Halima Abdullahi, director of Help Eliminate Loneliness...

Halima Abdullahi, director of Help Eliminate Loneliness and Poverty, HELP, a non-governmental organisation, said the verdict condemning Safiya Hussaini to death by stoning for adultery "was a thorough embarrassment" to the majority of Nigerian Muslims.
The group argued that the judgment was wrong because Safiya was accused of adultery instead of fornication since she was a divorcee. Again, the four witnesses stipulated by the Islamic law were not available at the trial.
The verdict was passed because Safiya comes from an under-privileged class, the organisation argued. While describing the verdict as "gender discrimination of the highest order," the group called on Governor Attahiru Bafarawa to intervene to save Safiya's life.
The Coalition of Eastern NGOs, CENGOs, an umbrella organisation of NGOs operating in the south-east and south-south of Nigeria said in a press release signed by its co-ordinators, Oby Nwankwo and Miriam Menkilu, that it was opposed to the death sentence.
It said the judgment amounted to selective justice which was contrary to the basis of the principle of rule of law and sense of justice. The body said that a situation where the target of the implementation of a law was a particular sex, ran contrary to the tenets of human rights, equity and justice and contradicted all known principles of international norms.
They, therefore, called on the Sokoto State governor to intervene in the matter to ensure that justice was not only done but also seen to have been done.
But Abubakar Sanyinma, commissioner for justice and attorney-general in Sokoto State said that Safiya had the right to appeal to the Sharia Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court where there is a panel of sharia judges, and if she failed she would certainly face execution according to Islamic law.