The first Sharia state (January 2000)

On 27 October 1999 Governor Ahmed Sani Yerima announced that Zamfara would implement Sharia (Islamic) law in full; the Sharia Penal Code came into force in January 2000. Zamfara was the first Nigerian state of the Fourth Republic to adopt full Sharia, and over the next two years eleven additional Northern states followed (Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe). The decision was constitutionally contested — Section 10 of the 1999 Constitution forbids any government from adopting a state religion — but was politically irreversible by the time Obasanjo's government chose not to challenge it at the Supreme Court.