Don’t Bring Sharia to South-west, PFN Warns Senate

Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan

The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) has warned against moves by some groups to introduce Sharia law to the South-west region through the on-going constitutional review being carried out by the Senate.

The PFN also called on the Senate not to succumb to such agitation that could plunge the country into major religious crisis.

A statement that was issued yesterday by the media office of the PFN President, Bishop Francis Wale Oke, and made available to THISDAY, urged the lawmakers to direct their energies towards solving the mounting problems bedeviling the country most especially as its concerns the security of lives and property of the populace.

The statement warned that “problems confronting our nation are enormous than wanting to create more. Sharia law is alien to our culture of religious existence in the South-west. As such, nobody should through any subterfuge bring it in so as to cause crisis.”

It said that the introduction of Sharia law into the South-west could only pitch the Christians against their Muslim counterparts.

The release reads in part: “We want to strongly warn the Senate and those behind this plan to unsettle the peace being enjoyed in this country to desist before it’s too late. Don’t instigate religious crisis in the South-west as this could further threaten the fragile peace of the country.

“The secularity of our existence, which is devoid of any religious upheaval, should not be tampered with under whatever guise. We shall resist this by every legal means at our disposal. Without the Sharia, we have always lived peacefully with our Muslim brothers. We know that this is the handiwork of those who are hell bent in unsettling our country at all cost. But the good news is that they have failed. As far as we are concerned, the proposal won’t fly and can never fly. It is dead on arrival.”