The governor of the Nigerian state which has sentenced a 17 year-old-girl to 180 lashes for engaging in pre-marital sex insisted today the punishment will be carried out.
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Governor Ahmed Sani of Zamfara State said that recent media reports that he was under pressure from the federal government not to allow the sentence to go ahead were false.
"We are under no pressure from anyone. The law is the law and people respect that," Mr Sani said.
The girl, Ms Bariya Ibrahim Magazu, was sentenced in September by an Islamic court in Tsafe in Zamfara State to be lashed 180 times after she was discovered to be pregnant despite being unmarried.
Asked who was the father, the girl named three middle-aged men from her village who she said had pressured her into engaging in sex.
The judge of the local Islamic court, Mr Idris Usman Gusau, ruled that under the terms of Islamic law introduced in Zamfara last year, she had not proven her claims against the three men.
He sentenced her to 80 lashes for pre-marital sex and 100 lashes for making unproved claims against the men.
The sentence is to be carried out around 40 days after the birth which took place last week. Magazu gave birth to a daughter who has yet to be named.
Several human rights groups, including Amnesty International, and the government of Canada have expressed concern about the case.
But in an interview with journalists last weekend, President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian, said he will not intervene.
AFP