“Kanfest,” kanned due to inclement Sharia. “Sharia police ban French concert in Nigeria,” from Agence France-Presse, March 1:
KANO, Nigeria — Sharia police ordered the closure of an annual music festival funded and organised by the French embassy in northern Nigeria at the weekend, local officials and diplomats said on Monday.
“We have banned the music festival for the reason that we were not notified and our permission was not sought,” Abubakar Rabo Abdulkarim, head of the film censorship board in the northern Kano region, told AFP.
The French embassy said they had been told they could not stage the event at the local French cultural centre as they did not have prior authorisation.
“Following a notification by the Kano state censorship board, the Kano festival of music is cancelled” the French embassy said in a statement emailed to AFP.
The embassy has organised the three-night KANFEST music festival for the past six years through its cultural centre in Kano, featuring performances from Nigeria and other African countries as well as French musicians.
Twelve states in predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria apply Sharia law, where music and other forms of entertainment are frequently banned or subjected to restrictions.
They didn’t make it up on their own. They didn’t even steal it from the Wahhabis. Muhammad harbored an intense hostility toward music that is amply documented in Islamic texts.