Oloyede Raises Concern Over Massive Ignorance About The Shari’ah Panel

… Says It Has Existed For Decades In Southwest

The Registrar of the Joint Admis­sions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, has voiced support for the implementa­tion of Shari’ah law in the South­west.

Oloyede, who is also the Secre­tary-General of the Nigerian Su­preme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), said Shari’ah panels would serve the interests of Mus­lims in the region.

He called on leaders in the South- West geopolitical zone to support the establishment of Sharia panels in the six states of the zone.

According to him, the establish­ment of Sharia panels, which are essentially committees of Islamic scholars set up to settle marriage and inheritance disputes, will foster sustainable peace in the zone.

Oloyede stated this when he ap­peared as a guest on the Sunday edition of Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme aired on Channels Television.

According to him, for sustainable peace, there is nothing bad in Mus­lims having Shari’ah courts in the South-West.

Oloyede said, “I believe that Ni­geria is great, and Nigeria will con­tinue to be great, but it requires a lot of rethinking. Recently, people have been talking about Shari’ah Panels in the South-West, and I was just smiling; I was smiling that I had never seen that level of ignorance being displayed.

“Shari’ah Panel in Oyo State, somebody did a PhD thesis on it in 2007 which means it had been there before 2007. The person who wrote on that appraisal is a professor to­day in Ibadan. He is Prof Makinde, and the governor coincidentally is Makinde. I don’t know whether they are related.”

The former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin said the matter is something so trivial, and warned against building unneces­sary tension around it, especially in the South-West where Muslims, Christians and traditional institu­tions have co-existed peacefully for ages.

He, however, said the Muslims in the South-West are paying psycho­logically for the harmony enjoyed in the zone.

Oloyede added, “When you have such a situation (of religious tol­erance) and you do not continue to monitor what you are doing, you will be living in the past. I’m a Muslim from the South-West. The Muslims from the South-West pay psychologically for the peace and harmony that we are talking about.

“The churches are licensed by the government to conduct marriag­es that are statutory and if you have any dispute within your marriage, you go to government-funded high courts for dispute resolution.

“If there is a dispute in my mar­riage, where do I go? I don’t have the opportunity because I married ac­cording to Islamic rites, I will have to go to customary court where the customary judge knows next to nothing about my faith, about the laws on the basis on which we got married.

“He would now use customary law to determine Islamic marriage and the Constitution of Nigeria allows it to say where the state of assembly allows it, there should be Sharia Courts of Appeal.

“There have been Shari’ah Court of Appeal in different parts of the country, particularly in the north­ern part of Nigeria. When we say there is harmony, it means some­body is suffering in silence but when the person speaks, they say: ‘Why are you making noise?’”