Nigeria's top Muslim authorities ruled that a religious...

Nigeria's top Muslim authorities ruled that a religious edict calling for a journalist to be killed "should be ignored". The Supreme Islamic Council said the deputy provincial governor who issued the edict, or fatwa, had "no authority" to do so. On November 26 the government of Nigeria's Zamfara state called on Muslims to kill journalist Isioma Daniel over an article she wrote about the Miss World pageant, which was to have taken place in Nigeria. Rioting that killed more than 200 people in the wake of the article prompted the organisers of the pageant to move the event from Nigeria to London. Daniel apologised for the article, which suggested that the Prophet Mohammed may have approved of the pageant. "We would not encourage the Muslims who act on that declaration," Alhaji Lateef Adegbite, the General Secretary of the Supreme Islamic Council told the BBC's Network Africa programme. "Certain people are saying that if Nigeria were an Islamic state, this is what would have happened. But those facts are not there," he said. He said that Muslim authorities had done enough to calm tensions in the wake of the riots. "We of the Muslim faith have appealed to the Muslims to be calm, to avoid further violence," he said. He added that no sanctions should be taken against the deputy governor of Zamfara state, Mamuda Shinkafi, who issued the edict. "He should not be arrested. It should be regarded as a declaration of intent that did not have much serious value. I think it should be overlooked." "I'm sure when the Zamfara state government has an opportunity to review the situation, they will make appropriate statements asking people to discountenance the declaration," he said. The newspaper issued an apology for the article. "The offensive paragraph runs against the grain of our beliefs and what we stand for at This Day as we show sensitivity to the complexity of our nation," the editors wrote. Many Islamic scholars said that Daniel's apology amounted to repentance and that the death sentence should therefore be revoked. Daniel, who is not a Muslim, has left the newspaper and fled Nigeria. The federal government said it will not allow the fatwa to be carried out, though it did condemn Daniel's article as irresponsible.