CAN, the Christian Association of Nigeria, could easily have played Immanuel Kant, pushing the tenets of the faith as Cthe categorical imperative for salvation.
But instead, CAN has embraced cant. By that, it shuns the severe majesty of its faith; and waddles and waffles in empty controversy.
Kant (1724-1804) was the German philosopher, whose famous “categorical imperative” was about the most sweeping, the most vigorous and the most robust in moral philosophy.
To Kant, there is absolutely no cant; absolutely no waffling. Man has no choice but to follow, as duty, the severe code to do good and shun evil.
That moral duty is imperative. It is the strict dictate of reason.
Imagine CAN following this Kantian philosophy? It would push, as own initiative, the war against corruption with Christ-like zeal. Instead, CAN is neither-nor, to the gravest moral crisis of this generation!
Like Christ Himself, it would epitomize the straight-and-narrow. But it pushes its democratic right to the wide-and-merry.
The result? CAN hustles and bustles in the sewers, just to be seen to fight “Islamization”, real or phantom!
The latest, in that quixotic quest, is the CAN fiery campaign against Sukkuk, the Islamic development bond; and its ferocious war against Islamic banking.
How did CAN come to this sorry pass? It is dross of carnal preferment, dating back to the Goodluck Jonathan years, when CAN President, Ayo Oritsejafor — somebody shout hallelluyah! — appeared not unlike that regime’s Rasputin.
Remember Grogori Yefimovich Rasputin (1869-1916)? He was the Russian self-proclaimed mystic, who had more than decent spiritual influence on the doomed family of Czar Nicholas II of imperial Russia, on account of his grip on Czarina Alexandra. Rasputin was assassinated in 1916, aged 47.
Save the Olusegun Obasanjo years, the Muslims had been in charge so long that the Christians, in any case under CAN President Oritsejafor grabbed, with two hands, the rare chance to corral high state influence.
The politics of South-South solidarity, under a minority southern president, all put it together for Pastor Oritsejafor. Before long, CAN’s influence was vice-like in the Jonathan court.
But what CAN forgot was that the organized Muslim Umma themselves, under the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), had also run themselves into a ditch, on the annulled 12 June 1993 presidential election.
Again, the NSCIA tormentor-in-chief, at that great fall, was politics-induced cant. This was spectacular because the chief dramatis personae, in that gripping, dirty drama, were fellow Muslims.
MKO Abiola, a Muslim from Western Nigeria, was the victim-in-chief. So was Baba Gana Kingibe, MKO’s running mate, another Muslim from the North East.
Ibrahim Babangida, self-named “military president”, another Muslim, from North Central, was the “annuller-in-chief”. Yet another Muslim, from the North West, the late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, former No. 2 to Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, when he was military head of state (1976-1979), headed the rally to sustain the annulment.
Yar’Adua caused his faction of the victorious Social Democratic Party (SDP), led by Tony Anenih, SDP national chairman, to conjure up the so-called Interim National Government (ING), pending the re-run of an election pundits back then declared was the fairest and freest ever in Nigerian history.
The NSCIA President, Ibrahim Dasuki, then Sultan of Sokoto, also hee-hawed, instead of arming himself with the moral courage — Kant-speak, the categorical imperative of Islam — to proclaim good and condemn evil.
Base ethnic solidarity, therefore, trumped the high ideals of Islam. Muslim-on-Muslim injustice triumphed; ethnic fealty was supreme lord and master over fidelity to faith.
Well, God would not be mocked — and most of those involved in that manoeuvre ended in grief. What is more? The illusion that the North had a near-spiritual hold on national power and leadership vanished — like a mirage in the desert.
That is a warning of history to CAN, for in the name of Christianity, it treads a path to perdition, fanning inter-faith hatred along the way.
That brings the matter back to the Sukkuk question, Islamic banking and allied matters.
CAN’s constant ”Islamization” screech, under current president, the Baptist Supo Ayokunle, is another Islam-Christianity ding-dong to shape Nigeria in own images. It has nothing spiritual to it. It’s just holy cant to corner carnal influence.
Even on that score, Christianity holds the edge. Thanks to the colonizing British, governmental business, the schools system and uniform, the working week, routine rest days, and court procedures are clearly Judeo-Christian.
Indeed, such is the total British (read Christian) stamp on the courts, with its wig-and-gown, that the Alkali, Sharia and other courts are portrayed by a section of the media as a near-savage bastion.
On their own part, the Muslims (thanks to northern domination of the federal executive since independence) have somewhat projected Islam as the ruling faith. A few scribbles of Arabic on the currency has underscored that. Also, some Arabic scrawls, on some military insignia, also register early Muslim influence. But that would appear because northern elements were the first the British drafted into the Nigerian Army.
Still, to drag this influence ding-dong into the Sukkuk debate, as CAN is hysterically doing, is rather rich.
When Rauf Aregbesola, the Osun governor, pioneered Sukkuk, as cheap instrument of developmental funding, a lobby went berserk with ludicrous allegations. Yet, that was a classic example of thinking outside the box, for a resource-challenged state, to build infrastructure, grow its wealth and enhance its internally generated revenue (IGR).
Now, the Federal Government has adopted such smart thinking, and the best CAN can offer is infantile whining over “Islamization”!
Of course, there is always a trade-off — are we not all supposed to be wary of the Greek and his gifts?
Even Christianity was validly charged, as the deceitful vehicle of European colonization! Yet, warts and all, pristine Christianity made its social marks, in education and health, to retain its pull and lustre.
Sure, the Sukkuk would win Islam a few souls, just because of its social capital. So would Islamic banking, which shuns the usury in conventional banking — which by the way is heavily Westernized (read Christianized — if not by tenet, then by culture).
Therefore, except CAN can prove Sukkuk-funded roads are Muslim–exclusive — and they are not, as the Osun case has shown — then its case is pathetic.
But CAN can counter this “onslaught” by championing corresponding “Christian” developmental finances, and usury-free “Christian” banking. That way, it would have matched the Muslims in social capital, and returned Christendom Nigeria to its pristine straight-and-narrow way.
In Kant-speak, that is the categorical imperative of the Sukkuk challenge.
