Vehicles of religious and ethnic intolerance in Nigeria
By
NIGERIAN muslims and Christians have formal institutionalized vehicles by which they seem to fan the embers of confrontation, fanaticism, intolerance and bigotry. First, there are religious leaders who are perceived rightly or wrongly as embodiments of fanaticism and intolerance. Then there are formal associations. Three well known Muslim’s associations are: the National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs headed by the Nigerian Spiritual leader of Islam, Jamat Nasril Islam (Congregation for the Propagation of Islam), and the Nigerian Muslim Council whose Secretary General is Alhaji Rasheed Oyekan. The Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and the Jamat Nasril Islam (JNI) are Northern dominated while the Nigerian Muslim Council is Southern dominated. As is very well known, there are irredentist youth wings dedicated to propagating their causes through violence.
The Christians have one well-known body: The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). CAN is broken into two zones: the Northern Zone and the Southern Zone. Even though CAN has one president it would seem that the two zones operate independently of each other. The Northern zone often makes newspaper releases and prints pamphlets which had rattled the Federal Government and leading Muslim leaders. In my capacity as the founder of the National Association for Religious and Ethnic Tolerance (NARETO), I can say without any fear of contradiction that CAN (Northern zone) and (JNI) are the two main vehicles of religious bigotry and intolerance in Nigeria. The Muslim Council of Nigeria is steered by very tolerant, rational and clear-minded leaders who react sometimes to check Christian perspectival excesses.
The third way by which Christians and muslims sustain a culture of intolerance is through publications. Some of these publications are: Why you should never be a Christian by Isaq Kunle Sanni and Dawood Ayodele Amoo; Is the Bible God’s Word? by Ahmed Deedat. Who is this Allah? By G.J.O. Moshay; Kaduna Religious Riot: A catalogue of events by the Publicity Committee of CAN, Kaduna and Leadership in Nigeria (To date); An Analysis also by CAN Publicity Committee, Northern Zone. The titles of some of these works especially the ones by CAN seen innocently by their contents are full of intolerant fury and brimstone. Ahmed Deedat, in some of his writings and especially in his religious sermons on Radio Kano, is intolerance and bigotry par excellence. The most upsetting aspect of these tracts is that the muslims and Christians devote more time to reading them than they do their Holy Books. Very few of them are interested in the 4 Volumes of the Nigerian Studies in Religious Tolerance.
Naretism is the philosophy that every religion has positive and soul redeeming messages which ought to be propagated formally and informally in order to promote a culture of religious tolerance in a multi-religious society. Naretism takes for granted the fact that religions also have common messages but even where any religion has peculiar and unique messages such message are of interest only where they are positive. It is one strength possessed by the Holy Books that even when we allow a straight forward reading, there is always a counter-balancing positive passage to otiosify a negative passage. For example, a Christian can return an eye for an eye and forget that he is expected to turn the other cheek or that he is supposed to love his neighbour as himself or that the Lord hath said: "Vengeance is mine". A Jihadist can maim, kill and spread mayhem and forget that in Islam, to kill one person is akin to killing all mankind and to save one is like saving all mankind or that a Muslim is one from whose tongue and hands people are saved and that making peace among ourselves is better than fasting, alms and prayers. This is one reason NARETO called on all religions in Nigeria - "to interprete the scriptures, if necessary, with bias in favour of national interest and the preservation of tolerance and life".
Naretism is the philosophical outgrowth of the NARETO programme. The National Association for Religious and Ethnic Tolerance (NARETO was formed in October 1987 at the end of the 1st National Conference on religious tolerance and peaceful co-existence. The conference had eight sub-themes and under each sub-theme, adherents of the four major religions in Nigeria - Christianity, Islam, Ancient African religions and spiritual groups - were requested to write papers. At the end of the day, we had 120 papers and most of them were published under the general title - Nigerian Studies in Religious Tolerance and in 4 volumes: Vol. I. Religions and their Doctrines; Vol. II. Religion and Morality. Vol. III Religion and Nation Building and Vol. IV: Philosophy of Religious Tolerance.
A thorough and profound understanding of the tenets of any religion by itself does nothing to propagate tolerance. Second, no religion has the injunction of tolerance as its main theme of tenor: the Five pillars of Islam say nothing directly on tolerance and the Ten Commandments of Christianity do not fare better.
It is, consequently, compelling in a multi-religious society and multiracial world that we mount a conscious and deliberate programme to propagate tolerance. If the teachings of the religions themselves can handle the problem, how come we have had up to 300 religious riots since independence in 1960. On the continent there are more than 30 shooting wars all of which are ethnically and religiously generated.
The dogma that a Muslim should be a better Muslim and a Christian a better Christian to promote peace and understanding in a country makes some sense for a mono-religious society but not for a pluralistic or multi-religious country such as Nigeria. Even then mono-religiosity breeds religious fundamentalism with its attendant problems and sometimes violence.
Nigeria’s unique religious topography is not replicated anywhere else in the world. Perhaps this constitutes a divine call in Nigeria to set the pace and initiate a social engineering programme to propagate principles of tolerance, beckon to the world to take its tune.
—Prof. Momoh is Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Lagos, Akoka.
November 2001