Some February 2015, Nigerians would not be electing a bishop or an imam: we would be choosing a president. But you would not think so judging by the way religion is being manipulated to influence potential voting decisions.
As if that were not bad enough, the usual suspects are already at it pushing ethnicity for all it is worth to gain political advantage. None of this is strange because these issues have always been overt factors in Nigerian politics.
Indeed, it would be naïve and unrealistic to try to totally keep them out of politics. Even in the US which popularised the principle of separation of church and state, this is only observed in breach. They may not have a state religion but ‘In God We Trust’ is inscribed on their national currency.
Even in largely homogeneous societies like the US, religion in politics sometimes manifests in positions taken by candidates e.g. Do they want prayer in schools or are they pro or anti-abortion?
In multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies like ours you cannot run away from balancing. Giving people a sense of belonging is one thing, but when a person’s suitability for office becomes a function of what faith he follows, we need to ask hard questions.
What I find discomfiting is the virulence with which these factors are being deployed this election cycle – without a proper sense that we are playing with dynamite. From Lebanon to Iraq to Northern Ireland, the human suffering caused by the combustible mix of religion and politics isn’t something to recommend to an enemy.
In the past we somehow managed to step back from the brink. This time around, Boko Haram has poisoned the air with atrocities that have sharply polarised the ethnic and religious divides.
Things are not helped by the fact that the two major political parties are set to pick the candidates from the opposing geographical poles – reprising the age-long North-South contestation for power. It was only in 1999 that we were briefly spared the aggravation when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the then All Peoples Party (APP) chose candidates from the South West.
The PDP pulled out the religious card quite early as it sought to define the nascent All Progressives Congress (APC) as an ‘Islamic party.’ The ruling party’s spokesman, Olisah Metuh, enthusiastically accused the opposition of propagating Janjaweed ideology. The basis of this accusation was that the party that was then in formation had a preponderance of Muslims in leadership positions.
After the APC’s first convention, a new hierarchy reflecting a better religious and ethnic balance emerged. But then suspicions that had been sown in the minds of the impressionable were reinforced with talk that the party was seriously considering selecting a Muslim-Muslim slate to challenge President Goodluck Jonathan.
As the opposition intensified their attacks against the government for its impotence in the face of rampaging insurgents who had graduated from just lobbing bombs to actually holding territory, an administration on the defensive felt the best way to fight back was to accuse APC of sponsoring and funding the insurgency.
Having made this astonishing claim, the government didn’t move to prosecute those it accused of such treasonable offences. By not taking that step it destroyed the credibility of the allegations. That has not stopped the administration from repeating the same meaningless claims in the face of new criticisms – and it leaves you wondering why.
Matters of faith don’t lend themselves to reason since they flow from our hearts and emotions. Each time Boko Haram – in the name of Islam – invade a village in the North East, burn down churches and murder Christians, it plays strongly into the ‘them-against-us’ narrative.
Just this last week at the meeting of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) – a forum formed to promote better understanding between Nigeria’s two leading faiths, what made headlines were the exchanges between Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor and the Sultan of Sokoto, Abubakar Saad.
Oritsejafor had complained bitterly about the slaughter of innocent Christians in the North. He spoke of unjust treatment exemplified by the fact that in many parts of the region Christians cannot get land to build churches, and where they manage to get land they are denied Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) for no just cause.
He then challenged the Sultan to direct the same letter he had written to ISIS to Boko Haram. The suggestion was that major Muslim leaders had not bent the ears of the insurgents sufficiently to turn them from their evil ways. Naturally, his views were not well received by the other side.
I sympathise with Oritsejafor because much of what he said is the true experience of many Christians in the far North. Even before the coming of Boko Haram, sectarian clashes in which scores lost their lives were common occurrences in the last few decades.
However, the CAN President’s comments don’t capture the total picture. If Christians have been victims of the insurgency, Muslims have also suffered terribly. Boko Haram has murdered thousands of nameless people who share the same faith they claim to be propagating across the Northern states.
On Friday, at least 120 worshipper were killed when suicide bombers attacked the Emir of Kano’s mosque. Last week 45 innocent souls were blown to bits in a Maiduguri market after two female suicide bombers detonated their deadly cargo. A few days after in Adamawa, a roadside IED believed to have been planted by the sect claimed another 35 lives. I doubt whether these explosives were primed with instructions to slay adherents of a particular religion.
There are serious unresolved issues in Nigeria revolving around ethnicity, indigene status and religion that we need to sit down and discuss frankly. A situation where the constitution talks of not adopting a state religion, while some Northern states openly do so undermines coherence and trust in the federation.
That said, we must accept that Boko Haram has gone beyond the ‘them-versus-us’ stage. Those being murdered in places like Gwoza, Damboa, Bama etc are not all Christians. This is something that requires everyone pulling together. It is something that has defeated everything the current administration has thrown at it. Even with outside help, we now have a pseudo-caliphate on our doorstep.
That is why I find it truly reprehensible that politicians are trying to fight the 2015 elections by manipulating religion and ethnicity – rather than focusing on their record and manifesto.
When you hang the tag of an ‘Islamic party’ on your opponents, are you not suggesting that yours is the ‘Christian party’? The president has not helped with his subliminal religious campaigning involving church-hopping. To decide whether he was going to run or not, we were subjected to a primetime ‘pilgrimage’ to Jerusalem flanked by two of the country’s most prominent pastors. Are their flock supposed to read between the lines and fall in line?
Christians who try to paint Jonathan as the candidate for their religion need to pause and reflect. Voting for the incumbent president won’t take anyone to heaven, just as voting for his likely Muslim opponent will not open the gates of Paradise to anyone.
How has Jonathan being a Christian furthered the Christian cause in Nigeria? Under his watch thousands of Christians are being slaughtered across the North and the butchering continues.
I recollect that over two years ago when the US first toyed with the idea of designating Boko Haram a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO), agents of the Jonathan government in collaboration with the American State Department then led by Hillary Clinton argued strenuously at the Congress against it.
They painted a picture of the sect as a minor irritant that could be controlled with home-grown solutions. At that same hearing was a CAN delegation led by Pastor Oritsejafor. He and his team were thoroughly astonished that agents of a government ostensibly led by a Christian would be making such arguments. All they were after was anything that would check the sect. They left America bitterly disappointed.
Instead of demonising individuals and any particular religion, let us wake up as Nigerians and confront our demons. Since we have not agreed to dissolve our union, we must tell ourselves the truth and not allow political scam artists to take us for another ride in the same tattered religious cum ethnicity jalopy.
As things stand in this country today, no Muslim can win an election without Christian votes and vice versa. Nobody can impose any religion on us without having to deal with the National Assembly and the 36 state houses of assembly.
Voters must ask themselves if they are going to elect a president based on his piety or their performance. We are suffocated with religiousity and church/mosque-going at election time. Once the elections are won and lost, these supposedly pious politicians return to business as usual. How is it that with all our holy and prayerful politicians Nigeria is so messed up?
We remember religion when it helps us carve up the nation’s wealth. Our faith takes a back seat as we despoil the land and desecrate the offices that God in his mercies has allowed us to occupy; we abuse the powers we should hold in trust for the people.
We hoodwink the ignorant with ethnicity whereas the fact is voting for someone with whom you share tribal identity doesn’t change much if you’re not in his close circle.
Northern leaders governed Nigeria for close to 40 years and yet their region remains the poorest and most backward in the country. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was in office for eight years as civilian president. By the time he left, most roads in Sango-Ota where he used to live were impassable. Jonathan has been in office for over five years and millions of people from the South-South zone are still living a hardscrabble life.
Instead of being scammed through sentiment Nigerians should realise that what we desperately need is a leader who will drag this blessed country out of backwardness.
When a Christian leader delivers 24-hour electricity it’s not only for Christians, when a Muslim provides tap water it will also run in the homes of members of the other faith.
Nigerian politicians playing the religion and ethnic card should remember the immortal words of our inimitable First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan: ‘There is God oooooo!!!! And He’s a consuming fire.
