El-Rufai seeks 2-year jail term for those ‘preaching without valid licence’
Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai has sent a bill seeking to regulate religious preaching, to the state House of Assembly.
The bill aims to ban the usage of loudspeakers for religious purposes except when used “inside mosques or churches and the surrounding areas outside the stipulated prayer times.”
El-Rufai urged the lawmakers to enact a law that will stop the playing or circulating of “all cassettes, CDs, flash drives or any other communication gadgets containing religious recordings from accredited preachers other than inside one’s house, porch, Church, Mosques and other designated place of worship.”
The bill also seeks to ban sales or playing of any cassette containing “religious recordings in which abusive language is used against any person or religious organisation or religious leaders (past or present).”
Prohibition of the sale of religious books, usage of abusive and derogatory terms in describing any religion, was also listed in the bill sent to the Kaduna assembly.
El-Rufai’s bill also proposes that any person found guilty of preaching without a valid licence and other offences under the law “shall be liable to two years in prison or pay a fine of N200, 000.”
If Kaduna state lawmakers pass the bill into law, Sharia courts and customary courts would have the jurisdiction to try violators and religious offenders.
No comments