Yusuf Bello| Chief justice of Nigeria, Ibrahim Muhammad, on Thursday called for an amendment of the constitution to accommodate the peculiarities of Sharia law.
The CJN who made the call while speaking at the 20th annual judge’s conference held at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, said such amendment will cater for concerns of Muslims in the country.
According to him, more sections of the constitution that allow implementation of sharia law will enable lawyers in sharia law specialisation to do better.
He said, “As we all know, there are sections of the constitution that allow the implementation of Shari’a personal law and apart from that, we cannot do more.”
“However, we have the number to amend the constitution to suit our own position as Muslims.”
Justice Muhammad equally advocated for the teaching of Sharia law in Arabic in place of the English language currently in use, challenging academics to look into ensuring that the course is taught in Arabic.
He said, “The Shari’a law should be taught in Arabic not English. There is no university in Nigeria that runs Shari’a in Arabic; they all teach Shari’a in English. So, academicians let’s also look into this issue.”
The chief justice, who spoke at the event organised by the Centre for Islamic Legal Studies (CILS) of the university, in collaboration with National Judicial Institute (NJI), Abuja, was represented by Muhammad Danjuma, grand khadi of Niger state.
He spoke on the theme “Documentation of Contracts in Islamic Law: Procedure, Sample Precedents, and Practice”.
Leave a Reply