If you're in Kano, watch what you wear, they're arresting people now! According to a report by AFP, police

If you're in Kano, watch what you
wear, they're arresting people now!
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.
From AFP
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
Hisbah is 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.