No fewer than eight suspected cross-dressers have been arrested by the Kano Hisbah Board during a wedding in Kofar Waika in Gwale Local Government Area of the state.
The development was conveyed to the press on Tuesday by the Deputy Commander General of the Board, Dr. Mujaheed Aminudeen-Abubakar.
Following a tip-off by good Samaritans that young men dressed in female Fulani attire attended and were dancing at a wedding, the board swung into action immediately.
He said, “Our officials on receiving the information, went to the venue of the wedding ceremony and apprehended eight young men, including the groom, dressed in full female Fulani attire, dancing to music in their regalia.”
According to the statement, Aminudeen-Abubakar, said that they confessed to the crime when arraigned before Hisbah Shari’a Court in Kano.
The Presiding Judge, Khadi Tanimu-Sani, ordered that each of them be given 10 lashes of cane, pay N20,000 and produce one surety each or be remanded in a correctional centre for three months.
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The board, established in 2000, is saddled with the responsibilities of enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong in Islamic ways and manners.
Meanwhile, the parish priest of St. Ann’s Catholic Church, Ibi local government council of Taraba State, Rev. Fr. Thaddeus Tarhembe, who was kidnapped in the state last Sunday, has regained his freedom.
The priest was abducted by suspected kidnappers in the early hours of Sunday from the parish residence of St. Ann’s, in Sarkin Kudu area of Ibi council.
Announcing his release via a press statement signed by Rev Fr John Jerome Laiken, and made available to journalists on Tuesday in Jalingo, the state capital, by the Catholic Diocese of Wukari, the priest was said to have been released unhurt by his abductors on Monday.
The Bishop of the diocese, Most Rev. Mark M. Nzukwein, also expressed satisfaction at the immediate release of the cleric.
Some of the parishioners who spoke with our reporter expressed gratitude to God for the timely release of the priest.
They praised the security operatives and the state government for ensuring the priest’s safe rescue.
At the time of filing this report, our reporter in the state could not ascertain whether a ransom was paid or not.