KANO (Nigeria) - AN ISLAMIC Sharia court in northern Nigeria has jailed for six months a 20-year old man for idleness and belonging to a group of delinquents, a court official said on Friday.

A lower sharia court in Tudunalkali neighbourhood in Bauchi handed down the sentence on Jamilu Samaila on Thursday, after his father dragged him in because he was tired of his son's 'nefarious' deeds.

'Judge Tanibu Abubakar sentenced Jamilu Samaila to a six-month prison term for having no job and also for associating with bad friends, which is an offence contrary to... sharia penal code,' court clerk Tasiu Musa told AFP in a telephone interview.

'The convict was brought to court by his father Samaila Tahir who complained of his son's refusal to be engaged in any trade and refused to go to school,' he said, adding that he asked the court to put him behind bars 'for as long it deems fit'.

Cited by the official News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the father told the court: 'He is not listening... and he is bringing shame to my family.

'I am tired of his nefariuous deeds. Please put this boy in prison so that I can be free,' Mr Tanir pleaded with the court.

The court also ordered that he be caned 30 times. The strokes were administered shortly after sentence was delivered, according to NAN.

Since the return of Nigeria to civil rule in 1999, a dozen predominantly Muslim states in the north have re-introduced a version of the Islamic Sharia legal system. -- AFP