquarters?

Corcoran: The SSS were the enforcers of the former military dictatorship. Just over a year ago, anyone entering these gates could expect to be detained, tortured or worse.

Corcoran to driver: Hopefully we’ll not be too long - maybe ten minutes. Okay?

Corcoran: At this point it’s simply too dangerous to continue filming. We switch off the camera.

Corcoran: Well after three very gentle interrogations, we’ve finally been detained; they’ve taken our passports. They are demanding the tapes; we are refusing to hand them over. So it’s just a case of waiting to see what happens next.

Zamfara

Corcoran: It’s a hard lesson in how this country is still ruled from the shadows.

We’re in Zamfara with the approval of Governor Sami and the Federal Government. But the Secret Police don’t want us here reporting on a sensitive issue - and apparently that’s all that really matters.

Released that evening without our passports, we are ordered to report to SSS Headquarters in the national capital Abuja.

19:28

Hotel room

In our hotel a concealed camera records a Nigerian intelligence officer in cameraman Geoff Lye’s room unsuccessfully attempting to copy all our tapes.

19:58

Lye: Well the arrangement is now we’ve given the tapes to you, we will go and see the director of special security tomorrow morning and expect to get our passports in return for these tapes

Intelligence officer: Yes.

Lye: You have to give us the passports.

Secret Police headquarters

Corcoran: The next morning I’m summoned to Secret Police headquarters, where a senior officer tells me that he -- not the politicians – represents the best interests of the state.

We are barbarians, he says and we’re not welcome in his country.

20:24

Hotel room

Corcoran: Well five days on - and we finally get our passports back, due to the direct intervention of the Australian High Commission here in Nigeria. When they gave them back to me, the State Security Service warned that if we were caught out filming again, we would be arrested and jailed. Of course all of this raises the question as to who exactly is in charge here in Nigeria, just over a year after the return to democratic rule. We are here with the permission of the information minister, yet the Security Service seems to have no problem in openly defying him or in attempting to intimidate us.

20:40

Music

Leaving Nigeria

Corcoran: For us it is an abrupt end to the story and we leave Nigeria.

Information Minister Jerry Gana, who’d approved our visit, later tells a local TV crew that it’s all been an unfortunate mistake. We’d simply failed to obtain the appropriate accreditation.

21:19

Gana

SUPER:

Prof. Jerry Gana - Nigerian Information Minister

PROF. JERRY GANA: But I do want to join the security forces to apologise profusely to the Australian High Commissioner who is a very good friend of ours and all our friends who were in that team who felt embarrassed - we hope we put all that behind us.

21:32

Corcoran: But the reality is we’d failed to follow their public relations plan.

SUPER:

PROF. JERRY GANA: They went straight to Kaduna, to Zamfara, and knowing the problems that are likely to emerge if there is a wrong report on Sharia - it can create problems, it can lead to loss of lives, we have a duty to protect lives of Nigerians.

Music

Clinton arrival

Corcoran: There are no such image problems just weeks later, when Bill Clinton arrives for a vital endorsement of the new democracy.

Ironically President Obasanjo is an adviser to Transparency International - the watchdog organisation that just declared Nigeria the most corrupt nation on earth.

With its massive oil reserves, and huge population, Nigeria sees itself as the dominant regional power.

A vision endorsed by Washington, but only if the army stays in the barracks and political leaders stop helping themselves to the treasury.

22:19

CLINTON: I’m here because of your fight, your fight for democracy and human rights, for equality and economic growth, for peace and tolerance.

Corcoran: With the US Press Corps in tow - President Clinton visits a village where Christians and Muslims live in apparent harmony.

Gana

PROF. JERRY GANA: We just hosted President Clinton here and nearly a thousand media people and all of them were excellently received, did the interviews - wherever they wanted to go.

23:24

Clinton ceremony

Corcoran: Unlike the Zamfara Youth Corps ceremony, the cast of this production stick to the script - and images of a happy united Nigeria are beamed around the world.

The dangerous religious divide, and any questions on control of the secret police neatly papered over as the leader of the world’s most powerful democracy lavishes praise on the world’s most corrupt.

23:31

CLINTON: Your fight is America’s fight - and the world’s fight.

Women's choir

Women's choir

24:06

Kaduna city / Rev Yashim

Corcoran: No one is applauding in Kaduna. Many Christians have already fled the city.

But Rev. Yashim isn’t going anywhere - his own son - killed in the riots - is buried on a hill overlooking his parish.

24:14

Rev. Yashim: Whether you are Christian, whether you are Muslim, whether you like it or not, you are bound to die. And I felt very happy because my son said, daddy, if I died, I thank you that I will be with the Lord.

Corcoran: Perhaps it’s little more than blind faith.

He’s staking the lives of his 500 remaining parishioners on the ability of the Obasanjo Government to succeed in achieving national unity when all before them have failed.

Burdened by this huge responsibility, he can do little more than pray that the rest of his congregation doesn’t end up on this hillside.

Credits:

Reporter: Mark Corcoran

Camera: Geoff Lye

Sound: Jun Matsuzono

Editor: Stuart Miller

Research: Alison Rourke

25:11