Kano State Hisbah confiscates 8,400 bottles of beer worth millions

The Kano State Hisbah Board says it has confiscated 8,400 bottles of beer in Dawakin Kudu and Kura Local Government Areas.

The Commander­­-General of the board, Dr. Harun Ibn-Sina, disclosed this in a statement issued to newsmen on Tuesday in Kano.

According to the statement “the vehicle was coming from Zaria to Kano when Hisbah officials arrested the driver.

“Hisbah Board has prohibited the sale of beer in the state to avoid being intoxicated”, he said.

The Commander-General also said that once investigation was concluded, the suspects would be charged to court. 

The Kano State Hisbah Corps was established by the state government in 2003 with the institutionalization of formerly local and privately maintained hisbah security units.  Hisbah, which is an Arabic word meaning an act performed for the good of the society, is an Islamic religious concept that calls for “enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong on every Muslim.”

The Hisbah Corps, which operates under the jurisdiction of a Hisbah Board composed of government officials, secular police officers, and religious leaders, is highly decentralized with local units supervised by committees composed of officials and citizens in the communities in which they operate.

The relationship between the Hisbah Corps and civil police has been sometimes acrimonious. The Nigeria Police Force (NPF), to whom the Hisbah must report crimes, frequently refuse to cooperate in enforcement of religious law.

On multiple occasions, NPF officers have arrested Hisbah members for trespassing when the latter have attempted to enter private property to enforce Sharia.