Employ cultural, religious beliefs to fight rights abuses – Don

A university lecturer, Dr. Ahmed Garba, has called on Nigerians to respect the different cultural and religious beliefs in the society as basis for the fight against human rights and social freedom in the country.
Dr. Garba of the Faculty of Law, Bauchi State University, stated this in his paper “Legal Discourse on Human Rights as They Relate to Violence Against Women and Children: Islamic and Liberal Perspectives”at the maiden annual lecture organized by the MuslimLawyers Association of Nigeria (MULAN), Plateau state chapter.
He said, “universalization drive of human rights norms, religion-state relationship, culture and balancing mechanism, are some of the challenges militating against the success of human rights in different countries, including Nigeria.” He said, in view of the challenges posed by this drive, “Nigeria should regard and use human rights norms as tools for negotiation rather than superior norms on the religious and cultural norms of their people, otherwise people will continue to resist the application of these liberal norms in the society.” Garba said nonobservance of human rights in accordance with the acceptable religion and culture of people will encourage more violence against women and children and, saying: “as Muslims, we cannotafford to allow this in our societies.” The Chief Judge of the state, Justice David Mann, represented by High Court Justice, Nafisa Lawal, said MULAN should continue to organise the programme so as to stem the tide of violence.
The state chapter chairman of MULAN, Barrister Sani Abdulaziz, decried the high level of violence in homes and society, as well as child abuse such as rape, incest, beating and almajiri syndrome and called on members of the public to be courageous in fighting against the menace.
The one day programme also featured presentations from the academia and well attended by judges, and other stakeholders.