Safiya Hussaini's lawyer, a man called Abdulkadar Imam...

Safiya Hussaini's lawyer, a man called Abdulkadar Imam Ibrahim, does not inspire confidence. He is optimistic that the appeal will be successful but he does not appear very clear about the facts of the case.
He lives in Sokoto but has not visited Safiya's village, nor has he asked for Yakubu to appear in the appeal court to answer the charges of rape.
"He has been acquitted, why should he be made to suffer again?" asks Mr Ibrahim.
Even more worrying is that Mr Ibrahim says he has been pressured not to take the case by his friends and colleagues.
He implies that there are those within the Muslim establishment who are keen that the stoning does go ahead, and that these same people see the appeal process as inappropriate and even un-Islamic.
Across town is another lawyer, in fact one of Mr Ibrahim's classmates at law school. Aliyu Abubakar Sanyinna is the Sokoto state attorney general.
"It is the law of Allah. By executing anybody that is convicted under Islamic law, we are just complying with the laws of Allah, so we don't have anything to worry about."
How big would the stones be? "It could be something like this," says the attorney general, holding up his fist.
And how would the execution be carried out? "They will dig a pit, and then they will put the convict in a way that she will not be able to escape, and then she will be stoned."
The precise method, explains Sanyinna carefully, is up to the judge in the case.
"Another way is that she could be tied up against a tree or pillar."
It is not difficult to see why, in a country with overall as many Christians as Muslims, the introduction of these punishments into law has created a great deal of controversy and anger.
Although Christians are not directly subject to Sharia laws, there is still the feeling that the imposition of Islamic law in the northern states serves to enforce the political will of Muslim leaders over the substantial minority of non-Muslims living there.
More than 3,000 have been killed in riots since the introduction of Sharia criminal punishments two years ago.
It is a situation that seriously threatens the country's stability particularly in the run up to parliamentary and presidential elections in 2002 and in 2003.
It also threatens to become a major source of contention between the federal government in Abuja, and the dozen northern states which have adopted the harsh Sharia penal code.
The federal Minister of Justice, Bola Ige, has condemned the stoning verdict as "harsh and crude" and said that stoning to death must not happen in Nigeria in 2001.
That Mr Ige is supporting Safiya's appeal against the Sokoto state judiciary, is a clear indication of the contradictions built into Nigeria's devolved legal system.
If Safiya's appeal eventually reaches the federal Supreme Court in Abuja, which under Nigeria's legal system it can, then we can expect serious political fireworks.
With a sentence of death still hanging over her head, Safiya Hussaini is sadly little more than a pawn in a much larger political game.