was
shocked to watch the live proceedings of the House of Representatives
as covered by NTA2 and saw that the bill calling for the criminal
aspects of Islamic Sharia law to be implemented in our legal system
in Nigeria at the Federal and states passed the second reading today!
I was even more shocked because even though there were many
Christians in the House no one raised an objection! The Speaker of
the House, Hon Yakubu Dogara, who presided over the proceedings said
that what this meant was that it would now move to committee level
where it will be discussed fully before the House would decide on it
finally, but it is curious that not even one voice of dissent was
aired against it! I waited till 9pm to hear what NTA Network news
would report about it, but there was a blackout of reportage about
it! Of course, other issues discussed and decided in the House today
were reported but not this one! The bill to amend the 1999
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to make provision for
the full implementation of Sharia Criminal law at the Federal and
states legal system has passed the second reading in the House of
Representatives and no one is telling Nigerians what is happening!
For all we know, when a bill passes the second reading unchallenged
in parliament it is almost as good as passed!
Long before the 2nd Republic, Muslim
leaders in Nigeria have always agitated for the full implementation
of Sharia in Nigeria. Nobody has forgotten the hot debates that took
place in the Constituent Assembly of 1978 about the place of Sharia
in the 1979 Constitution. Christian members kicked against the full
implementation of full Sharia because non-Muslims would fall victim
of this law. In the end, a compromise was reached that the Sharia
Personal Law be allowed, not the criminal aspects. It was the same
thing that happened in 1988 Constituent Assembly that produced the
1989 Constitution, which never took off. In fact, in the 1988
Constituent Assembly, General Ibrahim Babangida, then Nigeria’s
self- styled military President, had to stop all debates relating to
Sharia and other sensitive issues when he saw how inflammable the
debates were becoming, and retained the status quo. The 1999
Constitution drew much from both the 1979 and 1989 Constitutions and
retained Sharia Personal law. Now, Muslims, under PMB, have
surreptitiously attempted to amend the Constitution to insert the
full implementation of Sharia without carrying Nigerians along!
Muslim leaders have always argued that Sharia law is meant for
Muslims only. But Christians have always refused to buy the argument
because in practice, non- Muslims have often been dragged before
Sharia courts and have been adjudicated by a legal system repugnant
to their faith. Several documented cases abound to prove this!
Besides, Christians have always argued why the government that is
supposed to be neutral to all religions should uphold the religious
laws of one religion with public funds to the harm of the adherents
of other faiths!
My book, Sharia In Nigeria: A Christian
Perspective (Challenge Publications, 1988), documents the issues
succinctly clear! These are some of the issues that make some of us
to take with a pinch of salt the claims that PMB means well for this
country! Our job is to bring these issues to the fore to create
awareness of what is happening. Whatever happens afterwards is beyond
our power. It’s up to you all! Broadcast this information'.
There is no doubt that the
determination of Muslim extremists in north Nigeria, to foist Sharia
laws all over Nigeria has taken another step towards their sinister
objective, by the second reading and passing of this bill.
The fact that the bill scaled its
second reading without a single opposition is intriguing, considering
the furore the same issue has raised in the past. One wonders whose
interest southern and Christian members of the National Assembly are
serving.
The bill seeks to make all aspects of
Sharia law part of the Nigerian constitution and implemented in the
whole of Nigeria. This will ensure that the benefit of Sharia laws,
viz. : cutting off of the hands of thieves, stoning adulterers, and
blasphemers, public flogging of offenders, legalisation of child
marriages and ensuring all women wear Nicab, banning alcohol, making
Islam the official religion, giving men right to marry up to four
wives without permission etc., available to all Nigerians. Not a bad
thing, if you do not believe in individual liberty, humane treatment
of offenders, equality, tolerance of differences, plurality of views
about the transcendent, enlightenment and fundamental human rights.
No doubt the bill will usher in a new
phase in the history and evolution of Nigeria as a country. The
implication and the threat this sectarian minded, obnoxious and
provocative bill pose to the continued existence of Nigeria as one
country cannot be over emphasised.
It shows that those who gave Nigeria
Sharia laws in the north, Boko Haram, Grazing ground bill, armed
Fulani militia and ensured that all important positions in Nigeria
today are occupied by Muslims are very determined to turn Nigeria
into an Islamic nation in the image of Saudi Arabia, where most of
them go for their spiritual inspiration. I admire their
tenacity,relentlessness, strategic thinking and determined to achieve
their aim. It reminds me of one of the things Jesus said, the
children of this world, in their generation, are wiser than the
children of light.
This development is another evidence of
the escalation of effort to turn Nigeria into an Islamic, since the
election of Muhammadu Buhari, an arch Islamist, who vowed that he
would not rest, until the whole of Nigeria is under sharia. He seems
to be keeping his word.
Since his election, president Mohammadu
Buhari has pursed a sectarian agenda like the push to appropriate
vast acres of land all over the country for the exclusive use of
Fulanis, refusal to disarm Fulani herdsmen , plan to introduce
Islamic indoctrination of children as part of religious education all
over Nigeria and increasing militarisation of south Nigeria,
extrajudicial killings of Christians and ethnic cleansing of
Christian communities. Just to mention a few.
All these are going on, against the
back ground of a selective war against corruption, which spears
members of his political party and those who misappropriated state
state fund to sponsor his presidential application form fee and paid
for his electioneering campaign.
The president has also brutally cracked
down on Shia Muslims in a massacre that constitutes crime against
humanity. His actions so far, has further widened the ethnic and
religious divide and led to increasing agitation for independent
state of Biafra in the south East. It would not be far fetched to
conclude that the primary aim of the president of Nigeria, is not the
welfare of all Nigerians, but to turn Nigeria into Islamic state.
Nigerian from south who are
predominately Christians, have shown remarkable, understanding and
tolerance, which now borders on either naivety or ignorance.
Many of them have been what Muslims
describe as useful idiots, as they either kept silent or aided the
grand plan to turn Nigeria into an Islamic state and ensure that all
its resources are in the hands of the Muslim north.
It is curious that not a single
legislator from the south has protested the sustained and systematic
attempt to turn Nigeria into an Islamic state contrary to the
provisions of the constitution. None of them protested the
introduction of Sharia in the north even though it is
unconstitutional.
The Christians and other non-Muslims
have been example in tolerance to ensure that all coexist peacefully.
However, Muslim extremist, as fanatics, who have no respect for their
opponents and do not know where and when to stop, have continued to
put unbearable strain on the things that hold Nigeria together as a
country, as they push to recreate Nigeria in the image of intolerant
Islam.
These extremists and their Boko Haram
and Fulani terrorists have continued Their two prong strategy to turn
Nigeria into an Islamic state.
The president of Nigeria, Mohammadu
Buhari has no mandate from the people of Nigeria to turn Nigeria into
an Islamic state. This is not in his party manifesto and it is
happening because for no other reason other than, the president's
religious convictions and because the OIC wants it to happen. Buhari
seems determined to bring to Nigeria, what Islam did to Lebanon.
Buhari, has confirmed what many of us
know all along, that he is a religious fanatic, who has no true
respect for other religions and has contempt for the religious
beliefs of others. After his election, he held a security meeting
attended by only Muslim heads and excluded the Vice President who is
a Christian.
Since his election, more Nigerians have
been killed by the military than has been the case since the end of
the civil war. In less than one year, his tenure has recorded the
highest number of death of Nigerian in peace time. This should worry
rational human beings.
Before his election, he threatened that
the blood of baboons would flow. Sadly what us flowing in Nigeria
today is the blood of baboon but the blood of Christians and Shia
Muslims.
Buhari's leadership is evolving into a
callous and insensitive leadership, which has an Islamic agenda.
Christians and all lovers of Liberty
need to study carefully what is happening in both north and South
Sudan today to understand what president Buhari has in store for
Nigeria. This will be the fate of Nigeria, unless Buhari is stopped
or persuaded to give up his sinister Islamic agenda.
There is a north Sudan under Sharia,
which is fermenting trouble in the south because of oil. It is
already happening. North Nigeria is united under sharia, the south is
ethnically divided.
I plead with the world, to persuade
Nigerian president to give up his Islamic agenda for Nigeria.
Islamisation of Nigeria will only bring
the same disaster it had brought to all countries, where extremist
Muslims have imposed Islam on others against their will. A dark cloud
has gathered over Nigeria.
source: http://nigeriaworld.com/feature/publication/eke/052316.html
E O Eke is qualified in medicine.
At various times he has been a General medical practitioner, Medical
missionary, Medical Director and senior medical officer of health in
Nigeria. He specializes in child, Adolescent and adult psychiatry and
lives in England with his family. His interest is in health, religion
philosophy and politics. He cares for body and mind.
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