CJN seeks constitution amendment to ‘accommodate peculiarities’ of Shari’a

The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Ibrahim Tanko
Muhammad, yesterday advocated for the amendment of Nigeria’s
constitution to accommodate some of the concerns of Muslims and the
Shari’a law.

Muhammad made this known while declaring the 20th Annual Judges
Conference open at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria Faculty
of Law’s Moot Court. Commenting on the theme of the two-day
conference, ‘Documentation of Contracts in Islamic Law: Procedure,
Sample Precedents and Practice’, organised by the Centre for
Islamic Legal Studies (CILS) of the ABU in collaboration with
National Judicial Institute (NJI), Abuja, Justice Muhammad also
urged academicians to champion the cause of redesigning the methods
of teaching Shari’a law.

Represented by Justice Muhammad Danjuma, Grand Khadi of Niger
State, the CJN said the implementation of his suggestions would be
more feasible if universities give the Shari’a law its own
faculty.

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 emend
the constitution to suit our own position as Muslims.”

Muhammad said increase of judges to be learned in Shari’a would
allow them to attend to issues that have to do with Islamic
law.

In the same vein, the CJN said in view of the importance of the
Shari’a legal system to the legal profession, Shari’a law ought to
be taught in Arabic language in Nigerian universities.

He added: “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 Vice-Chancellor of ABU, Professor Ibrahim Garba, said
academic conferences are avenues of creating knowledge for the
benefit of humanity, hence the university’s decision to support the
judges’ conference.