By David Dimas
Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State
The planned introduction of ‘A Bill for a Law to Substitute the Kaduna State Religious Preaching Law, 1984.’ has spread consternation throughout Kaduna state.
The Bill has generated a lot of fretfulness and upheaval. It contains sections that seek to establish committees of the two (2) major religious bodies in the state; the Committee of Jama’atu Nasir Islam (JNI) for the Muslims and the Committee of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) for the Christians and their respective composition, and a third body called “the Inter-faith Ministerial Committee”, which shall execute regulatory control over the JNI and CAN committees.
Worthy of mention is section 9 and part of section 12.
Section 9 of the contentious bill “restricts the playing of all cassettes, CDs, flash drives or any other communication gadgets containing religious recordings from accredited preachers to the following places only: inside one’s house; inside entrance porch; inside the Church; inside the Mosque; and any other designated place of worship”.
A considerable part of section 12, if passed into law, will make it “an offence for any person who preaches without a license; plays a religious cassette or uses a loud speaker for religious purposes after 8:00 pm in public places; uses a loud speaker for religious purposes other than inside a Mosque or Church and the surrounding area outside the stipulated prayer times;…”
To begin with, I am convinced that Governor Nasir El-Rufai and his cabinet’s decision to introduce this bill seem to have been marked by an unprecedented “faith” in the law to help in curbing religious bigotry and radicalization which have caused global turmoil with Nigeria greatly affected.
In a multi-religious republic like Nigeria where members of one religious group are raised to view some other group’s beliefs or practices as wrong, mistaken, or …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
