CANON LAW AND THE NIGERIAN LEGAL SYSTEM

Abstract

Various jurists and schools of jurisprudence have held various views on the nature, structure, scope and method of law. John Austin of the positivist school merely sees law as ‘a command from political superiors to political inferiors, and backed by sanction’. The Greek sophists, including Socrates, Plato and Aristotle consider law as ‘a matter of social and political expediencies, having nothing to do with absolute and uniform standards’. This study finds that in Nigeria, customary and Islamic laws are respectively recognized in the Constitution and enforced with state machinery. Christian and other religions’ laws are not accorded such recognition. The implication is that Islamic law, among other religious laws, is favoured in spite of the plurality of religions and laws in a multi-faith Nigeria. This paper examines the nature and role of canon law in relation to the Nigerian legal system. The study examines the possibility, propriety or otherwise of mainstreaming canon law into the Nigerian legal system as a response to the festering agitations from some quarters, especially Christian. Suffice it, for the purpose of this paper, to look at law as a body of ordinances and rules laid down for human interest and development.