Many must have been taken aback penultimate week, when the news filtered that the Niger State government placed a ban on all forms of religious preaching in the state. The secularity of the country and the prospects of the new regulations infringing on the rights of citizens to freedom of religious worship and expression, resonated as issues of concern.
Thus, the motive of the government was bound to come under suspicion as the Director General of Niger State Religious Affairs, Umar Farooq, confirmed the ban in addition to the requirement that preachers must obtain licences before they can be allowed to preach in the state.
“It is true the state government has banned preaching. Any preacher who wants to preach must secure a licence between now and two months”, he said. Farooq further explained that what all prospective preachers are required to do is to visit their office and fill out a form. Thereafter, they will face a panel that will screen them before they are allowed to preach.
But when the state governor, Mohammed Bago appeared on a television interview last week, he said the measure was not a ban on evangelism but a way of checking inciting messages that could threaten peace and security. Hear him, “I didn’t ban evangelism. For anybody going to sermon on Friday, he should bring his scriptures for review, and it is normal”.
Bago drew parallels with Saudi Arabia where such rules exist and contended that you cannot say because you have been given the opportunity to be “a cleric, you will go out and preach the gospel that is anti-people and anti-government”.
What seems to emerge from the above is that the state government did not ban religious preaching in the state. Rather, its new regulations on religion require preachers to get the authorisation of the government before they can preach. In other words, the new regulation vests the right to determine and approve qualified preachers on the shoulders of the state government. That immediately raises questions on the propriety of government officials delving into matters that impinge on the ecclesiastical realm. How qualified are they for the self-assigned role?
The above question is further reinforced by another strand of the directive which mandates all preachers to submit their sermons for the approval of the government.
Ostensibly, the measures are designed to prevent indoctrination and public incitement thereby enhancing the maintenance of law and order. The state government could also seek to justify the directive on the serial exploitation of religion by unscrupulous people to cause trouble. Ours is a country that is not strange to weird religious doctrines and beliefs.
Read Also: Remi Tinubu shinning jewel in Nigeria’s crown, says Otu
In the last couple of years, the country has been embroiled in Boko Haram insurgency with about four affiliate insurgency groups propelled by strange religious doctrines, joining the fray. That should say something about the danger in allowing unfettered access to the public, of inciting religious ideas.
It is not in doubt that religion has been serially exploited and manipulated by unscrupulous and self-serving persons to foment trouble of unimaginable proportions with dire consequences for co-habitation, peace and progress.
If that is Bago’s concern in insisting that preachers must be licensed before they can preach in the state, one can understand. But the regulation veered off tangent when it sought to arrogate to government functionaries, the powers to licence preachers and determine sermons good for public consumption through vetting.
This is as dangerous as it is practically impossible given the multiplicity of such sermons (written and unwritten) that regularly emanate from the numerous religious organisations. It remains to be seen how the government intends to access sermons from the nooks and crannies of the state, some of which are hundreds of kilometres away from the state capital. It presents huge logistic challenges.
Even if the government drastically prunes down the number of preachers (which is clearly outside its mandate), it will still have to contend with the right to regulate sermons meant for the pulpit in a plural society of diverse religious persuasions.
The state government gave away its motive when it asserted that the measure will act as a check against anti-people and anti-government sermons. By extrapolation, the government’s goal is to ensure that preachers do not author sermons that criticise its actions and policies. That would rather sound strange. If religious leaders cannot offer constructive criticisms to government’s policies and actions taking advantage of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the constitution, then the human society is in big trouble.
Freedom to criticise government policies and offer direction to the people is different from public incitement. And the churches should have the right to determine that. At any rate, the laws are there to check possible abuse. Niger State government is also flawed when it seeks to capitalise on what it called anti-government sermons to seek to gag preachers.
Such assessments can be subjective as we have seen in the constant arrest of journalists on the orders of some governors. Clerics have a duty to call the attention of and redirect the government and the society when things are drifting. And they have been doing that.
Besides, politicians are not immune to religious exploitation to serve their selfish predilections. For in verity, much of the religion-induced crises this country has encountered, were in the main, instigated, sponsored and promoted by politicians in their inordinate ambition to win elections by hook and crook. Politicians are notorious for deploying religion and ethnicity to whip up sentiments when their influences significantly diminish. The cascading insecurity in the country has its roots in the inordinate desires by politicians to achieve their political objectives through devious means.
It remains to be conjectured how the same politicians can be the new face of credible religious sermons. The new regulation depicts the Niger State government as one afraid of criticisms. That is the uncanny contradiction in assigning the powers to vet religious sermons in the hands of politicians in Niger State or any other part of this country. Politicians cannot be trusted with the role of moral compass on religious matters.
Events in Niger State again, elevate to the fore, the distinction by medieval philosophers between the corporeal and the ecclesiastical realms. The measures strike at the heart of the division between the purviews of the state and religion.
St Thomas Aquinas believes that the state (temporary authority) and the Church (spiritual authority) are distinct but complementary. The state focuses on worldly matters while the church presides over the spiritual realm. For him, the state and the church are distinct governments that should work harmoniously with each respecting the other’s domain.
Aquinas captured the nature of that relationship when he contended that if a state’s action conflicts with moral law or spiritual wellbeing of its citizens, the church has the right to speak out and provide guidance. That is the red line Niger State is bound to cross as it seeks to prevent clerics from sermons it considers anti-government.
St Augustine captured the thrust of this division in his allegory of two cities-the city of man and the city of God. He described two cities built on contrasting loves-the earthly city built on love of self to the point of despising God and the city of God built on the love of God to the point of despising self.
These are not literal cities but spiritual societies with members of the earthly city pursuing temporal power and glory while members of the city of God seeking God’s glory and eternal life. The two philosophers captured all that is required to be said of the relationship that should exist between the state and religion.
They are two separate spheres of authority guided by different motivations. Though their roles can find complementarity in some instances, they largely exist to pursue and serve different goals. Niger State government is definitely going beyond its boundaries by not only seeking to ‘ordain’ preachers but in vetting and approving their sermons before they can go public.
Such a policy amounts to combining the powers of the state and religion in the hands of politicians. Bago’s parallels with Saudi Arabia where preachers submit their sermon for vetting every Friday says little given the secularity of Nigeria. His government will also have to contend with Sunday sermons from an assortment of religious denominations.
Let Niger State government contend with the challenges of the CITY of man and leave the CITY of God in the hands of the religions.
