Nigeria rolls out red carpet for Miss World

The Nigerian climate is not gentle. Carefully coiffured hair is difficult to maintain in the clawing humidity, and temperatures in the high 30s are a severe challenge for the make-up artist. But, somehow, few of the newly arrived beauty queens on the tarmac of Abuja airport last week looked anything less than immaculate.

The promoters of Miss World have chosen to bring this year's contest to the tropical and malarial rain forest belt of west Africa, and the Nigerian authorities are falling over themselves with delight.

"Welcome to Nigeria, welcome to God's own country," beamed the information minister, Jerry Gana. The contestants, sitting patiently in rows of chairs on the tarmac, clapped their manicured hands and smiled brightly back as live television brought this publicity coup into Nigerian homes.

Just a few miles down the road, at the house of her lawyer, another woman sat quietly on the grass. She is 31, her name is Amina Lawal and, for the crime of adultery, she has been sentenced to death by stoning. Already she has lost one appeal, but remains composed about her plight. "I believe in the justice of God," she said, her head shrouded. "If justice is not done to me on earth, it will be done in the life after ... We are all mortal."

As she spoke, she held her baby daughter, Wasila. It was the conception of this child outside marriage that led to her conviction by an Islamic court under strict new laws introduced in Nigeria's Muslim-majority northern states over the past three years.

Amina is not alone: there are at least three other stoning convictions awaiting appeal. But Nigeria's junior foreign minister, Dubem Onyia, shouted above the music of the airport welcome ceremony: "No one has ever been stoned to death in this country. The sentence will never be carried out, because the constitution does not allow it."

Much to Nigeria's dismay, the controversy over Amina had threatened to disrupt the pageant. But only a handful of Miss World contestants – and none from Britain's home nations – have stayed away. Was Miss England, Daniella Luan (right), concerned that they were threatening to stone to death an unmarried mother? "Well, I've just heard that it's not going ahead, that the Nigerian government has overruled it," she said. Not that she had ever considered boycotting the event.

Having got the beauty queens to Nigeria, the authorities have to be careful what they do with them for the next three weeks. After their arrival they were whisked away to the coastal town of Calabar, where they were welcomed by the Obong, the local traditional ruler, in his palace. Then it was a film shoot, closed to the press and public, of the girls in their bikinis and sarongs. The footage will be shown – outside Nigeria – during the finals, three weeks hence.

Today the itinerant lovelies will be guests at an offshore regatta of luxury vessels owned by the richest people in Nigeria. The orgy of fashion shoots and cocktail parties, surrounded by tight security, will go on, but only in the non-Muslim south of the country.

"All Muslims are against this beauty pageant," said Huseyn Zakaria, an Islamic scholar in Abuja. "It's all about commercial sex, nudity and immorality." Far from distracting from the stoning controversy, Miss World may have added to it. Ministers have openly condemned Amina's punishment and say that if she loses her appeals they will intervene at the level of the Supreme Court to overturn the conviction. But they cannot be seen to challenge sharia law directly: that would be tantamount to attacking Islam. President Olusegun Obasanjo, a devout Christian, needs Muslim support to win a second term of office. Last week he cancelled a meeting with the Miss World entrants.

Amina herself is tolerant: "I really appreciate the concern of some of the contestants. But I am appealing for them not to boycott the event." Conveniently, her appeal will not be heard until after the beauty queens go home. The authorities say the sharia courts are in recess during Ramadan.

But even if Amina is acquitted, other cases are pending. Fatima Usman has been sentenced to death for adultery, along with her lover, Ahmadu Ibrahim. Eleven other people, most of them under the age of 18, are reported to have been convicted of theft in the northern state of Sokoto. The punishment prescribed by Islamic law is amputation of a hand. But the government has chosen not to intervene in any of these cases.

"God will look after me, whatever lies in store," said Amina Lawal. If she is forgotten after a new Miss World has been chosen, her faith may face the sternest of tests.