BEWARE! NO MORE SAGGING, HAIR BRAID BY MEN, INDECENT DRESSING BY GIRLS IN KANO

According to a report by AFP, police who enforce Islamic law in Kano

have arrested 150 people in the last week, including for indecent

dress, as part of a crackdown on immorality.



Some people in Nigeria's second city have been picked up for sporting

hair styles inspired by prominent international football players, said

Mohammed Yusuf Yola, spokesman for Kano's sharia police, or Hisbah.

Others were thrown in jail and fined for wearing their trousers too

low on their waists, mimicking a style that became prominent in the

1990s, partly through the influence of some American hip hop artists.

The arrests have followed an order by Kano state Governor Rabiu Musa

Kwankwaso to cleanse the city of immoral practices and the trend is

set to continue in the weeks ahead, said Hisbah Director-General Abba

Sufi.The Hisbahis a state police force funded by state govt and is not

part of the federal police."We have arrested 150 men and women in the

past week, including prostitutes and their boyfriends, transvestites,

alcoholics and those engaged in indecent dressing in contravention of

the sharia legal code," Yola told AFP.

Religion has repeatedly been used as a political issue in Kano and the

governor, seen as a moderate, has been accused by rivals of lacking

commitment to sharia's guidelines.Yola insisted the operation was

launched to reverse disturbing trends in the city of some five million

people and is targeting people of various faiths."Those arrested

include Muslims and non-Muslims and we treat them equally because this

is about morality," he said.

Kano, like the rest of northern Nigeria, is majority Muslim, but the

city has a sizeable Christian minority.

Some of those arrested have been released after paying fines ranging

from 10,000 naira ($63, 46 euros) to 15,000 naira, Yola said.

"Those who could not afford the fine are being kept in prison," he

added, but he would not specify the number of people currently being

held.

At the restoration of civilian rule in 1999, 12 northern states,

including Kano, formally adopted sharia, but the Islamic legal system

has been unevenly applied.

The Hisbah was formed in 2001, largely to enforce sharia, but the

force has other duties, including some community development work and

alternative dispute resolution.

The southern half of Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, is

mostly Christian.