|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Claim: Sahara Reporters, Nigeria’s foremost citizen journalism platform, claimed that the Sharia court in Zamfara state set to arraign a female Christian convert on May 23, 2025.
Verdict: FALSE. The lady whose image was attached to the tweet is from Texas, and the state governor’s spokesperson, Sulaiman Idris, also debunked the claim.
Full Text
In 2000, Zamfara state became the first northern Nigerian state with a significant muslim population to implement Sharia law. The judicial bodies are mandated to apply Islamic law (Sharia) in matters of personal status such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child custody.
These courts function alongside Nigeria’s secular legal system, which is based on standard and customary law. While Sharia courts are constitutionally permitted to handle civil matters for Muslims, their jurisdiction is generally limited to personal law. Their existence has generated ongoing debate regarding religious freedom and the boundaries between religious and secular legal authority.
Sahara Reporters, a Nigerian media organisation renowned for its citizen journalism practices, shared a publication on its verified X page. The report claimed that a lady who converted from Islam to Christianity, Zainab Muhamadu, will face a Sharia court trial in Zamfara state on May 23, 2025.
The post generated massive reactions. One reaction that countered the claim, made by @AM_Saleeem_, gained over 292,000 views on X in 19 hours. He claimed that the lady was Aalia from Texas in the United States, contradicting the claim in the publication. He also criticised attempts to portray Zamfara as an extremist state.
Meanwhile, we found evidence of followers who agreed with the publication. An X user, @son_of_the_soil, said there will be no reaction even if the alleged lady finally gets sentenced and killed.
DUBAWA captured the lady’s image attached to the post and conducted a reverse image search. We found the claim (archived) on the verified Facebook page of Moses Eskor, a Nollywood film director.
He posted the claim on May 17, 2025, calling for the Christian community to pray for God’s intervention and support the supposed Ms Muhamadu. He said her journey to Christianity began when she met a corps member simply named Samuel, a youth pastor who refrained from pursuing sexual desires with her. As of May 21, 2025, the post had gained 169 reactions, 174 comments, and 18 reshares.
A Facebook post said the trial will end with her charged with apostasy, a crime punishable by death under classical Islamic jurisprudence. Another post claimed she is a 22-year-old girl in Zamfara state. The claim went viral here, here and here.
The controversial implication of the claim prompted DUBAWA to fact-check the information.
Verification
DUBAWA ran a reverse image search using Google Lens on the lady’s image. The result revealed that the lady was Aalia Reeves, a Malian-American citizen. Corroborating Mr @AM_Saleeem_’s claim, we found her TikTok page, where she made a video about making a Dua for her mother to convert to Islam. The video was uploaded on March 26, 2024, 13 months before the claim went viral.
The Zamfara state governor’s spokesperson, Sulaiman Idris, also debunked the claim. He revealed that the state government contacted all relevant authorities, who disclosed that the claim is false.
“To ensure accountability and certainty, the state government has confirmed with the Grand Khadi of the Zamfara Sharia Court of Appeal regarding any similar cases. He stated that there had never been such a case before in any Shari’a court in Zamfara State.”
Hours after the publication went viral, DUBAWA discovered that the media organisation had deleted the tweet and publication. We archived the report here.
Ms Reeves also countered the claim through her Instagram stories. She revealed that she had never been to Nigeria. She disclosed that efforts are ongoing to sue every party involved in the claim’s dissemination.
Conclusion
The viral claim that a Christian convert, Zainab Muhamadu, is facing trial in Zamfara’s Sharia court is false. The image was not of any lady in Zamfara. Authorities also confirmed that no such case has ever been brought before any Sharia court in the state.
