Some 22,000 people were forced to flee their homes during the fighting. Hundreds of buildings were burnt to the ground including houses, churches and mosques. The violence began in mid-June when a Muslim bus-driver insisted men and women should sit separately on his bus, according to Islamic Shari'ah law. The non-Muslims refused and tensions led to violence.

Bauchi is one of twelve states in Muslim-majority northern Nigeria which have decided to implement full Shari'ah law. The people of the overwhelmingly Christian town Tafawa Balewa, where the riots occurred, had, like non-Muslims across northern Nigeria, been promised that Shari'ah law would not apply to them. Yet a week after the state introduced it, two Shari'ah judges were sent to the town.

Meanwhile in Zamfara State Muslims and non-Muslim girls alike will be forced to wear the Islamic hijab (veil) as part of their uniform in the new school year. In a worrying development in Kano State the governor is reported to have warned journalists not to report the state authority's activities in a negative light after 18 churches were singled out and demolished on legal grounds. Across the Shari'ah states the enforcement of Islamic law is no longer being left to the police but increasingly being carried out by Islamic Hisbah vigilante groups.