THE ROLE OF AFRICAN UNION (A.U.) IN PROMOTING PEACE AND SECURITY IN AFRICA

Abstract:

Since the transformation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to African Union (A.U.) various measures were adopted by the newly formed organization to promote peace and security in the African continent, apart from the efforts of the United Nations (UN) whose primary purpose is to promote peace and security all over the world. The role of the newly formed African Union has been expanded to include issue of human right promotion, conflict management, promotion of good governance and the issue of unconstitutional change of government. This is the first time in the history of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) that the issue of “exclusive domain” has been removed from the Charter of the OAU and by including in the new Constitutive Act of the AU the right of the Union to intervene in the internal affairs of a member country where there is arm conflict. Various specialize agencies were created in the new AU Act including African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Human Right Commission, the African Human Right Court, all in a bid to provide peace and security in the continent. The reason why African Union is promoting peace and security in the continent is simple: peace and security is a desirable societal objective as opposed to war and conflicts and to mark a departure from the traditional one-level belief by the International Community that African countries are more conflictual in nature. The end of the Cold War has altered the international strategic environment and forced a radical revision of the global power structure disrupting the natural harmony amongst people and replaced them with hostile ideologies. African States were products of colonial designs. Their economies operated in a system of global transactions that seems biased against them. After independent, erstwhile colonial masters continued to influence direction by providing aids, advice and models of development, which at the end of it not viii beneficial. Lack of unity, good governance and a strong economic base has made Africans have a significant share of responsibility for its failure. By late 1980s a continent touted as a “continent of promise” in the independence decade of the 1980s was fast becoming a “global basket case.” All through the 1960s and the first half of the subsequent decade, Africa was perceived as having more opportunities than Asia or Latin America but lack basic social structure. The reverse turned out to be the case as the story of African development was marked more by human and natural tragedies combined with remarkable failure of socio-economic and political management, vast population increase, declining food production rates, debts overhang, unemployment, bad governance, lack of good health facilities and accelerated poverty all contributed to lack of peace and security in Africa. African Leaders and some commentators on African Affairs agreed that some of the provisions of the OAU Charter were major barriers to the promotion of peace and security in Africa. Therefore in September, 1999 in Sirte, Libya, African leaders agreed that the OAU is due for review and by July 10, 2002 in Durban South Africa, the formal launching of the African Union took place to replace it with the former OAU. The idea was not only to change the negative perception of the continent as a continent of conflicts and wars but a holistic approach to promote peace and security.

THE RELEVANCE OF QIYAS (ANALOGICAL DEDUCTION) AS A SOURCE OF ISLAMIC LAW IN CONTEMPORARY TIME

Abstract:

Islamic Law covers every sphere of human endeavor. It comprises of the primary and the secondary sources of Law. The former consists of the Qur’an and the sunnah, to which all the jurists are at ad-idem. Qiyas is the second secondary source. However, there are divergent opinions amongst the jurists as to whether it can stand as a source or not. It is in view of this that the choice of the topic of this thesis namely The Relevance of Qiyas (Analogical Deduction) As a Source Of Islamic Law In Contemporary Time. Scholars of earlier times and the contemporary ones differ as regards to Qiyas been a source of Islamic law or not. The question however is: are the opinions different in essence? It is this fundamental question and others that this thesis will examine. The aim of the research is to analyze the different opinions of the scholars. Also to clarify some fundamental controversial issues as relates to our present day world. Also, to show that Islamic law is not rigid and barbaric as misconceived by some people. Hence, it can be applied to solve modern day needs brought about by rapid development achieved due to break -through in technology. Observation in this research work shows that Qiyas is a correctly accepted source of Islamic law and the opponent of the above view are indirectly using Qiyas as a source of Islamic law. It has been observed that Muslims abandoned Qiyas and believed that they were solving their legislative problems. However, all they succeeded in doing was crippling their own intellectual powers. Even so, there has never been a time when the call for Qiyas was entirely silenced, only that such calls were never enough to extricate the ummah from the intellectual crisis in which it was, become ensnared, and as a result, Qiyas was left mainly to heretics, deceivers and the orientalists. If jurists were to articulate ideas to which people were unaccustomed to or to announce their readiness to practice ijtihad, Muslims could have advanced better. The ummah must understand that Qiyas provides it with the fundamental means to recover its identity to re-establish its place in the world. The express textual injunction in the Qur’an and the sunnah are limited in number, while the incidents and problems of life are unlimited and unending. Hence, it would be illogical to assert that all the problems and exigencies of life will be covered by the textual injunctions. Reason demands that rules of law should be derived from the fundamental sources by means of exercising reasons and individual opinion. Qiyas therefore is a mode of reasoning to legislate for novel questions, to reveal the divine rule of law and to harmonize between divine legislation and human interests. No one among the Companions is reported to have injected correct qiyas, nor had any of them ever hesitated to exercise it in legal matters. They were all at one on the validity of this doctrine. From this, one must conclude that the companions must have been familiar with the permissibility of this doctrine, and of exercising correct personal opinion and independent legal reasoning by the instruction of the Prophet (SAW). Public benefit and general interest are the aims and objectives of divine legislation. If two incidents are similar, and one of them is covered by clear legal rule, but not the other, it would be illogical not to apply the rule of the one to the other on the basis of the common link. If the purpose of the prohibition of wine is the preservation of human sense and reason, then all intoxicants should logically be prohibited on account of intoxication hence the importance of this which most jurists wrote about in Arabic. The study comprises of five chapters. Chapter one centers on general survey of the sources of Islamic law. Chapter two deals with the various definitions of qiyas in accordance with the various views of the jurists. Chapter three discusses the four pillars of qiyas namely: original case, new case, effective cause and the ruling. Chapter four discusses the validity of qiyas as a source of Islamic Law and Chapter five, being the last of all the chapters, consist of summary, conclusion and recommendations

ABSTRACT

This thesis examined why the prices of petroleum products continues to be priced differently in Nigeria despite the existence of uniform pricing law on petroleum products. The study also examined the principle of deregulation of downstream petroleum sector in Nigeria in order to posit the key argument of how the policy affects economic activities in Nigeria. Arising from this, the study pay attention to the introduction of uniform pricing law from 1973 and the application of subsidy regime as a social welfare scheme to assist consumers have easy access to the product and also enable industries reduce cost of production of goods and services. The introduction of deregulation policy by the Federal Government was to cured the failure of the uniform pricing law in determining prices of petroleum product, however, the policy is faced with growing challenges in supply and distribution of petroleum products that has led to variation in prices of petroleum products all over the country. The research adopted doctrinal and empirical research methodologies by reviewing all principal statutes, subsidiary legislations and analysis of data collected from field survey on aspect of deregulation introduced into the downstream sector in order to resolve the problems of variation in price of petroleum products in the country. All issues relating to the study were carefully analyzed and examined, which culminated into findings and recommendations. From the analyses carried out, the study revealed that there are apparent conflicts between the Petroleum Act and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency Act with respect to price fixing of petroleum products. In the downstream petroleum sector though prices of petroleum products are fixed uniformly throughout the country the later introduction of deregulation policy by the government has caused variation in prices of petroleum products. Findings from this study further revealed that subsidies on petroleum products are only provided in the yearly budget estimates submitted to the National Assembly by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria instead of making such provision in the Uniform Price Law. The equalization schemes put in place by government to re-imburse marketers the cost of transporting petroleum products all over the country has not been able to stabilize petroleum products prices at a uniform price because of the inability of government to promptly pay marketers the cost incurred in transporting the products to different locations in the country. The lack of enforcement of the uniform pricing policy as contained in the Uniform Price Law by the various regulatory agencies in the downstream sector has caused scarcity and hoarding of petroleum products, which breeds sharp practices ranging from adulteration and increase in the price of petroleum products. Therefore, it cannot be concluded that prices of petroleum products are regulated only by the government under Section 6(1) of the Petroleum Act but by other variable factors that varies price of petroleum products. The thesis ends up with the recommendations that the National Assembly should harmonize the provisions of Petroleum Act and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency Act relating to price fixing in order to address the problems of variation in the price of petroleum products in the country. The repeal of the Petroleum Equalization Fund Management Board Act is overdue because the operation of equalization schemes is bedeviled by corruption and inefficiency. The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency Act is not an efficient legislation that will deregulate prices of petroleum products in the country therefore it calls for more vibrant legislative interventions.Download Full Material-N5000