Religion, law and public order

Governor Nasir El Rufai’s bill seeking to license religious preachers in Kaduna State brings into sharp focus the challenge of regulating religious communities in Nigeria. The bill contains common sense provisions stopping the propagation of hate messages by religious preachers, noise pollution and other forms of public nuisance perpetrated under the guise of religious devotion. […]

Governor Nasir El Rufai’s bill seeking to license religious preachers in Kaduna State brings into sharp focus the challenge of regulating religious communities in Nigeria. The bill contains common sense provisions stopping the propagation of hate messages by religious preachers, noise pollution and other forms of public nuisance perpetrated under the guise of religious devotion. It is a measure of how politically-charged the issue of religion in the public space is that both the Christian Association of Nigeria and the Jama’atu Nasril Islam have expressed opposition to the bill. In keeping with Nigeria’s cynical sectarian politics, a campaign has been launched against the bill describing it as a plot against Christianity. Other opponents claim it violates constitutional liberties including freedom of religion.
Governor El Rufai’s objectives are entirely laudable but the bill is not without serious flaws that negate its aims. By designating CAN and the JNI as official regulatory authorities for religious preachers, the bill inadvertently blurs the line between the state and religion and effectively transforms both CAN and JNI into Government parastatals. This is dangerous.
By making these two organizations licensing authorities, the state is inadvertently making them what they are not – official organs for enforcing theological correctness. This creates problems. By what theological standards shall they decide who qualifies for preaching licenses?
The bill proposes that the JNI committee that will help license Islamic preachers will have equal representation for the Izala and the Darika sects but does not provide for any Shia representation on the committee. Given the animosity between Sunni Muslims and Shiites, this omission suggests that the bill rubberstamps the discrimination against and the persecution of the Shia minority. Under these circumstances, the inevitable “politics” of licensing preachers will surely lead to factional and denominational strife. That these licensing powers may be used to silence anti-establishment clerics who speak truth to power is also a legitimate concern.
The bill places the state in the untenable position of attempting to impose theological uniformity on the dynamic soup of diverse religious expressions which is bound to stir up discontent and discord. Attempts to impose theological uniformity are the conceptual seedbed of religious extremism.
Governor El-Rufai’s objectives are praiseworthy. We must curb unhinged religious passions in our society. The right to freedom of religion is not the right to be a public nuisance, to deafen fellow citizens with proselytizing at inconvenient hours, to denigrate those of other faiths, to invade and occupy public spaces in the name of God, to intimidate other citizens and to harangue a captive audience aboard a public conveyance with unsolicited offers of salvation and threats of damnation. Religious communities have long been accustomed to acting in defiance of basic norms of civic coexistence.
El Rufai is in the right battle but he is armed with the wrong weapons. Rather than a bill to regulate preaching, the Kaduna state government would be best served by enacting laws that address hate speech and incitement, hate crimes, noise pollution, and the proper use of public spaces. The matter of licensing preachers should not arise. Churches, mosques and other religious organizations should certainly be registered. Individuals should be free to preach but those that preach hate, incite violence, violate edicts on noise pollution or constitute a public nuisance, should be punished for those infractions. More importantly, framing the law in this way leaves theology to theologians and governance to the government. The operative principle should be that we are all free to indulge in whatever idiosyncrasies or idiocies we conceive in the name of faith right up till the moment they threaten and disrupt public order, peace and safety.
Chris Ngwodo, a public affairs analyst, writes this piece from Abuja