On Sunday, June 25, an enraged mob in Sokoto killed a butcher, Usman Buda, after he was accused of making blasphemous comments against Prophet Muhammad.
Videos of the man being stoned to death have been trending on social media, sparking outrage globally.
The Sokoto State Police Command has confirmed the murder while noting that an investigation was ongoing to arrest the perpetrators and bring them to book.
On his part, Sokoto State Governor Ahmed Aliyu, in a statement signed by his spokesperson, Abubakar Bawa, said his administration would not condone any act capable of degrading the Prophet.
He warned the residents against taking the law into their own hands but to remain calm and law-abiding over the matter.
The incident comes barely a year after Islamic fanatics killed Deborah Samuel, a Christian student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Wamako, in the state, over a similar blasphemy allegation.
Amnesty International Nigeria, in a statement, said:
The alarming uptick in blasphemy killings and accusations underscores the urgency with which the authorities must wake up to Nigeria’s international legal obligations to respect and protect human rights, including freedom of religion, opinion and expression.
Ashwini Shrivastava, an Indian blogger wrote:
A young man was stoned to death by Radical Islamists in Sokoto state over allegation of blasphemy!
They kept screaming “Allah Hu Akbar (Allah is the greatest)” while committing the gory act. Attacking people of other faith and their place of worship has become a norm in Nigeria.
ChuChu Igbokwe, a techprenuer said:
“It’s June 2023, and Muslims in Sokoto state stoned a man to death for blasphemy. They recorded it and uploaded it to the internet. All because some Arab that lived thousands of years ago felt such barbaric behaviour was normal.”
The presidential candidate of the African Action Alliance in the 2023 elections, Omoyele Sowore, wrote:
”No country worth its salt should ever allow savagery of these kinds to persist, and the reason these brutes were emboldened today was because the Nigerian justice system failed to properly prosecute the murderers of Deborah Samuel in the same state or elsewhere.”
