1.   Abacha was private about his personal life, but it does not appear he had wealthy parents growing up in the northern Nigerian state of Kano.

2.   Several northern Nigerian states have announced that Islamic law will prevail there.

3.   That effort, run by Harvard University health specialists, will also operate in two other Nigerian states.

4.   Kano, the fourth and largest Nigerian state to adopt Islamic law, or sharia, has a history of ethnic and religious clashes.

5.   State governor Ahmed Sani signed two bills Thursday making Zamfara the first Nigerian state to adopt Islamic law, known as Sharia.

6.   The decision was taken at a meeting of tribal, political and other community leaders from four central Nigerian states that have experienced growing levels of ethnic violence.

7.   The fighting was a revival of bitter religious bloodletting touched off in Kaduna earlier this year by calls for Islamic law, or sharia, in some Nigerian states.

8.   The girl was sentenced in September by an Islamic court in the northern Nigerian state of Zamfara, prompting an outcry by human rights groups.

9.   Fourteen people were killed and several were injured in an ambush by suspected ethnic Tiv militiamen in the central Nigerian state of Nassarawa, officials said Monday.

10.   He has also been a critic of aspects of the introduction of Sharia, or strict Islamic law, in north Nigerian states mainly dominated by Moslems.