As the crisis between Christians and Muslim lingers over the wearing of Hijab in missions schools in Kwara State, the Presiding Bishop of Holy Ghost Mission (Happy Family Centre), Bishop Charles Ighele, spoke to Adeola Ogunlade about the crisis and the role of leaders in promoting sustainable peace in Nigeria.
The hijab crisis in Kwara State has cause a lot of friction among the Christians and Muslims, what is your take sir?
A nation is made of people with different spiritual beliefs. Spiritual believe can be dicey. It is the duty of the leadership of that country to make sure that all these people with different social belief are safe and pursued their different belief in peace without tampering with the liberty of other people. That is how we can have a peaceful society. Nigeria is under developing in almost every aspect of life. Educationally, we are under developing. The quality of the English people speak today is below par to what we have few decades ago. Some of the religious disharmony was not there in the 1960s. Though, religion has always been a factor but the disharmony was not this deep. I went to St James Grammar in Isoko and religion was not an issue. When I was in Secondary school in Isoko government area, children from the north has exchange programme. Children from the north came to Isoko while children from Isoko went to school in the north.
Religious harmony, impunity, bribery and corruption is by far higher today. So, I don’t want to blame Christian and Muslim. I am a marriage counselor, I know parents who put the heads of their children together for their benefit. It happens but is rare. When you are a Governor of a state and you see your children (Muslim and Christian) fighting, you are suppose to reconcile them. I saw the video and I saw it as nauseating. I refuse to blame the Christian and Muslim but the deterotion of the quality for the leadership across board in Nigeria.
The quality of leadership we have to today in every aspect of national life is not civilized enough. People go to school for their mind to be refined so they can get to society and make he society better and not bitter. The education is screw to create criminals, no nation like this can prosper. The leadership looks at things from ethnic interest and not from national interest. We are too low in thinking. We are myopic. Afenifere will speak, Arewa will speak, the Middle belt is speaking and they are speaking fire. What kind of leaders do we have when they do not like Nigeria or think Nigeria. The political leaders of Kwara state should be able to create a conducive religious atmosphere that will allow pupils to go to school without a mindset of religion,I will suggest that the Muslims in the Christian schools who insist on wearing hijab be relocated to government schools or Muslim schools where they can freely wear their hijab. This will bring temporary peace that can improved upon.
Why are religious leaders fueling crisis
Leaders generally lead people into peace and prosperity and progress. A leader’s lead. When we fight over issue that are so ephemeral. Then, we have failed as leader and we need to come to the drawing board and see how can right the wrong. Like Rwanda President who is taking the lead to develope the country beyond primordial sentiment.
Paul Kegame is alleged to be dictatorial?
What am saying is to reconcile everybody in a more civilized manner. He has learnt his lesson from the Genocide in 1994 and is working hard to develop the country through a united front. One of great books in my library is the book written by the Dubai King. He is a civilized leader, who is making effort to reconcile people and promoting women into leadership. I am so angry when the things happen.You see Ohanase kicks, middle belt forum cries fouls and other ethnic groups crying fouls of maginalisation.
CAN has made its position, and the crisis lingers, are you in support of CAN position?
The problem is that we have gotten to a level where people are not willing to settle but quarrel. We are looking for excuses to quarrel and I don’t want to be part of that. Let us go beyond quarrel. The leadership of the nation has polarize the nation over the years in a such as manner that is mind blogging. It started with the military and today we are faced with the worst social atmosphere any country can have. Nigeria states is a quarreling state, no nation like that succeeds. Let us start a new way of thinking. How can we begin to think above our myopic mindset? Sometimes ago, we saw a girl from the far north, a teenage girl. We notice that she will be a spoil girl if we did not do anything to help her. We called her and put her in a fashion school. She finish and today she is married and doing well. I never for one day say come to my church. I believe in helping humanity. The parents are still around doing security work with us. One lesson from the story of the good Samaritan is that he did not ask for your religion before he helped. The bible says love your neigbour and now that is the teaching in the bible.
Jesus teaches us how to behave in a civilized manner. The bible says if they slap you one side, turn the other chick. He means that we should behave in a more civilized manner. I don’t want to go into the terrain of fighting. We can defend ourselves. My worry is that the distrust is too much. Some of our people are relocating to Benin Republic and is troubling.
While is the atmospheres in Benin Republic better than that of Nigeria because Benin leaders are more civilized than Nigeria. We are bush people.
How can we prepare a new breed of leaders that will think Nigeria?
When you look at the history of nations, leaders will emerge. Normally, leaders emerge through elections if the electoral system is not corrupt. When you see people jumping from other party to APC and they say Nigerians are behind us and we are the voice of Nigeria. They fail to understand that Nigerians do not belong to any party. It is the same political class jumping from one party to the other. These people are not popular among the people. We see a detested people moving from a detested party to another detested party. The ENDSAR protest which am not part of it but I observed all that was going on. I see that this was the voice of the Nigerians and political class in their millions. It was not just ENDSAR but it’s mobilize and woke people up and this nation was shut down by protestants that were unknown. If I were government, I will go and study so that we will not repeat the same.
In great Britain, the elite mobilize everything and the peasants were left with nothing. All these people were there suffering jut like Nigerians are suffering. As a church leader, I am aware as people come to us.
In Britain, the commoners’ revolt and after the revolt, its open doors for other revolts that led to protest that made Britain to have the social environment they have today. Our leaders have started business as usual. The nation is sinking, education, naira and corruption sinking. We have not seen trouble yet. Under that kind of atmosphere created, there will mass revolt and then the revolt will lead to a revolution. Revolution nobody can resist. Government can lead in the revolution by taking step by meeting the social demands that led to ENDSAR protest. Government need to address the social injustices in this country, create necessary dimension to peace and stability.
There are social intervention programmes put in place by government to help the masses, are they not enough to address the growing concerns of the Nigerian people?
Survival funds cannot develop a nation. They are palliatives. They don’t make a man strong. We are talking about institution. The situation whereby people don’t have equal access to education, health, and finance is a misnomer. Most children of local government officials and other political leaders don’t attend the schools they build. This means that the opportunities for Nigeria commoners are not the same with the elite’s class. A very brilliant child who should have been like another Steve Job from Nigeria but end up in mushroom school, they can’t become great thinker as the education is taking to favour the rich.
The education budget is so low. The amount budgeted to repair the refinery is more than the budget to education for some years. We have two groups in Nigeria: the lower class and the elite.
