I personally lost confidence in the project called ‘’NIGERIA’’ owing to how the evil of religious hostility and discrimination is clearly established among Nigerians and jangles of religious dichotomy is echoing louder in Nigerian institutions which have forcefully stumbled our nation on its broken feet.
World statistics has shown that Nigeria is the second most religious nation in the world with 97 % of its population and the same statistics has proved that China is the least most religious nation in the world which almost 70% of its population are atheist, yet the paradox remain that there is unity and togetherness among China citizens who are free thinkers compare to our nation that claims to know God and have collectively embraced the gospel of peace.
I am feeling tempted to conclude that when the writer Guru was saying that ‘’we were humans until race disconnected us, religion separated us and politics divided us’’ he was directly referring to Nigeria regarding to how our religious difference that ordinarily ought to serve as a cement that will bind us together as Nigerians is setting us apart as Muslims and Christians.
I was taught in the classroom that there is a period in the history of the nation when our religious diversity was the source of our unity and strength. At that period we have only monolithic north, south and west and Northerners have only one identity which is ‘’YAN AREWA’’ and our fathers carry only one national identity which is ‘Nigerians’ and nothing else, but today our unity has been turned into shreds to the extent that everybody use slogan and name that reflects his religion.
Peeping through the annals of the country, history did not stress the religion of the nationalists that stood and fight for the independence, but history only captured that they were patriotic Nigerians who only bear the identity of the country. Also when Ojukwu declared war for secession in 1967, history did not tell us that it is Christians or Muslims that fought for the nation to be one, but history only recorded that Nigerians fought for the nation to be one. Bet me, if British will colonize our nation today Nigerians will hardly stand on one accord and one voice to fight for its liberation and when the 1967 civil unrest will repeat itself today I am sure Nigeria will break up because the civil unrest will end up been a religious war.
The way religion is to pronounce and stress in Nigeria mostly through the filling of forms is a clear sign of departure of the spirit of our oneness. It is an undoubted truth that in our nation the mark of nationality is not the final arbiter of judging one's authenticity, but one is finally defined and judge first by his religion before inquiry of his national status.
Due to the religious fundamentalism and bigotry associated with exercise and recruitment in all spheres of life in our nation, Nigerians resort to baptism to change their names that are akin to one religion to neutral names that will not profess any religion to avoid victimization in securing admissions, employment exercise and the likes. Also for survival sake, the most of intelligent Nigerians are avoiding dresses that will align them to a particular religion holding a notion that one will hardly obtain a favor from a person that you don’t profess his faith.
It is very unfortunate that our nation that claims to accept the gospel of peace and unity as a national norm and value, children are giving orientation from childhood through teachings that any person who doesn’t practice their religion is an enemy and no matter his friendly posture should not be trusted, and such children grow up with that evil seed of negative doctrine of been hostile to anybody that does not profess their faith even at childhood that is why in our nation today you will hardly see influential people employing members of the opposite faith as their close aides because there is general belief that anybody that does not profess your religion cannot be confined and can easily turn against you on religious ground.
It is now audible to the deaf and visible to the blind that in our country today members of the two prominent religions don’t inter-settle among each other. In most of the cities and towns, you will discover that there are places called Christian area and places called Muslim area. Going with that mentality, all Christians that found themselves by coincidence settling in the Muslim area feel as if they are in dead zone and also Muslims that are in Christian area also feel the same and by extension the Christians in Muslim area are selling their houses to relocate to Christian area and also Muslims in the Christian area selling their houses to relocate to Muslim area within the same town.
It is so funny yet painful to note that when Nigerians want to rent a house what they first confirm as the prerequisite for the rent is not basic issues like the price of the house, availability of water and accessibility of road to the area, but they first make inquiry of the type of people that dominate the area and no matter the convenience of the location and cheapness of the house if the people that dominate the area are not members of his faith he see the location unsecured and inconvenient for his habitation believing that one day they will gang up against him.
As a result of religious confrontations bedeviling our nation, you will hardly now see a rented house dominated by both Christians and Muslims owing to the security threat attach to settling with those that do not profess your faith.
There are certain streets in some cities in the country when one is walking will be forcefully cut up with the spirit of phobia and guilt owing to how people in the locality will be looking at him as a total stranger simply because his dressing code does not reflect the dominant religion of the locality and as a result nobody will love to associate with that person even after knowing full well that he is a fellow Nigerian.
Today, religious polarization has sunk so deep into Nigerians to the point that it completely change our political culture and voting pattern in such a way that our elections are literally seen as a religious contest and tussle among the two prominent religions. Because of the religious madness in our country, Nigerians now erroneously see our elections as a religious census and better platform for testing powers and popularity among the two proponent religions rather than the ideal democratic contest.
We can only pretend but the raw truth remains undeniably that we are practically practicing missionary (religious) party system where some political parties are hastily concluded to be rightly reserved for a particular member of the faith, therefore, reducing our elections to a mere contest between Jama’atu Nasril Islam versus Christian Association of Nigeria. Only recently somebody wrote on his social media timeline that ‘’PDP is a Christian political party without a Christian candidate’’ then somebody responded that ‘’APC is not a political party but it is a Muslim coven built by Jihadists to promote Jihad’’.
I am shocked to bone marrow when I came face to face with the reality that in a country like Nigeria that claims to be secular nation, the most intelligent and shrewdest politicians who have crowd as supporters hid under the canopy of religion to win sympathy of the masses and they use phrases in their worship centers like ‘your votes to me is a promotion of our religion’. This could be the reason why somebody who observed the campaign and voting pattern of 2015 election exclaimed through his social media page that ‘’Mosques influence the electoral victory of Buhari in 2015 and the church will be doing the same 2019’’. The truth remains that such a primitive politics that is forcing itself to the political landscape of the nation as a fashion will soon tear our country into shreds if is not quickly checkmated and many terrorist groups will keep on emerging after every election.
As a result of this erroneous mentality, today in our country after elections if a Christian wins an election the Christian community see the electoral victory as an achievement to the church and also when a Muslim candidate wins an election the Muslim Ummah sees the success as an achievement to the Mosques therefore those who lost out see the success as a threat to their religion which by extension they feel unsecured and unprotected under the watch of that leadership believing that the person in power will introduce policies and programmes that will not favor their religion.
If Nigerians failed to use the mirror of religious difference to see one another in each other as kinsmen then the spirit of oneness has departed and the journey of our nation has ended and our only distinction with apes in the animal kingdom will not be far from just been created in the image of God but lacking in sound reasoning.
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