Dear Nigerians,

Understanding Religious Preaching Bill

If you go back in history to when the Maitasine incident happened; it was a Cameroonian that came to Nigeria and started preaching. The Emir of Kano had him deported back to Cameroon. After that, he managed to smuggle himself back again and continued preaching.

He was preaching a version of Islam that was intolerant, a version that called other Muslims pagans and so on. But in spite of what he was preaching, he acquired followers and we all know what happened.

Military operation had to be mounted to flush them out. Those that escaped from the Maitasine crisis moved to Borno State and started the Kalakato sect, which again led to many deaths and destruction in the early 1990s. All these came from people that were not trained in religious matters, people that woke up and started preaching and acquiring followers and inevitably their sects grew in large numbers to threaten communities and there were clashes.

That was also how Muhammed Yusuf started. He
was a student of Sheik Jaafar Adam in Kano. They
fell out because Jaafar felt that some of the views he
was expressing were extreme and intolerant. He
went and started his own sect and we all know what
happened and we are still dealing with it.

Thus, when you have such things happening in your
country, I think as leaders, we have to sit down and
examine ourselves and the society and see what we
can do to prevent it.

In my opinion, it is the lack of regulation of religion
that led to all these circles of death and destruction.
Just recently, we had the Shi’ite problem in Zaria,
following a similar pattern.

I believe that before you start preaching in any
religion, you should have gone through a system of
education, training and some kind of certification.
Even those that deal with the physical life get
certified, let alone those that deal with the spiritual
life.

We initiated this bill from the Kaduna State Security Council, based on reports of new sects emerging in Kaduna State.

Imagine, there is one around Makarfi called Gausiyya, they do their Zuhr prayer around 11am, different from other Muslims. This is how this thing starts and if you don’t resolve it quickly, it grows into something
else.

Another one is: A woman in Makarfi said Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was speaking to her and sick people started going to her for their healing. The husband of this woman was busy collecting N1,000 as consultancy fee before people could see his wife. We had to take steps to end that movement because before you know it, people would start coming from far and wide and this woman would become our next
problem.

It was the report of two or three of these that compelled us in the security council to ask the question, whether or not there was a law that
regulates preaching. Then we were told there was a
law; since 1984 after the Maitasine problems, the
administration passed the law. It was subsequently
amended several times to increase the fine and the
imprisonment term. This is a living problem and we
know it.

Christian priests, the ones I know, go to seminary and spend so many years there, study under a more experienced Reverend to learn what to say and what not to say.

Religious leaders don’t preach hatred; they preach
peace, tolerance and love. But today in my religion
of Islam, anybody can wake up and start a sect;
there is no control. In those days, from Islamiyya
School, if you chose that line, you needed to study
more books. After that, you would go to the East
(Borno area) for more studies and training. Then
from there, you would go to a mosque and begin to
call people to prayer before you become an imam
in any mosque. Before you became an imam of a
Friday mosque, the community must agree that you
were well learned and competent. But now, everyone can build a mosque, put up loudspeakers, call himself an imam and start disturbing people at night.

A priest that has gone through thorough teachings
and training would not go and ask people to cause
trouble and kill each other. They are trained men of
God. In Christendom today, we all know that some
people would drink something overnight and wake
up the next day and claim they are apostles, that
God had spoken to them. You could not disproof
that because you were not there with him and he
would start to collect followers. When he begins to
preach hatred, what can you do? Is it the society we
want? This is the question.

The logic behind this law is to strengthen the 1984 laws so as to regulate and ensure that those that are given the opportunity to preach at least know what they are doing, they have a level of responsibility to develop the society rather than divide it. This is our goal; we don’t have anything against any religion or anybody.

Some people have argued that there is freedom of
religion, of course; Section 38 is very clear: We
must not have a state religion, every Nigerian is
allowed to practise their faith or even if they do not
have any religion at all.

However, those that are quoting Section 38 of the constitution conveniently forget Section 45 which says that you can regulate any human right if it would affect the right of others. You can practise your religion but you can’t do it in a way that abuses the right of another. There is nothing in this law that is not in conformity with the constitution, or there is nothing new about it other than expanding the scope and after we sent the bill to the House of Assembly, I saw an article that alerted us of what we did not include: Blocking of federal highways, but that is in the Penal Code. It is good to have put it there because every Friday you see most mosques blocking roads. Why?

We had to call them to a meeting to have a system that police would be there to guard and also control the traffic.

In my opinion, this is a law that we need not only in Kaduna State but almost all states in Nigeria and I want to assure you that, I just came back from the National Economic Council meeting, and a handful of the governors asked me to send them our own law because they thought they also needed it in their state.

Are you telling me it is okay for someone to put up speakers in the night and start making a noise, be it Islam or Christianity, disturbing people? Is that okay? Which chapter in the two holy books says that Jesus or Muhammad (SAW) did that. Are we not trying to copy them? Are they not the perfections of both our religions?

http://www.punchng.com/the-apostle-that-said-i-will-
die-should-mention-the-date-el-rufai/

i get books to read see wetin op post chai continue god is washin

The truth is that the way alot of people are joining the church business is too alarming. Even those that had miss call. But government should help in job creation so that poverty will not become prophecy.

this one get k leg

The Bible is sufficient to educate and elevate. How can you regulate the Holy Spirit, Sir?

The Christians always organize crusades which have enhanced their expansion likewise the Shiite organize large yearly procession. The Sunni's only have call to prayers hence El Rufai's laws are biased against the Christians and the Shiite.

If El Rufai is serious he should enact a bill that will curtail hate preaching in mosques and other places of worship.