By Festus Adedayo
The above was the question asked by Britons and the rest of the world in the afternoon of May 22, 2013. Close to the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, Southeast London, two young men of British-Nigerian descent, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, had attacked a 25-year old British Army soldier, Fusilier Lee Rigby and killed him. Rigby was of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. It was a case of religious extremism. The soldier had been on off-duty and was walking along Wellington Street. His attackers mowed him down with a car, ran towards him and, like Jack the Ripper, stabbed him multiple times with knives and cleaver. A postmortem later reveal that Rigby died of “”multiple incised wounds”. The two Nigerians then dragged Rigby’s lifeless body to the main road and stood by, unperturbed until the arrival of the police. They proudly proclaimed to passersby that Rigby’s killing was to avenge the killing of Muslims by the British military. In his book, Christianity, Islam and Orisa religion: Three traditions in comparison and interaction (2016), respected Africanist of the University of Cambridge, late Prof JDY Peel, tried to dissect how the two London-born, Christian Yoruba-background boys, who converted to Islam some years before, could engage in such horrendous act. Upon being charged in court a week after, Adebolajo brandished a Quran and shouted Allahu akbar!
The two young men’s Yoruba people back home were horrified because such religious intolerance and extremism do not represent them. The question the world asked as both were found guilty on December 19, 2013 and sentenced to life imprisonment was, what has God got to do with snuffing life out of God’s creation?
Nigerians asked that same question last week from Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu, Nigeria’s First Lady and the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu. Their question is, what has God got to do with suborning Him to provide solutions to problems He gave man enough brain to dissect? A National Prayer Forum (NPF) is the vehicle for this heavenly search for the face of God. According to the DG of the National Prayer Forum, Chief Segun Afolorunikan, in a statement widely published last Monday, Nigerian Christians will, through the duo, meet at the National Ecumenical Centre “for a week of intense prayer, with prayer warriors from various denominations focusing their efforts on the nation’s adversities.”
While this piece was going to bed yesterday, a statement was issued by Mrs. Tinubu’s office by her spokesperson, Busola Kukoyi which denied that she is organising any national prayer. It read in part: “Her Excellency, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, CON, is not organising a national prayer… a Christian and strong advocate of prayer and praying for Nigeria, (she) believes that prayer is an act that must be done willingly, conscientiously, and sincerely. She also believes that praying for Nigeria is the responsibility of every Nigerian, irrespective of religious belief, political affiliation, tribe, or language.”
That statement is very curious. It smacks of the usual about-turn of politically exposed persons when faced with a boomerang of their ill-thought-out decisions. When this happens, they laden the hapless press with the charge of “misrepresentation of facts” and urging them “to always cross-check their facts.” The truth is, it is either the First Lady’s office is suffering from extreme inefficiency or there is a huge pall of subterfuge surrounding this disclaimer. The initial statement claiming Mrs. Tinubu and Ribadu would be organizing a national prayer was widely published last Monday. It took the office one whole week to distance itself from it! So, I want to go ahead with this piece, believing that the rebuttal from Mrs. Tinubu does not mirror her well-known tendency to demystify and shroud critical national issues with a blanket of religion. If fraud or misrepresentation was behind Afolorunikan’s earlier release, we wait to have the First Lady sue him. We are waiting, Your Excellency.
Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election, provoked very critical issues surrounding this matter. Drilling down into religious practices in Nigeria and churches’ relations with the Nigerian state, Obi made mess of Tinubu and Ribadu’s spiked fascination with the hubris of development, rather than its science.
Contrariwise, in a comment deploring the Nigerian state’s unholy interface in religion, Obi called for reforms to Nigeria’s religious and political culture. If one could squeeze sense out of his intervention, Obi simply counsels that the Nigerian state must de-couple the centuries-old alliance between it and the church (and by that very fact, Islam). “We live largely in a very unproductive society, that’s why the only thing that is attractive here is politics and church. We need to dismantle it and we’re gonna turn night vigil into night shifts so people can be productive,” he said.
For decades now, religion has received the back of the tongue of Africans. It is accused of complicity in the continent’s underdevelopment. Some even say that religion’s total capture of the mind of the African is akin to the owner of a farm plantation who, aiming to hinder productivity and ensure barrenness and stagnation, gives his alagbaro (labourer) palm trees-laden farm to cultivate (afún ni je mó fé á yó tíí fún ni l’óko ìdí òpe ro).
Christianity made its first-phase incursion into Nigeria through Warri and Benin in the 15th century. This made the two cities the first to witness Christian missionary’s presence in Nigeria. Islam, on the reverse, arrived the country between 1000A.D and 1100 A.D., some five to six hundred years before Christianity. Since then, the two religions have acted like the proverbial sword out of its scabbard. There is no doubting that both religions have helped tremendously over centuries to tame the sub-human tendencies of the traditional African religion which they met. However, they left residue of evil practices that manifest in the values, institutions and world views which are at cross-purposes with those of the indigenous religion they met. To explain their twin good and persistent evil, the Yoruba compare them to, “Idà ti jáde l’ákò, ó sì ní b’óhun ò m’èjè, òhun ò padà s’ákò.” It simply translates to mean that the sword, out of the scabbard, has sworn that unless it guzzles blood, its return into its sheathe isn’t certain.
Rich historical records have shown us that, at the beginning of the 20th century, traditional religion boasted of more followers than converts to Islam and Christianity. However, the two imported religions flourished during this century. It was the era of technological advancement which thoroughly overwhelmed traditional Africa. It was the century of the making of automobiles and airplanes which made nonsense of Africa’s perceived crude metaphysics. Indigenous churches sprang up everywhere with mission bodies evangelizing the “dark continent.” They condemned Africa’s religion as occult, its education as Dark Age, its culture Stone Age, while founding schools and hospitals to replace ancient, adjudged crude traditional healing methods. Agricultural implements also replaced modern methods of farming. This newness and ‘wizardry’ of the white colonialists completely took Africa by storm and the continent progressively began to buckle at its feet.
Obi’s madness at how lowly religion has sunk in Nigeria and Oluremi Tinubu/Ribadu’s denied decision to weaponize it in defence of the Tinubu government’s lackluster performance must be put in proper contexts. There is no doubting the fact that Nigeria has become a very fertile soil for religion. The 21st century has also marked the collapse of virtually all the values preached for centuries by both Islam and Christianity. COVID-19 and the perceived insensitivity of western religion have equally upped the disdain for western religions. Despite reliance on western medicine for cure, Africans went back to their roots for salvage from the brutal claws of the virus. Nigerians believe that, though their forebears sacrificed all for religion, many of them dying in the process, when it was time for the religions to come to the rescue of the congregants, the greed and acquisitive tendencies of religious barons came to the fore. Churches even demanded tithes and offerings from congregants when it was obvious that they had no place of work to go. Traditional medicine, with its barks and roots, as well as the constitution of the black man, saved so many Africans from the rampaging pandemic, thus reducing the mortality of COVID on the people.
Immediately the pandemic ceased its anger, churches and mosque attendance reduced. Rebellion against centuries-old orthodoxy of religion began to flourish. However, the hunger and poverty occasioned by bad leadership in Africa made Nigerians to scamper back to religion to save them. Hunger and lack are increasing church/Islam activities which include evangelistic outreaches, crusades, conferences, retreats, conventions, pilgrimages and night vigils. Religious fraudsters are more on the prowl. General Overseers are prospering from the naivety of congregants and are tweaking their baits of prosperity teachings. On the flipside, the lives of the worshippers are not getting better. There are also little corresponding spiritualities and moral growth noticeable in the lives of the people.
While churches and mosques, as well as their leaders, are going home with loots from naïve congregants, there is a spike in cases of immorality. Recently, the RCCG suspended its pastors for homosexuality. If it cares to dig in, it will find out that lesbianism, rape, incest, theft and armed robbery abound among its clergy and laity. This can be replicated in many other churches. Among those who profess Islamic faith, you will find rabid terrorism supporters. A case in point is a former minister who publicly confessed sympathy for Al-Qaeda. Nothing happened to him. How do you, in the name of religion, support bloodshed?
It may be apt to say that, the more western religion is upon our people’s heads, the more immoral and amoral they become. It must be said that, in all the ills above, Christianity seems to be the greatest culprit, far more than Islam. Miracles have become a fetish that Christian taskmasters use to hypnotize their captives. The more absent the leadership is in the lives of Nigerians, the stronger the religionists step in to offer hope. This hope is however most times fraudulent. They manipulate the people’s vulnerability and impatience for a turn-around in their pain. For a deteriorating healthcare, faith healing entrepreneurs canvass vigils in church. This, most times, leads to deaths. You only need to listen to the narrative of how, in her last days, Nigeria’s Minister of Information, Dora Akunyili fell prey to these charlatans who capitalized on her religious vulnerability to make her abandon orthodox medical remedy for supposed faith healing.
Miracles in Nigeria have become synonymous with baits on a rat trap. So also the “sowing seed,” “tithes,” “first fruit” and “offering” shibboleths that have become objects of exploitation by religious Smart Alecs. One of the fora where they are marketed is vigil. Publicity is then given to the “showers of miracles” through early morning street preaching, radio, posters, televisions and newspapers. These have been on the upswing in the 21st century. The impression you get from all this is that miracle is functional and could be offered only by these church miracle marketers. When the young ones entered the fray, with the spate of joblessness and hopelessness in the country today, the hypocrisy behind miracles is further revealed. It has led to a rash of manipulated miracles and miracle-for-cash evangelism. In some situations, noticeable among Pentecostals, some pastors are apprehended patronizing native doctors. There, human parts sacrifice, in exchange for accuracy of prophecies and obtaining power to grow large following are advertized.
Frustrations with religions in Nigeria are leading many Africans back to Traditional African Religion (ATR). Some researchers have submitted that, Islam and Christianity have constituted a threat and a disruptive force to African tradition and custom for centuries. But that was until now when the scales on the people’s eyes have begun to fall. While at its incursion, Islam and Christianity suppressed ATR, virtually strangulating it, the table is turning today. The people’s cry for help to ATR today is almost similar to the one made to Osetura, the Chief Priest in Hubert Ogunde’s Aye. Osetura always fights against evil forces and always triumphs against their machinations. “Osetura, Olóyè awo, e má fi wá sílè fún’yà je” the people cried. What we witness today is that, in Islam for example, traditional beliefs and practice of magic and medicine have wriggled themselves into Islam. Christianity too is heavily mopping up many traditions, culture and the so-called unscience of ancient Africa. For example, return to herbs as medical remedies has increased rapidly while in dispensation of justice, deities’ speedy mediation is of greater preference to the snail speed justice of western religion.
Apart from religionists, governments and politicians also exploit religion to their advantage. Aware that religion blinds the people’s ability to reason critically, they use affiliation with particular religions to recruit rabid supporters. This was what happened in the build-up to the 2023 elections. In that election, peering of religion membership in political party tickets became top issue of consideration by the electorate, rather than what the candidates were able to do for the people if elected.
In the last 18 months in Nigeria, hopelessness has pushed Nigerians more into unorthodox practices. Government daily manifests its incapacity to offer neither succor nor redemption to the people. Frustration and despondency grip the people despite federal spin doctors’ spirited attempts to cobble together tissues of what they call nascent hope. It is getting clearer that government’s absence from the lives of the people may be for far longer time to come. So, when Afolorunikan announced a national prayer that would feature the First Lady and Ribadu, what the people saw was another plan to use religion to hoodwink them. Only a few days ago, the military apprised Nigerians of the coming together of another terrorist group in Kebbi and Sokoto states called the Lukarawas. To the people, a national prayer to ward off hunger and insecurity was government’s back-door acceptance that it was helpless to bring hope in these regards. It was tantamount to accepting that everyone is for themselves and God is for us all. The NSA’s presence at a prayer session supplicating to God for the security of Nigeria would have been akin to him throwing his hands up in resignation. Biblical King Saul did same when he, at nocturne, crawled to consult the Witch of Endor. For Ribadu to have shipped responsibility back to God, same responsibility that people gave him because they thought he and his boss were capable of confronting them, and thus resigning to fate as this, the hopelessness of the people would have hit a higher Fahrenheit.
Obi’s last week intervention on religion no doubt riled some regime backers and religion apostles. Speaking on a podcast, he argued that there is the need for Nigerians to shift focus from religion to productivity. “It’s attractive, politics and church, but it has to be dismantled. We are going to turn night vigil into night shift so that people can be productive.” Obi used the two symbols of “night vigil” and “night shifts” to express growing frustration and concerns with how church Basilicas worth billions of Naira are springing up to replace empty factories and warehouses in Nigeria, and the irony the Basilicas pose as where jobless people go to plead with God to give them jobs. If you drill down into his submission however, it will seem to have brilliantly articulated the frustration of Nigerians with the alliance of politicians and religious barons. It also in a way responded to the idiotic call for prayers in Abuja to combat Nigerian government’s inability to find solutions to the people’s travails in its hands. Church and government have continually kept the people in the dark about their bondage using religion as the bait.
Apart from state funds that will be filtered into the bottomless pit of this rat race, with some Smart Alec smiling to the bank with Nigerian scarce resources, Mrs. Tinubu/Ribadu’s gimmick would seem to have been, de-escalate mounting tensions against the man in Aso Rock and get the people into amorphous task of holding God responsible for their woes. The end of the prayer nonsense would have been nothing. Now that the angst of the people towards a so-called national prayer has pushed it into the trash receptacle, Madam Tinubu should get her husband to do more than encircling the perquisites of office and bear full responsibility for the stasis across Nigeria.
The truth is, we may not like Obi’s bold articulation of the danger that the hurriedly quashed Remi Tinubu and Ribadu’s gathering posed to Nigeria’s quest for mental emancipation from the chokehold of religion. Religious entrepreneurs and their Man Fridays may not like his call for “dismantling of churches” whose euphemism is, breaking of the walls of ignorance surrounding religion. The truth however is that we must rethink this unholy alliance if we must build a productive society. No society advances by gathering to pray against its problems. Its leaders tackle them by thinking out of the box.