Islamic Jurisprudence and Unity of Nigeria: A Socio-Historical Reconsideration

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.