Open AccessThe return of democracy in Nigeria’s political landscape in 1999 after decades of either brutal military dictatorship or truncated democracy brought several opportunities to citizens. Democracy to Northern Nigeria Muslims meant an avenue to return to the full application of Shari’ah Islamic law through the purview of operational 1999 constitution. However, the manners of the implementation of sharia’h in an environment of pervasive official sleazebag, infrastructural decay and lack of transparency created inertia, despondency and mistrust. If sharia’h is to have fruitful meanings, it has to be developmental. This work discusses all these, the history and the controversies that surrounds the application of shari’ah and insisted that sharia’h states of Nigeria should concentrate on the aspects that foster prosperity, good governance, equity in ownership and distribution of wealth while also exploring developmental micro- takaful and awkaf so as to improve the well beings of the poor.