Political decentralisation and conflict: the Sharia crisis in Kaduna, Nigeria

Abstract

When states in northern Nigeria started processes for implementing Sharia laws in 1999, it triggered sentiments all over the country. In Kaduna State, the proposal led to demonstrations and violent clashes. The article examines the ways in which different scales of politics are mutually constituted in the Sharia case and how the Sharia proposal subsequently resulted in clashes in Kaduna. It is argued that the Sharia initiative, even though it started as a sub-national question, was connected to a national power contestation. However, the federal government remained passive and diverted the issue to local political space. In Kaduna, the issue took dimensions that incurred with apprehensive local political contention that made it escalate into violence and polarising people according to religion. An analysis of the crisis in Kaduna is offered that does not regard the conflict as locally confined, but as inherently related to wider political and historical processes.