TITLE:
Islamic Jurisprudence and Unity of Nigeria: A Socio-Historical Reconsideration
AUTHORS:
Kingsley Okoro
KEYWORDS:
Islamic, Jurisprudence, Nigeria, Socio-Historical, Reconsiderations
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Philosophy,
Vol.7 No.4,
October
26,
2017
ABSTRACT: Nigeria’s journey into nationhood has been steely as
it has encountered several horrendous setbacks. The journey started with the
amalgamation of 1914. Since then, the uniting groups have engaged themselves in
competition for dominance, instead of dialoguing for true unity/union which is
necessary for nation building. This has resulted in internecine wars, conflict and crises, in several reins of the country’s life.
However with more than one hundred years of this marriage, it is therefore
necessary to recast our journey. In recasting this history, we shall call to mind
that: 1) The Nigeria foremost nationalists dreamt and laboured to make this
country a great nation; 2) it is in the quest
for this unity that the civil war of 1967-70 was fought; 3) Nigeria is founded on secularity/secular state ideality. Therefore, it
is now time to redefine the basis for this unity, noting that great nations
have heterogeneous formations, suggesting that our heterogeneity is not truly a
weakness to our nation building goal. Therefore, to hide under the ambit of
religion or ethnic myopism to scuttle the labours of our heroes past can never
stand the test of quality logic. Hence the introduction and implementations of
Sharia as alternative legal code in Nigeria are major steps towards disintegration.
This work in adopting socio-historical method of investigation, affirms that
the secular state of Nigeria and its maintenance must be given supreme
consideration in Nigerian agenda, if she must attain her desired nationhood.