SOURCE: AllAfrica.com, 4/1/04
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Marriage combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
-- George Barnard Shaw

You may now kiss the bride. That is usually the last line in the ritual of wedding after all the ceremonies are done. Then the husband will be given the permission to perform what would be regarded as his first 'duty'. The presumption being that he must be doing that for the first time though we all know how hypocritical, if not fraudulent, that line has become. Well, what is the meaning of all this detail now? Before readers begin to think something is wrong with me, the big news is that tomorrow in Abuja, Amina Lawal, the woman 'caught in adultery' (who was to have been stoned to death according to a Sharia court pronouncement before providence intervened on her behalf) will be taking a husband at the national Mosque after the Jumaat prayers. It is not improbable that Amina will be asked to receive from her husband the ceremonial kiss but it does not matter if that doesn't happen. Her wedding nonetheless promises to be a big event with the human rights community already mobilising people to attend. And justifiably so.

Amina Lawal's is a story of the triumph of reason over emotion and the resilience of the human spirit and it is worth celebrating by all lovers of freedom across the world. And it is perhaps because of women like her that an Iranian woman lawyer won this year's Nobel Peace Prize because any society where religious orthodoxy is promoted above the rights of citizen can only breed contradictions like the one that nearly consumed Amina Lawal. That is why we must also salute the courage of Hauwa Ibrahim, the lawyer who stood by her and brought her case to international prominence without drawing attention to herself. In another society that woman would have been given national honours but this is Nigeria. Mindful of the environment she was operating, Hauwa Ibrahim tried to down play any negative comments about the system, her ultimate objective being to ensure her client was not killed and she succeeded without any self-promotion.

Amina Lawal, it is recalled, was on March 23, 2002, sentenced to death by stoning by a Regional Court in Katsina State for having a child outside wedlock. According to the story, Amina became pregnant when she was not married and the villagers apprehended her. Under Katsina Regional law, pregnancy outside wedlock amounted to adultery punishable with death by stoning. As it would happen, the man who put her in the family way was released for want of sufficient evidence and Amina was pronounced guilty as charged and was to die after weaning her daughter, Wasila.

With local and international uproar against the ruling, the federal government announced that she would not die without any concrete measure in that direction. But a spokesman for the Katsina State Governemnt, Ibrahim Abdullahi, said if the appeal failed, Amina Lawal would have to die. "If the appeal court confirms her as guilty, she will be executed" he said with a tone of finality. This defiance was hailed by fanatics who saw the controversy as another attempt to undermine their faith. By then Hauwa Ibrahim had taken up her case. In the first appeal, the President of the Funtua Appeal Court confirmed the earlier ruling. But in Spetember last year, Amina finally secured repreave when she was set free by the highest Sharia appeal court.

Now that she is taking a husband, she will now be above reproach in a society where women are seen as incomplete until they marry. It however sounds illogical that the talk is about her when it is she whose hands will be taken in marriage but as it would happen, she is the celebrity in this matter, her anonymous husband-to-be may for all people care just be Mr Amina Lawal. If we are to borrow the language of soft-sell publication, he is marrying a big girl!

There are several lessons to learn from the travails of Amina, the first being that it is actually victory for Sharia because it has a self-correcting mechanism against a miscarriage of justice. Executing a poor woman reprieve by stoning just because she was unfortunate to be pregnant outside wedlock would have been the height of barbarism. Fortunately, when the lower court delivered the chilling judgement which some politicians capitalised upon to make reckless statements, there were voices of reason that it would not stand on appeal, that the judgement was flawed. Fortunately, the Katsina State Governor, Alhaji Umar Yar'Adua, is a respectable man who stayed above the fray. Were he to be an unbending man like Ibrahim Shekarau, the new Ayatollah of Kano State, the situation might have been different. Yar'Adua allowed the law to take its course and proved at the end that in Sharia the people can actually get justice.

Another lesson is that seeming misfortunes like this sometimes make some people. Prior to the brouhaha, Amina was just another poor village woman condemned to a life of deprivation and want like most women in her circumstance. But instantly, she became a global icon to the extent that she even won an international award and became a subject of international politics. Even Oprah Winfrey dedicated a programme to her travails while millions across the globe signed letters on her behalf. On the google search engine today, there are several reference materials on Amina Lawal. She is an international celebrity on account of what could have been a tragedy for her and her nation until sanity eventually prevailed.

While I have not met her, there can be no doubt that her material condition would have improved significantly in the last two years and so would be her worldview. She can definitely not be as ignorant about her environment as she probably was three years ago. And that will no doubt impact on her child and the children she will, God's willing, have for her new husband. I am happy for how the event turned out for Amina and it is good for the country too that what nearly gave us a bad image has turned out well. It is a triumph for everybody in the end but more for the poor woman and her lawyer, Hauwa Ibrahim.

As Amina therefore goes to the altar tomorrow to take the hand of her new heathrob in holy wedlock, I guess under Sharia law, I hope she has learnt sufficient lessons in the last three years to make her a good wife knowing she is now a goldfish with no hiding place. But she is also a woman of destiny. I wish her a successful marital life.

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