The Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) called on the...

The Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) called on the Sokoto State Governor, Alhaji Attahiru Barafawa and the President of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, Sultan Muhammed Maccido to review the death sentence passed on a pregnant woman, Safiya Hussaini Tungar-Tudu, by a Sharia court on humanitarian grounds.
Safiya was sentenced to death on October 11 by a Sharia Court judge in Sokoto for adultery, a sentence that would allegedly be carried out on her "immediately after weaning her baby."
In a statement issued by the CLO in Lagos, the human rights group said the death by stoning sentence passed on Safiya should be commuted to imprisonment or a pardon to enable her live and take care of her unborn baby.
CLO insisted that "if Safiya in accordance with Sharia law had to be punished, there is provision under the law for the prescribed punishment to be commuted on compassionate grounds to an option of fine or warning".
The release signed by the Women's Rights Project Coordinator of the group, Feyi Koya reasoned that "Safiya is an adult, whose rights the Constitution guarantees, her decision to have a child should not be punished under any guise, as it would seem that in cases such as this, the woman always bears the blame while the man is absolved of all wrong doing and freed".
According to CLO, there would be no justification for stoning Safiya to death after weaning her child since the man alleged to have been responsible for the pregnancy was acquitted of the charges for want of evidence.
It further stated that if Safiya was killed as declared by the court," the rights of the unborn child to its mother's love and care should have been denied it."
It pointed out that such an act would be a breach of the Convention on the Rights of the Child which guarantees the paramount importance of the welfare of the child.