CJN Tanko Muhammad Advocates Adjustment Of Constitution To Accommodate Sharia

CJN Muhammad Calls For Inclusion Of Sharia Law

The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, has called for the amendment of Nigeria’s constitution to give further room for Muslim concerns and the Shari’a law.

Muhammad spoke while declaring the 20th Annual Judges Conference open at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria on Wednesday.

Naija News understands the theme of the two-day conference is, ‘Documentation of Contracts in Islamic Law: Procedure, Sample Precedents and Practice’, which was organised by the Centre for Islamic Legal Studies (CILS) of the ABU in collaboration with National Judicial Institute (NJI), Abuja.

The CJN was represented at the event by Justice Muhammad Danjuma, Grand Khadi of Niger State.

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

Speaking further, he advocated that Shari’a law be taught in the Arabic language in Nigerian universities and not in the English language as the case is currently.

He, therefore, called on academicians to consider the issue in view of the importance of the Shari’a legal system to the legal profession.

“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,” he said.

In his remarks, the Vice-Chancellor of ABU, Professor Ibrahim Garba, said the decision of the University to support the conference is based on the understanding that such academic conferences are avenues of creating knowledge for the benefit of humanity.