"Safiya Hussaini was in court on November 22," Sokoto...

"Safiya Hussaini was in court on November 22," Sokoto state spokesman Mustapha Shehu told Reuters by phone from Sokoto city. "The appellant court ordered the setting aside of the ruling of the lower sharia court pending the determination of the case by the appellant court."
He said Hussaini was sentenced to death because she is a divorcee. Had she never been married, the sentence would have been 100 lashes.
Reports said Hussaini went missing three weeks ago, but officials said she had since resurfaced.
"If she decides to run away on the day she is supposed to be stoned - that is assuming she loses her appeal - nobody will pursue her," Shehu said.
"Under sharia nobody can forcibly carry out any ruling, that is why you have to voluntarily present yourself for the prescribed punishment," he said.
Nigeria's justice minister Bola Ige and the house of representatives said recently that the federal government would intervene to stop Hussaini's execution.
Aliyu Abubakar, Sokoto state commissioner for justice, told Reuters the federal government has yet to take any action and lacks the constitutional power to intervene in the case.
"The federal government has not written to us on the issue, but if they eventually do I will tell them the case is before a competent court of law and amounts to a contempt of the court to continue to make these kind of comments," Abubakar said.
Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka criticised the federal government for not following its statements with action and told the country to be prepared for international condemnation.
"This kind of statement is insufficient," Soyinka was quoted as saying in the Guardian newspaper.
"We want to know exactly what action the government is taking to prevent us from being contemptible citizens of the world if we allow this murder to take place."