Nigeria’s Joan of Arc?

Hardball

Lucky Prof. Egodi Uchendu, professor of history and director of B.I.C Ijomah Centre for Policy Studies and Research, conveners of the academic conference on witchcraft, that has sent Christian Nigeria going ga-ga!

Had she lived in the Middle Age era of the French Joan of Arc (1412-1431), she probably would have been burnt at the stakes, for her temerity to essay an academic conference on witchcraft, simply because some Christian zealots are miffed!

How about these in pious rage, from a university community?: “University of Nigeria belongs to Jesus.  So witches and wizards, no way!  No vacancy!”

“Say no to the meeting of witches and wizards!!!”

“We plead the blood of Jesus over the University of Nigeria.  Hence, we reject all forms of witchcraft overtly or covertly in Jesus name.  Amen.”

Geez! Is UNN a monastery?

Don’t get it mixed up.  It’s perfectly within the legitimate rights of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to mobilize for the defence of its faith.  After all, before the Biblical King Ahab, Prophet Elijah showed strength, by matching the powers of Jehovah against those of the prophets of Baal — and triumphed in open competition.  So, grant CAN the right to mobilize and crusade, as Prof. Uchendu rightly conceded.

But even CAN must realize an academic conference is in the realm of knowledge and research (which forte is endless questioning); and not faith (which forte is blind belief). Under a democratic dispensation, both can fly in the wide skies of freedom and liberty.

Under the university charter, however, academic conferences which power scholarship, which thrives on eternal questioning, is master of the realm, with no prejudice to the religious faith of individuals, in that scholarly community.

That would appear to explain why, before she died, members of the University of Lagos community affectionately referred to Prof. Sophie Oluwole as “Iya Aje” (Yoruba for “Witch mother”, in want of a better translation), for her excellent strides in the African philosophy of religion.

Even the late Prof. Bolaji Idowu (1913-1993) one-time patriarch of the Methodist Church of Nigeria (1972-1984), was a renowned scholar, at the University of Ibadan, on African traditional faith.  That neither affected his Christian faith nor stalled his rise as Nigeria’s No. 1 Methodist, of his time.  His academic forte was the ethnological and theological studies of the Yoruba people.

Which is why Hardball cannot understand the CAN hysteria over an academic conference on witchcraft. Though CAN can justify its stance on the faith plain, it went beyond its brief to put Christian students on virtual war path.

While these students do nothing wrong to defend their faith, even if the CAN “battle order” was deliberately skewed (with CAN wilfully mistaking an academic enterprise for a religious one, simply because its topic is witchcraft), the students do grave damage to their budding intellect.  The university is for the intellect to soar, not to be caged by any religious ardour.

The Nigerian academy is all the more retarded by the reported cancellation of the booking, for conference venue, on the UNN campus. That is bowing to herd blackmail.  It is a disgrace that ought to be corrected fast.

Whatever happens, Prof. Uchendu must resist this arrant blackmail, secure a new venue and go on with her conference.  No spirituality is superior to another.  Let Christians, if piqued, also organize an academic conference on say, speaking in tongues, if they so wish.

The Nigerian academy must be robust enough to lunch scholarly studies into faith phenomena, without any side turning nasty and adopting bully tactics. That way, we can thoroughly understand our environment, and annex even spirituality as part of technology for development.