Abdulmumini Adebayo Oba

@unilorin.edu.ng

Department of Jurisprudence and International Law, Faculty of Law
University of Ilorin



                    

https://researchid.co/abdulmumini

EDUCATION

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife
International Islamic University of Malaysia

13

Scopus Publications

573

Scholar Citations

12

Scholar h-index

12

Scholar i10-index

Scopus Publications

  • Coping with otherness in a globalized world: Lessons from islamic, african, and western perspectives
    ابدول مومینی اوبا

    One of the major challenges for a civilization - and a parameter for assessing it - is how it treats those who do not belong to that civilization. The dichotomy between “we” and “them” is made variously across civilizations. In the past, interactions across civilizations are less voluminous and less intense. But things have changed. The world has become a global village. Yet, it remains very pluralistic in terms of religion, culture, ethnicity, and language. The diversity of the contemporary world is due to the existence of concurrent civilizations on the world, each with its distinct culture, world view and values. Western culture, Islamic culture, oriental culture and African culture are some of the more prominent cultures today. Globalization is not without its problems. For one thing, the world is being pressurized into become a mono-cultural environment patterned after western culture.


  • Female circumcision as female genital mutilation: Human rights or cultural imperialism?


  • Judicial Practice in Islamic Family Law and Its Relation to 'Urf (Custom) in Northern Nigeria
    Abdulmumini A. Oba
    Brill
    Although northern Nigeria is known for its extensive enforcement of Islamic law, the region has been heavily influenced by local custom and traditions. The dominant and now official school (madhhab) is the Maliki school which, arguably more than any other madhhab, recognizes ʿurf or custom as a source of Islamic law. This essay looks at local customs as they affect Islamic family law, specifically marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance, and the judicial responses to these customs in con­temporary courts in northern Nigeria.

  • New Muslim perspectives in the human rights debate
    Abdulmumini A. Oba
    Brill | Nijhoff
    This chapter articulates Muslim perspectives in the “Islam and human rights debate”. It analyzes the perspectives of Muslims who advocate for “Islamic human rights”, Muslims who want to harmonize Islam and Western human rights, and Muslims who place the debate in the context of an inter-civilizational dialogue between Islamic and Western civilizations (rather than the narrower cultural pluralism paradigm) and who call for Islamic alternatives to Western human rights. The chapter questions Western representations of Muslim voices and, as a preliminary matter, interrogates the concepts and terminologies used in the debate. Islam has its peculiar mechanisms for the protection of rights, dignity, and welfare, even though modern Muslim nations do not always adhere to them the way they should. Muslims should do more to articulate and enforce these Islamic norms, and to insert them into the global human rights discourse. Keywords:islamic human rights; Muslim; Western human rights

  • The future of customary law in Africa
    Abdulmumini A. Oba
    Cambridge University Press
    Introduction African customary law was the dominant legal system in much of pre-colonial sub-Saharan Africa. With the advent of colonialism in Africa in the middle of the nineteenth century, customary law gradually lost its primacy to the European-style legal systems and laws brought by the colonizing nations. The common law, civil law, and, to some extent, Roman-Dutch law became the general law and the primary legal system in many African countries in the colonial and post-colonial eras. In addition, Islamic law had emerged as the dominant law in some places in the continent prior to colonialism. Islamic law is different from customary law, even though the British colonial authorities decreed in some of their colonies that Islamic law is a customary law. With these developments, customary law lost and never regained its status as a full-fledged legal system in modern African nation states.

  • Towards rethinking legal education in Nigeria
    Abdulmumini A. Oba
    Informa UK Limited
    Legal education in Nigeria derived inspiration from England but the legal terrain in Nigeria is very different from that of England. Law in Nigeria is a pluralistic affair; not only the imported common law but also Islamic law and a large host of ethnic‐based customary laws play important roles. What emerges from this is a fertile ground for conflicts and tensions which have characterised law and legal education in Nigeria. This paper addresses some of the problems relating to legal education in the country and focuses essentially on the problems arising from legal pluralism, the competition between the academic and vocational aspects of legal education, the process of accreditation of law faculties, the issues of qualifications of law teachers, and the need to decolonise law and legal practice in Nigeria.

  • Female circumcision as female genital mutilation: Human rights or cultural imperialism?
    Abdulmumini A Oba
    Walter de Gruyter GmbH
    Many have discussed female circumcision from the perspective of cultural relativism. This paper places the discourse in the context of Western cultural imperialism. The definition of female genital mutilation (FGM) by the World Health Organization (WHO) is questioned as being partial and amounting to cultural profiling. The paper interrogates the case against female circumcision and reviews anti-female circumcision treaties and legislations at international and domestic levels across the world.A case of cultural imperialism against the West is argued by questioning the non-inclusion by WHO of some western practices such as `female genital surgeries' or `female genital cuttings' in its definition of FGM. Other female bodily mutilations such as breast augmentation should be indicted too. Again, the failed Seattle compromise emphatically illustrates the cultural imperialism inherent in the campaign against female circumcision. The campaign against female circumcision is diverting focus from third world's pressing social and economical travails which arise from the exploitation and manipulation of its economy by the West. Criminalization of female circumcision is counter-productive - the fight against FGM must be based on credible facts and enlightenment.

  • Juju oaths in customary law arbitration and their legal validity in Nigerian courts
    Abdulmumini A Oba
    Cambridge University Press (CUP)
    AbstractTraditional oaths play decisive roles in customary law arbitration and are recognized and accorded due respect by the courts. This position is now threatened by four emerging factors. First, all customary law arbitrations (including those based on juju oaths) are now subjected to stringent conditions before the courts will enforce them. Secondly, there are discordant voices in the Supreme Court on the legal relevance and juristic value of traditional oaths. Thirdly, in August 2005, the gruesome activities of some shrines where juju oaths are administered in some Igbo communities were exposed in the mass media. This exposure has given traditional oaths a bad image. Lastly, the onslaught of Islam and Christianity is taking its toil on traditional oaths. There is the need to protect traditional oaths from these threats.

  • ‘Neither fish nor fowl’: Area courts in the ilorin emirate in northern Nigeria
    Abdulmumini A. Oba
    Informa UK Limited
    Abstract The Area Courts are the most heavily criticised of courts in Nigeria. They are frequently accused of incompetence, corruption, and arbitrariness. Another basic problem with the area courts is that of a crisis of identity. Law in Nigeria is a plural complex with English-style laws, Islamic law and customary laws operating to various extents. The Area Courts, although historically and basically Islamic law courts, partake of the other two laws. This paper assesses the extent to which the criticisms levelled against Area Courts hold true regarding those in the Ilorin Emirate in northern Nigeria. The colonial system of indirect rule resulted in the preservation of the pre-existing Islamic Alkali courts, but a gradual assumption of control by the government. They were renamed Native Courts, and required to apply common law and customary laws as well as Islamic law. After Independence the courts were renamed Area Courts, but the system was continued. Today Area Court judges are generally trained legal practitioners, and the courts are under the administrative control of the Chief Judge, also a trained legal practitioner. Legal practitioners represent litigants, and have brought the technicalities, delays and high costs of the common law into the system. Nevertheless, Area Court judges administering Islamic law generally think of themselves as Qadis and their courts as religious courts, and this is how the populace generally perceive them. Some results of this crisis of identity have been highhandedness, arbitrariness and corruption. The paper concludes with suggestions of ways to improve the administration of justice in the Area Courts in Ilorin and in Northern Nigeria in general

  • Lawyers, legal education and the shari’ah courts in Nigeria
    Abdulmumini A. Oba
    Informa UK Limited
    Abstract In the pre-colonial era Islamic law existed in northern Nigeria as a fully-fledged, independent legal system with its own supporting educational system. When the colonial authorities took over this judicial system, they gradually modified and directed it to accord with their own notions of justice. The colonial authorities also introduced their own common law into the country. Yet Islamic law and common law are two radically different legal systems. The colonial imposition of common law and its personnel over Islamic law and its administration generated serious legal, political and religious tensions which have persisted even in the post-colonial era, because independent Nigeria inherited the colonial judicial structure. The post-colonial era generated its own tensions and conflicts also. Legal education was patterned exclusively along lines obtaining in England. Thus, Islamic law and the existing traditional Islamic educational system had no place. It was only in the mid-1970s that combined law degree programmes in common law and Islamic law were introduced in some universities in Northern Nigeria. In 1985 lawyers gained the right of audience (which they had lacked throughout the colonial era) in Area Courts and the Sharia Courts of Appeal, which are courts of Islamic law jurisdiction. Lawyers who have no training in Islamic law are now actively involved in the administration of Islamic law as counsel and judges. This paper argues for a separation of the administration of Islamic law from common law in terms of courts and personnel, and demonstrates the imperative for the professionalisation of the practice of Islamic law.


  • Islamic law as customary law: The changing perspective in nigeria
    AA Oba
    Cambridge University Press (CUP)
    Pluralism is a main feature of Nigeria as a country. There is ethnic pluralism.1 The pre-colonial Nigeria comprised of over 250 nation states embracing over 500 ethnic and linguistic groups.2 These ethnic groups spread across the three main geographical units in the country, namely, the north, the west, and the east. The north was dominated by the Hausa-Fulani and the Kanuri peoples, the west by the Yoruba speaking tribes, and the east by the Igbos.

RECENT SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS

  • LAWYERS, LAW REPORTING AND THE SHARIA COURTS OF APPEAL IN NIGERIA
    AA Oba
    Jurnal Syariah 31 (1), 122-159 2023

  • Revisiting the causes of delay in the adjudication of Islamic personal law cases in Nigerian jurisprudence
    AA Oba, IS Ismael
    Nnamdi Azikiwe University Journal of International Law and Jurisprudence 11 2020

  • Administration of Mosques and Appointment of Imams in Nigeria: Between Islamic Law, Customs, and State Law
    IS Ismael, AA Oba
    Islamabad Law Review 4 (1/2), 12-0_8 2020

  • Coping With Otherness in a Globalized World: Lessons from Islamic, African, and Western Perspectives
    AA Oba
    Hum. Rts. 14, 221 2019

  • Judicial Practice in Distribution of Inheritance (mīrāth) in Islamic Courts in Nigeria
    I Ismael, AA Oba
    De Jure: Jurnal Hukum dan Syari’ah 11 (1), 1-22 2019

  • Challenges in the Judicial Administration of Muslim Estates in the Sharia Courts of Appeal in Nigeria
    AA Oba, IS Ismael
    Elec. J. Islamic & Middle EL 5, 81 2017

  • Legal challenges concerning some beneficiaries of estates governed by Islamic law in Nigeria
    IS Ismael, AA Oba
    IIUM Law Journal 25, 63 2017

  • Between willingness and unwillingness: Christians as litigants and accused persons in Islamic courts in northern Nigeria
    AA Oba
    Religious Freedom and Religious Pluralism in Africa: Prospects and 2016

  • Female Circumcision as Female Genital Mutilation: Human Rights or Cultural Imperialism?
    AA Oba
    Readings in the International Relations of Africa, 252-262 2015

  • Untying the Knots of Immunity Clause and the Fight against Corruption in Nigeria
    Oba, A. A, I. A. Abdulqadir, Hakeem Ijaiya, Ibrahim Imam, O. A. Olatunji
    Proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference of the Nigerian Association of Law 2013

  • Judicial Practice in Islamic Family Law and Its Relation to'Urf (Custom) in Northern Nigeria
    AA Oba
    Islamic L. & Soc'y 20, 272 2013

  • New Muslim perspectives in the human rights debate
    AA Oba
    Islam and International Law, 215-243 2013

  • Human Rights and Beyond: Some Conceptual Differences between Islamic and Western Perspectives of Human Rights
    AA Oba
    Journal of Islamic Thought and Civilization 2 (2), 35-50 2012

  • The Judicial Machinery for Administration of Islamic Law in Northern Nigeria with Particular Reference to Kwara and Kaduna States
    AA Oba
    Ahmad Ibrahim Kulliyyah of Laws, IIUM 2012

  • Religious and customary laws in Nigeria
    AA Oba
    Emory Int'l L. Rev. 25, 881 2011

  • The future of customary law in Africa
    AA Oba
    The future of African customary law, 79 2011

  • Uniform Interpretation of Human Rights Law in Africa and the Challenges of Gender Rights and Sexual Orientation.
    AA Oba
    University of Jos Law Journal 9 (2), 17-33 2010

  • The hijab in educational institutions and human rights: Perspectives from Nigeria and beyond
    AA Oba
    Identity, Culture & Politics: An Afro-Asian Dialogue 10 (1), 51-74 2009

  • Complexities and Complications in the Administration of Islamic and Customary Laws in Nigeria: Rabiu v Abasi (1996) Revisited.
    AA Oba
    Administration of Justice in the Customary Courts of Nigeria: Problems and 2009

  • Questioning Equality as a Right: The Differential Legal Treatment of Spouses of Polygamous and Monogamous Marriages in Nigeria
    AA Oba
    Administration of Justice in the Customary Courts of Nigeria: Problems and 2009

MOST CITED SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS

  • Islamic law as customary law: The changing perspective in Nigeria
    AA Oba
    International & Comparative Law Quarterly 51 (4), 817-850 2002
    Citations: 132

  • Religious and customary laws in Nigeria
    AA Oba
    Emory Int'l L. Rev. 25, 881 2011
    Citations: 62

  • Female Circumcision as Female Genital Mutilation: Human Rights or Cultural Imperialism?
    AA Oba
    Readings in the International Relations of Africa, 252-262 2015
    Citations: 53

  • Juju oaths in customary law arbitration and their legal validity in Nigerian courts
    AA Oba
    Journal of African Law 52 (1), 139-158 2008
    Citations: 52

  • Lawyers, Legal Education and the Shari’ah courts in Nigeria
    AA Oba
    The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 36 (49), 113-161 2004
    Citations: 38

  • The sharia court of appeal in Northern Nigeria: The continuing crises of jurisdiction
    AA Oba
    The American Journal of Comparative Law 52 (4), 859-900 2004
    Citations: 37

  • The future of customary law in Africa
    AA Oba
    The future of African customary law, 79 2011
    Citations: 25

  • The administration of customary law in a post-colonial Nigerian state
    AA Oba
    Cambrian L. Rev. 37, 95 2006
    Citations: 23

  • The hijab in educational institutions and human rights: Perspectives from Nigeria and beyond
    AA Oba
    Identity, Culture & Politics: An Afro-Asian Dialogue 10 (1), 51-74 2009
    Citations: 20

  • The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and ouster clauses under the military regimes in Nigeria: before and after September 11
    AA Oba
    African Human Rights Law Journal 4 (2), 275-302 2004
    Citations: 17

  • Judicial Practice in Islamic Family Law and Its Relation to'Urf (Custom) in Northern Nigeria
    AA Oba
    Islamic L. & Soc'y 20, 272 2013
    Citations: 14

  • ‘Neither Fish Nor Fowl’: Area Courts in the Ilorin Emirate in Northern Nigeria
    AA Oba
    The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 40 (58), 69-92 2008
    Citations: 14

  • Improving women's access to justice and the quality of administration of Islamic justice in Nigeria
    AA Oba
     2003
    Citations: 9

  • Legal challenges concerning some beneficiaries of estates governed by Islamic law in Nigeria
    IS Ismael, AA Oba
    IIUM Law Journal 25, 63 2017
    Citations: 8

  • New Muslim perspectives in the human rights debate
    AA Oba
    Islam and International Law, 215-243 2013
    Citations: 8

  • Towards regaining learning and correcting leanings in the legal profession in Nigeria
    AA Oba
    CALS Review of Nigerian Law and Practice 1 (1), 13-27 2007
    Citations: 6

  • Religious rights and the corporate world in Nigeria: Products and personnel perspectives
    AA Oba
    Recht in Afrika 7 (2), 195-216 2004
    Citations: 6

  • Towards Rethinking legal education in Nigeria
    AA Oba
    Journal of Commonwealth Law and Legal Education 6 (1), 97-114 2008
    Citations: 5

  • Challenges in the Judicial Administration of Muslim Estates in the Sharia Courts of Appeal in Nigeria
    AA Oba, IS Ismael
    Elec. J. Islamic & Middle EL 5, 81 2017
    Citations: 4

  • Re-Conceptualising Islamic Legal Education in Nigeria: The Case for Professionalisation
    AA Oba
    Al-Maslaha 2 ((1999-2003)), 85-109 2003
    Citations: 4