Thoughts on the Future of Religion in Nigeria’s Politics

Continued from last week 3: Managing Pluralism: Flowing from this has been the problem of managing plural identities in Nigeria. We still continue to see ourselves only as Christians and Muslims. Rather than focusing on our common citizenship, we behave as if our Islam and Christian identities dropped from heaven and we are in a […]

Continued from last week

3: Managing Pluralism:
Flowing from this has been the problem of managing plural identities in Nigeria. We still continue to see ourselves only as Christians and Muslims. Rather than focusing on our common citizenship, we behave as if our Islam and Christian identities dropped from heaven and we are in a theocracy. While other people are living rationally and using these religious traditions to develop and grow, in our hands, religious identities have become tools for war and death. They have become tools for access to political and economic power. These identities have now become markers that seem to determine where we shall be and how far we can grow in our society. It will be a great tragedy if we are unable to roll back this ugly misuse of religion.
Paul Kagame has banned the use of ethnic categories. The United States no longer speaks of Negroes or Blacks and Whites. We do not hear about White and Black coffee. The options are open because now, the stewards, rather than ask if you want black or white coffee simply say, How do you want your coffee, Sir? We require a language that incorporates respect not one that divides. We should consider banning the usage of Christians and Muslims as categories for defining ourselves as the two words have become inherently divisive and conflictual and only trigger a sense of identity consciousness of Us and Them.
In your part of the country as in other parts of the world, I hear about families with Christians and Muslims living together, marrying and intermarrying and so on. In the North, this is anathema. Every time I bring this up, I hear people say that this is what Islam teaches, that the religion allows Muslim men to marry Christian girls (and hopefully make them Muslims) while Christian men cannot marry Muslim women. If this is not apartheid in broad daylight, I do not know what it is. If this is not a case of privileging one religious identity and making it superior to another, I do not know what else to call it. If this is not an assumption that Christian men and their women are inferior and by extension their religion, I do not know what else to call it.
If this is not a case of assuming that Muslim men, their women and Islam are superior to Christianity, I do not know what else it is. When we take this into consideration, can we then blame the members of Boko Haram which at least has had the honesty of following the script to its end by insisting that we all convert to their Islam or die? Can Muslims in northern Nigeria and elsewhere understand where all this hatred has come from? These are the roots of this intolerance in our society today and this is what Islam has been turned into.
Things will only get progressively worse if we do not have the honesty to make the laws that free us from this distorted and antique world view. It held racism together. It held apartheid together. It feeds on fear and now, black and white South Africans now feel they are in free society. How do we progress with this given that marriage is such a key institution for national integration? The Lawmakers and the Judiciary must seek to end this tragedy that bars national cohesion. Neither Islam nor Muslims are benefiting from this abuse. Martin Luther King told us: You will never be what you ought to be until others are what they want to be.
4: The Constitution, Bible and the Quran:
Nigerians behave as if our own brand of religious affiliations is different and distinct and somehow, our sacred books are superior to the Constitution. From the point of view of our faiths, yes, but in reality, the story is more nuanced. The Constitution which is what holds us together has assured us that Nigeria aspires to the ideals of a state where there is no favouritism of one religion over the other, or where people are discriminated against on the basis of religion.  We spend a lot of time and energy debating over whether this is secularism, secularity or whatever. Whatever may be the case, we are running a Democracy not a Theocracy. The question is, how can the ideals of the Constitution guarantee the unity and common values of our citizens? In other words, how can we believers subordinate ourselves to the Constitution as citizens without hiding under religious claims to behave as if there is any serious conflict?
The Constitution guarantees us freedom of belief and this means believing what we wish, when we wish and how we wish, as long as we are within the law. This Constitution allows us to exercise these freedoms within the confines of the laws of the land. It is the duty of the state to support this. It is also the duty of the state to support the exercise of these freedoms as a right to all citizens. It is the duty of the state to protect citizens when these rights are threatened or denied. Therefore, when Christians or Muslims are denied places to exercise their rights to worship or denied the rights to practice their religion, it should be the duty of all of us as believers to support one another. In this way, religion can play its role in society more effectively.
5: Interfaith Dialogue and Making Nigeria Safe for Religion:
As I said at the beginning, religion is in trouble if I may put it that way. We have a duty to rescue religion from the grip of secular forces who wish to use religion for empire building and power brokerage. We need to rescue religion so it can become a tool for harmony, development, and celebration of our differences and the nurturing of our common humanity. Secular forces are waging a war against religions, not Islam or Christianity per se, but against organised religions.
We should be focusing more on our common human identity as citizens of Nigeria under a Constitution. This is not a Christian country. It is not a Muslim country. There is no place here that belongs to Muslims or Christians, rich people or poor people. There is no part of this country that belongs to Yorubas, Igbos, Ijaws or any ethnic groups for that matter. Despite all our crowns, turbans, beads and so on, we are not presiding over any religious or ethnic kingdoms. All our so-called kingdoms exist because there is a country called Nigeria. We are still a semi primitive and agrarian society on the road to modernity. It is the inefficiency and corruption of the political elite that has allowed what seems like the triumph of the centrifugal forces in our society. There is only a country called Nigeria made up of 925,000 square kilometers of land which is being defended by the armed forces of Nigeria. This is why Boko Haram is a Nigerian war waged by Nigerian soldiers from all over the country and not a war by Kanuri warriors!
The soldiers who are dying in the North East are Nigerians, not Muslims or Kanuris. We need to become more imaginative in thinking about how to develop as a country. Religion has become an obstacle that now blurs our views of one another. We need to move away from this and see what we can do together for the safety and growth of our citizens. I hope that as you explore the themes of what Islam can do to create a better society, you will face the reality that whatever the case may be, the resources for our development will not come from Islam or Muslims. They will come from a country called, Nigeria, not the Arab world.
Our goal should be to create a great country where ordinary citizens can live in freedom, peace and security, where their humanity more than their religion will be the basis for their acceptance. For, in the end, we must have a country before we can live as Christians or Muslims. With no country, being Christian or Muslim will simply leave us in the precipice of life. Why are the migrants from Syria and other parts of the Middle East not moving into Iran or Saudi Arabia if religion were more important that national security? Why are they seeking security in the lands of infidels? It is time for us to rethink the real role of religion in our society. One way is to rescue it from the clutches of ethno-religious entrepreneurs that stalk out landscape. I hope your deliberations provide a blueprint for building a plural and Democratic society. Thank you very much for your attention and I wish you a most wonderful deliberation in the next few days.
Bishop Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, delivered this keynote address at the conference on The Muslim Agenda For Nigeria: Challenges of Development and Good Governance, organised by the ISLAMIC WELFARE FOUNDATION at the FOUNTAIN UNIVERSITY, Osogbo, November 22 to 25, 2015.
Concluded