Nigeria
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Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea to the south in the Atlantic Ocean. It covers an area of 923,769 square kilometers (356,669 sq mi). With a population of more than 230 million, it is the most populous country in Africa and the world's sixth-most populous country. Nigeria borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located. The largest city in Nigeria is Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world and the largest in Africa.
Nigeria has been home to several indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC, with the Nok civilization in the 15th century BC marking the first internal unification. The modern state originated with British colonialization in the 19th century, taking its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914 — the British established administrative and legal structures while practicing indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms. Nigeria became a formally independent federation on 1 October 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970, followed by a succession of military dictatorships and democratically elected civilian governments until achieving a stable government in the 1999 Nigerian presidential election, with the election of Olusegun Obasanjo of the Peoples Democratic Party. However, the country frequently experiences electoral fraud, and corruption is rampant at various levels of Nigerian politics.
Nigeria is a multinational state inhabited by more than 250 ethnic groups speaking 500 distinct languages, all identifying with various cultures. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa in the north, Yoruba in the west, and Igbo in the east, constituting over 60% of the total population. The official language is English, which was chosen to facilitate linguistic unity at the national level. Nigeria's constitution ensures de jure freedom of religion, and it is home to some of the world's largest Muslim and Christian populations. Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Muslims, who live mainly in the north part of the country, and Christians, who live primarily in the south; indigenous religions, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities, are in the minority.
Nigeria is a regional power in Africa and a middle power in international affairs. Nigeria's economy is the fourth-largest in Africa, the 53rd-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and the 27th-largest by PPP. Nigeria is often called the Giant of Africa owing to its large population and economy [20] and is considered an emerging market by the World Bank. Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, NAM,[21] the Economic Community of West African States, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and OPEC. It is also a member of the informal MINT group of countries and is one of the Next Eleven economies.
Spanking and Spanking Art in Nigeria
In the 20th century, school corporal punishment fell out of fashion and was gradually banned in many countries, a trend that continues until the present day.
As of May 2008, Nigeria permits corporal punishment in schools.
( We have no further information from SAOTK as of Oct, 2024 )
JCP in Nigeria from Corpun.com
This 36-state federation, a member of the Commonwealth, is Africa's biggest country, with 180 million residents. It has, for practical purposes, two legal systems, one in the mainly Muslim north, the other covering the primarily Christian south.
This north-south divide dates back into history: there were two separate British colonial territories, Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria until they were merged in 1914.
Allott (1970) records that, in the northern states, in addition to ordinary canings imposed by magistrates' courts, "native courts" had power under the law to order "symbolic or Haddi lashing."
Anderson (1970) noted that the emir or district officer had to confirm such punishments before they were carried out. He added that it was "important [...] to distinguish the lashes imposed under the Shari'a from any form of corporal punishment permitted under the Criminal Code. The former must be inflicted with a cowhide whip held only between certain fingers of the hand, while the one who inflicts it must also hold some object under his arm. It is clear, therefore, that this punishment, at least in modern Nigeria, is to be regarded as a disgrace [...] rather than a very severe physical ordeal".
Since 1999, the emergence of explicitly Islamic regimes in many of the northern states has brought the distinction between north and south into sharper focus, following a long period of centralized military rule.
Flogging sentences by local courts under Sharia law -- often for fairly minor offenses -- have become commonplace in some northern states. These are typically administered in public immediately after the court hearing. See this 2007 BBC report, which includes two video clips showing public whippings being ordered and inflicted in Zamfara. These particular punishments are seen to be applied to the clothed buttocks, but some photographs from other states, such as in this 2002 report from Katsina, show whippings on the bare upper back.
Those examples feature male beneficiaries, as do most of the reports we have seen, but females are not exempt: see this Sep 2019 case in which a 19-year-old girl in Kaduna State was sentenced to 80 strokes of the cane for using drugs.
For more serious offenses, CP is combined with a prison sentence, as in this June 2008 case in which a rapist was sentenced to 10 years in jail plus 41 strokes of the cane.
In Abuja, the federal capital, there have been frequent reports of local courts sentencing boys and girls to six or seven strokes of the cane for minor offenses, while adults doing the same crime were given short prison sentences, as in this Nov 2010 report. More recently, though, there has been a spate of reports from Abuja of adults being sentenced to caning without imprisonment, predominantly for stealing.
A long piece in The New York Times (Feb 2014) described a punishment with a "leather whip" in an Islamic courtroom in Bauchi under new legislation against homosexuality.
Judicial caning also still exists, along more "British" lines, in the mainly Christian south. The Criminal Code Act 1916 still applies in these states, where adult males may be sentenced to caning for any offense punishable by six months or more in prison. Also, in some southern states, boys aged up to 16 may be sentenced to caning by magistrates for any indictable offense. The Criminal Procedure Act 1945 (art. 386(1)) limits the number of strokes to 12.
These southern cases seem to be less often reported in the English-language press at any rate, and the frequency of the use of JCP is unknown. One 2008 case was, however, reported in the (southern) Kwara State: a young man was ordered to receive 12 strokes of the cane, without imprisonment, for stealing a mobile phone, which sentence was carried out immediately at the court premises "by security agents."
Another southern (non-Islamic) case was reported in Aug 2011 when a university undergraduate was ordered six strokes of the cane, likewise for stealing a telephone. The strokes were administered immediately by police. See also these Dec 2011 juvenile canings in the southern state of Edo, these Sep 2013 ones in the southern state of Ogun, and these Aug 2017 ones in the central (non-Sharia) state of Nasarawa. The latter case is unusual in that the culprits are named in the press report despite being aged 15 and 16. The same is true of this Nov 2017 case, also in Nasarawa, in which a named 16-year-old was sentenced to 14 strokes (plus eight months in jail) for a sexual offense. The caning was administered by a court official, presumably there and then, and not at the prison as one would generally expect for a sentence combining JCP and jail.
Prostitution in Nigeria
- Prostitution in Nigeria ↗ on Wikipedia
External links
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Nigeria ]
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