Sharia Bill Passes 2nd Reading? Senate President, Saraki Reacts to the Controversial Islamic Bill

Posted by Odinaka on Fri 27th May, 2016 - tori.ng

Just as some sections of the Nigerian media had raised an alarm over a proposed Sharia bill in the National Assembly, Nigeria's Senate President has dismissed rumours about it in the upper chamber of the National Assembly.

Senate President, Bukola Saraki

We reported it here that in an interview with Premium Times on Thursday, a member of the House of Representatives, Abdullahi Salame, admitted that the controversial pro-Sharia bill which he sponsored, was backed up by the speaker, Yakubu Dogara, who advised him to speed up the bill quietly through a second reading to avoid controversy because he recognised that the bill could draw public outrage, and urged him not to make noise about the bill.

As the news of the second passage of the bill went viral online, it generated a lot of mixed reactions and criticisms from Nigerians.

In a swift reaction, the embattled Senate President, Bukola Saraki, dismissed the viral reports about an impending Sharia Bill in the upper chamber of the National Assembly.

Saraki was responding to an inquiry from one a Twitter user, Olatunji Fayomi who asked the

Senate president to make the Sharia Bill available to Nigerians before it is passed into law.

Investigations reveal that the bill which passed the second reading to alter Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution to increase the jurisdiction of the Sharia Court, is in the offing in the House of Representatives, but it is restricted to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and the Northern states.

The sponsor of the bill, 55-year-old Abdullahi Salame, who represents Gwadabawa/Illela constituency in Sokoto State, has told correspondents that the bill is not extending Sharia, but actually extending the existing Sharia Court’s jurisdiction.

The one-time speaker of the Sokoto State House of Assembly, said;

"It doesn’t mean we can take Sharia to Ekiti, Enugu or Port Harcourt, what the bill is all about is the expansion of the jurisdiction of the Sharia Court.

"You know we already have the Sharia Court, those Sharia Courts are faced with some challenges, so it is those challenges we want to overcome."

When asked if the bill would affect Christians in the North, Salame said: "At all, that is the mis-understanding of some people. The most important source of Sharia is the Quran. And the Quran said it clearly that there is no compulsion in religion.

"The Sharia Court has been there since the creation of Nigeria and there has never been a time when it affects non-Muslims, it is only for Muslims and there is no way it will affect the Non-Muslims in the North," he said.