Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's President, said he does...

Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's President, said he does not see the adoption of Sharia law by a dozen states in Nigeria as a threat, amid international pressure on him to amend laws calling for execution by stoning for Islamic crimes such as adultery.
Religious and ethnic clashes have cost thousands of lives in Nigeria in the past two years and the restoration of strict Islamic law in 12 of Nigeria's 36 states has sparked bloody riots between Christians and Muslims.
Now with more harsh Sharia punishments pending, including stoning, whipping, amputation and execution, and the prospect of Sharia being extended to at least one state in the predominantly Christian south, the issue might tear the country apart.
"To say Sharia must be removed from Islam is like saying that the 10 commandments must be removed from Christianity," President Obasanjo, a devout Christian, told The Independent. "Sharia is not a new thing and it's not a thing to be afraid of. What we need is justice."
Sharia law had been the experience in parts of the country "since time immemorial", he said, adding that the federal government would not dispute the rights of states to use it.
Earlier in May, Muslim clerics in Oyo, in the mostly Christian south, said they would apply Sharia for the first time to civil matters, such as divorce and land disputes, involving Muslims there.
President Obasanjo's federal government, mindful of the danger of fanning religious tensions, is attempting to grapple with the Sharia problem through compromise. He said problems arising out of applying "ordinary" and Sharia law side by side could be dealt with constitutionally, by requiring states to impose equal sentences for equal offences nationwide.
Sharia was not a problem when practised by genuine Islamic adherents, President Obasanjo insisted. "Only when it is political it becomes something to worry about." But everything will be political in the year leading to elections in April 2003 - and in Nigeria politics tends to spark violence.