Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, has encouraged South-West leaders to support the establishment of Sharia panels in the region to promote peace and religious harmony.
Oloyede, who also serves as Secretary-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, made the announcement on Channels Television’s Inside Sources with Laolu Akande on Sunday.
He voiced alarm over the lack of awareness surrounding the subject, pointing out that Sharia panels have existed in the region for years.
He 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 Sharia panels in the South-West, and I was just smiling; I was smiling that I had never seen that level of ignorance being displayed.
“Sharia 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.”
Responding to concerns about religious tolerance in the region, the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin stated that Muslims in the South-West are mentally burdened by the zone’s peaceful coexistence.
“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 Sharia Courts 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?’” he added.
There have been controversies in the South-West region over the establishment of Sharia panels, with Muslim leaders stressing their right to self-determination while non-Muslim groups raise concerns about the potential implications of these panels.
