By Bolanle Bolawole
“When Muslims are in power, we are out of power. And when we are out of power, we are completely out of power” – Professor Is-haq Olanrewaju Oloyede, as quoted in a “Press Statement/Release at the World Press Conference organised by Concerned Yoruba Muslim Scholars in Nigeria in affiliation with the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria held at (the) Arisekola Mosque, Ibadan (on) Tuesday, 11th February, 2025.”
When one had thought that Saturday Tribune editor, Lasisi Olagunju’s “Are Yoruba Muslims truly marginalised?” had adequately answered all questions and doused the fire of the clamour for Northern Nigeria-fashion Sharia in the South-west, the dying embers were stoked again from unexpected quarters. Professor Is-haq Oloyede, Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and Secretary-General of the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) joined the fray.
Permit me to call you by your first name: Lasisi, my brother and professional colleague, started his piece this way: “Each time we hear or read outsiders say they are fighting for Yoruba Muslims, some of us (Yoruba Muslims) laugh. Who told them that we cannot fight for ourselves- if there is a war” Abi o! Why will serious-minded Yoruba Muslims even not laugh when we realise that those “outsiders” ostensibly and purportedly fighting for Yoruba Muslims look down on the same Yoruba Muslims and do not accept them as “true” Muslims?
Do they think we are not aware that they call Yoruba Muslims “kafirs”, and treat them as second-class Muslims? Will a Yoruba Muslim ever become President of the Nigeria Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (in existence since 1973)? That seat is reserved in perpetuity for whoever is the Sultan of Sokoto – whoever! And he must be Fulani! The best a Yoruba Muslim can become is Deputy President-General (South), which can go anywhere in the South. The Deputy President-General (North) is reserved in perpetuity for whoever is the Shehu of Borno.
The NSCIA’s national secretariat, headquartered in Abuja, is headed by the Secretary-General. Its first Secretary-General was Ibrahim Dasuki, who later became the Sultan. The current Secretary-General is Oloyede. Before him was Dr. Lateef Oladimeji Adegbite. At the time he succeeded Adegbite in May 2013, Oloyede was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin and Secretary of the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council (NAREC).
The meat of Lasisi’s piece is that Sharia had always been available to Yoruba Muslims. His exact words: “The present cries and announcements are very unnecessary. Sharia never left Yorubaland. Our fathers called it ‘seria’. It has evolved, adapted procedures in deft accommodation of its environment and social realities. Yoruba Muslim families who desire it still conduct their private affairs in accordance with Sharia without disturbing their neighbours”
Lasisi is dead right. I remember my grandmother who raised me, a devout Muslim, always using the statement “Won da seria fun”; that is, the errant was punished according to extant (Sharia) laws. My dad and uncle were Muslims and they, too, always used the word “seria” to mean punishment. Those demanding for what we have always had, and which is still very much available, have other motives. They have a hidden agenda.
To further corroborate Lasisi, my younger brother, a devout Muslim, had issues with his first son a few years ago. A family meeting was summoned, to which Muslim alfas versed in Islamic laws were invited. At the meeting, both father and son agreed to be judged by Sharia law. Each stated his case and the alfas used Sharia to counsel and to apportion blame. Those of us family members who were not Muslms only acted as observers.
Let me quote Lasisi a little bit more: “A quiet Sharia panel has been sitting for decades at Oja’ba, Ibadan. There is another one in Osogbo. I suspect that other major Yoruba towns have them. They adjudicate on marriage and marital issues; they arbitrate disputes among Muslims. They do their thing without noise and drama and excesses. Every willing Muslim who goes there loves what the panels do and how they do it. The respective state governments are aware of their existence but they do not disturb them.
“At the compound and family levels, check out what we do with Muslim weddings, burials, administration of estates and inheritance matters, etc. Those who want more than this should be bold to say what exactly they want. They want hisbah, moral police on the streets of Ibadan, Abeokuta and Akure? They want a Yoruba Bello Buba Jangede who would be amputated for stealing a goat while big men who steal roads and bridges hold court? Anyone who wants the Kano, Zamfara kind of Sharia in 2025 Western Nigeria needs counselling”
They need more than counselling! Like Lasisi said, Sharia operates among Yoruba Muslims already. My own father died a Muslim and we buried him according to Islamic rites. The alfas presided and those of us who were not Muslims tagged along. I just told you my kid brother settled issues with his first son before a Sharia panel that sat right here in Lagos.
The son of my immediate younger brother married at the Asese axis of Ogun state last month according to Islamic injunctions (Nikkai). I had my purse filled with brand new notes ready for when they would ask for dowry and what-not, but that was not to be. When the Imam directing affairs asked for the dowry, my brother’s son started reciting the Quran. My kid brother leaned towards me and said it was accepted in Islam in lieu of cash as dowry for as long as the bride accepts it. That’s sharia in action and noone stopped them!
Religion is a personal affair between man and God. State intervention as we have it in Nigeria today is not only absolutely unnecessary, it is such interference that creates religious crises; and that is what those advocating for the Northern-Nigeria type of Sharia surreptitiously seek to foist on the South-west noted for its commendable age-long religious tolerance and harmony among the religious and non-religious groups in the region.
Honestly, I thought Lasisi had adequately answered all questions raised by the South-west pro-Sharia army until I read the so-called “Southern Muslim Scholars/Masses”. They said with the support of their Muslim “Northern brothers”, they ensured that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu won the 2023 presidential election despite the Christians’ opposition to Muslim/Muslim ticket! So the Christians contributed nothing, abi? So only the Muslims made Tinubu president; and they must fill all available offices? Where is their sense of justice, equity, and fairness? After Muhammadu Buhari’s harrowing eight years when Fulani Muslims monopolised virtually all important government positions?
It baffles me that any South-west Muslim can be insensitive to the way their faith is derided and ridiculed by their “brothers” from the North. Some “brothers”! Not only that, the Southern Muslim scholars were selective in the Tinubu appointments they flaunted to demonstrate that South-west Muslims were marginalised in the scheme of things. Again, I beseech you to read Lasisi as his piece had already punctured their puerile arguments with facts and figures.
For anyone with an understanding of how Government functions, there is more to Harold Laski’s “Who gets what, when, how” than who occupies this or that office. What office did Isa Sumaila Funtua occupy in the Buhari administration when the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, grovelled before him? What of Mamman Daura, the celebrated power behind Buhari’s throne? And what of Tunde Sabiu? Most times, those who determine things are not those in the offices that we see; who, often, are just like Front Desk officers in a hotel reception room.
Oloyede posits that Muslims in the South-west have been under psychological torment because of the absence of Sharia courts. He was also quoted as saying that agitations for Sharia in the region should not be discountenanced for peace to reign. I sincerely hope he was misquoted or was quoted out of context. So, if the agitation for Sharia is not acceded to, there will be no peace, abi? The notion that only some people have the monopoly of violence should be discarded. We should not allow push to become shoving before we realise that violence is not anybody’s exclusive preserve!
Oloyede, a professor of Islamic Studies, agrees with Lasisi that Sharia panels have been in existence in the South-west since time immemorial. His words: “Recently, people were 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. In Oyo state, somebody did a Ph. D. thesis on (Sharia panel) in 2007, which means it had been there before 2007…” So, if there are enduring Sharia panels in the South-west, why, then, is the latest hullabaloo about the same Sharia?
I think the problem is that some Muslims want Government-established Sharia courts because they are tired of subjecting themselves to the same customary and high courts that Christians subject themselves to without raising an eyebrow. Let us note that by virtue of colonialism, the common laws of England, not Christian laws, operate in our court system; our courts are, therefore, not Christian courts as is being erroneously propagated. If they are, why do we have Muslims operating in them and dispensing justice? How many Christians operate on Sharia panels and in Sharia courts?
Looked at closely, Muslims have an advantage that Christians do not even have. Any Muslim desiring Sharia law has the Sharia panels all over the place. They also have the liberty to move to where Sharia courts are available. Christians have no such privilege because there are no Ecclesiastical/Christian panels or courts operating anywhere in the country. Sharia is enshrined in our constitution whereas Christian laws are not. Do the Muslims think Christians are happy with that?
Today, the Chief Justice of the Federation (Kudirat Kekere-Ekun) is a Muslim. The one before her (Olukayode Ariwoola) and the one before that one (Ibrahim Muhammed Tanko) were also Muslims. The only Christian (Walter Onnoghen, 2017 – 2019) was hurried out of office by Buhari. Not less than 12 of the 17 Nigerian indigenous CJN’s have been Muslims. Perhaps, there are more Muslims and non-Christian judges presiding at all levels of our court system – customary, high court, court of appeal, and the supreme court – dispensing justice or its semblance to Christians.
And since Independence (October 1st, 1960), Muslims have ruled this country more than Christians: 10 Muslims, approximately 39 years; against 6 Christians, approximately 26 years); and if Muslims anywhere have perpetually been marginalised like Oloyede posits in the opening quotation, whose fault? Don’t forget that Muslims also claim to hold the advantage of population over Christians.
Says apostle Paul to Christians in 1 Corinthians 6:1- 7: “Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life? …I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? No, no one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because you go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?”
Very strong admonitions! So, the situation of Christians under the prevailing circumstances is even more precarious than that of the Muslims. Christians are the ones more defrauded. They are the ones undergoing real psychological trauma. They are the ones keeping quiet just to give peace a chance. Perhaps the time has come, and the hour is now, when Christians should demand for Ecclesiastical courts to adjudicate cases between Christians and Christians!
* Former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-Chief, BOLAWOLE was also the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of The Westerner newsmagazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune and TREASURES column in the New Telegraph newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.
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