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Group Throws Weight Behind Re-Introduction Of Shari’a Courts In South-West
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has expressed its support for the introduction of Sharia law in the South-West.
The Islamic group, reacting to calls by Christians residing in Yoruba states against such move, has fired back by telling them including their religious organization, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) to mind their own business.
It was learnt that Prof. Ishaq Akintola, MURIC Director, also accused Christians of always being the first to attack and by so doing heat up the polity in the county.
He said, “PFN and other Christian groups are fully aware that Shariah was in the South West decades before the arrival of Christianity in 1842. Shariah was practiced in Ede under Oba Abibu Olagunju (Habeeb, a Muslim name) and the Ede Shariah Court operated up till 1913 at Agbeni area of the town. It was moved to Agbongbon area in 1914.”
Shariah was applied in Iwo under Oba Momodu Lamuye (Muhammad Lamuye) who died in 1906. Even the seventh Akirun of Ikirun, Oba Aliyu Oyewole (died 1912), instituted Shariah in Ikirun in 1910. These are just examples of the existence and spread of Shariah in Yorubaland and the Christian leaders are not oblivious of the fact that it was the British Christian colonialists who stopped Shariah in Yorubaland and imposed Christian common law.”
However, they are equally aware of the rising tide of Islamic awareness in the same South West. They have seen the hitherto passive Muslim community being transformed into an active, articulate and politically conscious populace. They are afraid that the sleeping giant is waking up to take back what belongs to it.”
Akintola warned the PFN and its members to steer clear of the path of Muslims in the South West, adding that the demand for Shariah is a civil rights matter.
