WHITHER NIGERIA'S SECULARISM?

Section 10 of our 1999 constitution clearly prohibits Federal and state governments from adopting any state religion. Section 38 further guarantees every citizen the freedom of religion. If a recent news report is anything to go by, Governor Danbaba Suntai of Taraba is unaware of the latter constitutional provision that guarantees every Nigerian freedom of religion.
He is reported to have suspended some staff of Taraba Government house for not attending compulsory prayers. When did it become the business of government to enforce religious prayers or rituals on the citizenry? Even Danbaba’s reverend predecessor knew better than such misguided religious zealotry that infringes on constitutional rights of Nigerians.
This is the same warped mindset that informed the atrocious expulsion of 4000 law abiding citizens from the Dar-ul Islam commune in Niger state for the grievous offence - according to state police commissioner Mike Zuokuomour as reported in Daily Trust of 16th Aug’ 2009 - of “violating the preaching act of Niger state as their mode of worship contradicted that of the state”. I had no idea it is the business of a supposedly secular government to dictate how people should worship.
It used to be the Sharia Northern states that flagrantly violated our supposedly secular constitution. But since the complicit Federal government was unable to put its foot down and decisively deal with the Sharia menace, the unsavoury practice of government intrusion in religion has spread down South.
 I understand Governor Ikedi Ohakim has transformed Imo government house into some sort of church. In Enugu under the erstwhile Nnamani administration a political dichotomy emerged between Catholic and other Christians.
Donald Duke the ex-Cross River governor organized Christmas carnivals with state funds. He even declared public holiday for the whole month of December in celebration of Christmas. At the time I could not help but wonder at such crass idiocy, as not even the Sharia governors of the core North have declared public holiday for the fasting month of Ramadan.
 The sad irony of it all is that the pretentious religiosity of our leaders does not translate to good governance. On the contrary they have collectively ruined this potentially great nation. Ex-President OBJ reportedly emerged from prison a born-again Christian but his 8-year maladministration was rife with highhanded vindictiveness, fraud, ineptitude and atrocities in Odi & Zaki Biam.
 The “evil genius” whose religious fervor motivated him to smuggle Nigeria into OIC, elevated corruption to new heights and unrepentantly truncated our best attempt at democracy setting the nation in a tumultuous tailspin from which we are yet to recover.
While Abacha was siphoning the nation’s coffers to Swiss banks, he attended mosque regularly and would be pictured by our news media in the front row of Muslim prayer-ground during Islamic Eid festivities. What more, his sexual debauchery with Indian prostitutes cost him his life.
Ahmed Sani Yerima, the ex-Zamfara governor was probably the worst example of religious hypocrisy in our so-called leaders. He started Sharia agitation in the current dispensation and amputated Jangebe’s hand for stealing a goat, but Sani himself was later indicted by EFCC for fleecing Zamfara…which the former EFCC boss decried as “direct stealing.”
 Up here in the core North, state governments build and maintain mosques, pay Islamic clerics, pay for pilgrimage to Mecca, operate numerous Arabic colleges whose sole purpose is to perpetuate the mental enslavement of our people to the violently intolerant, spiritually bankrupt Arab hate cult; as well as run a network of Sharia courts which unfortunately are recognized by our seriously defective, contradictory and ambivalent constitution.
 Contradictory and ambivalent because the same constitution that proclaims secularism in Section 10, also provides for state and federal (FCT) government Sharia courts in sections 244 & 247. A secular government has no business running Sharia or other religious courts. Sharia arbitration between consenting Muslims should be out-of-court settlement, not part of secular government-run judiciary.
This is particularly so as Sharia with its male Muslim bias and cruel barbaric punishments is inconsistent with constitutional provisions on gender equality, religious non-discrimination and prohibition of inhuman punishment.
Then there is the unsavory Judicial divide in the country – Common law in the South, Penal code in the North – ostensibly because of religious differences. After almost 50 years of independence, if we are truly one nation, it’s about time we abrogate the Judicial divide and replace it with a secular National Judiciary based on the values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which Nigeria is signatory, rather than on any bogus alien pseudo-religion that is at odds with modernity.
In a country like ours divided by two mutually antagonistic intolerant alien creeds (Islam, Christianity), secularism is essential to promote the unity required for nationhood. Government involvement in the propagation of these antagonistic alien religions accentuates our religious divide and encourages the bigotry that sometimes erupts in religious violence.
 It is no surprise therefore that the Islamic North where government is heavily involved in religion frequently erupts in violence. The Boko Haram insurrection for an Islamic state has its root in the invidious agitation for Sharia by Northern leaders who should know better than whip up religious sentiments in a multi-religious nation like Naija.
Although today’s northern leaders commonly eulogize the late Northern Premier, Sir Ahmadu Bello, they refuse to learn from his example of de-emphasizing religion in governance in order to promote inclusive equality and unity of all northerners regardless of creed. Politically, the late Sardauna was more powerful than any governor today yet he never imposed the retrogressive limb-amputating, stoning-to-death, misogynistic Sharia, northern Islamists now clamour for.
 Throughout the country government funds are spent brainwashing our children in public schools with the bogus alien dogmas (Christianity & Islam) that demonize and disparage our indigenous African heritage as “pagan”, “heathen”, “idolatry”, “Kafir”; while teaching them to glorify alien races (Jews & Arabs).
With such widespread mis-education that breeds inferiority complex (albeit subconscious), it is no surprise we Africans are developmentally stunted. Meaningful development isn’t just about providing roads, uninterrupted electricity supply or pipe-borne water. It is also about the right cultural orientation that enables us to realize our full potential for greatness as a nation.
This is why a country like Saudi Arabia with all the modern amenities oil money can buy, is not considered developed. They can never hope to become a technological giant like Japan, Germany, USA or South Korea. So long as they prefer to waste their petrodollars trying to prove there is science in the Quran, instead of promoting the civil liberties and intellectual freedom that are indispensable for scientific & technological advancement.
 But then technological advancement isn’t their priority…that’s what we infidels are for. For them it is much more important to go to Al-Jannah (Islamic heaven) and screw virgins, which is what their entire society is structured for. As the largest Black nation with a lot of promise, whom other Africans on the continent and in diaspora should look up to, we cannot afford such ludicrous wet dreams of heavenly sex as our guiding national ethos.
Of the three major races (Caucasians, Mongoloids, Negroids), only we Negroids are yet to produce a developed nation. And it is not unconnected with our cultural subservience to other races. Even countries like Ghana, Namibia, Botswana which are often touted as Africa’s shining stars, are less than mediocre by world standards. Granted that these African nations are much better than a dysfunctional failed nation like Nigeria, but they are still a far cry from where we Black Africans should be given our abundant natural resources.
At independence in 1957, Ghana was better off than South Korea in all major economic indices - GDP, income per capita, literacy rate etc. But today South Korea is a technological giant having leapt from third world to first world, while Ghana even though much richer in natural resources (Gold, Bauxite, Manganese, Cocoa), remains in the mediocre African third world.
As for my Arab wannabe compatriots up here in the North who are completely bereft of what it means to be proudly African; if we are to copy any people, it should not be the religiously intolerant Arabs who are averse to democracy and despite their oil wealth are technologically backward. Arabs have nothing positive to offer we Africans.
It’s the technologically advanced Japanese we should emulate. They retain the essence of their indigenous culture, and with only 120 million people have emerged the world’s second largest economy despite lacking mineral resources and arable land, and being regularly assaulted by natural disasters – earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis.
With its numerous shrines and ancestral deities, the Japanese Shinto religion is quite similar to traditional African spirituality; thereby debunking the misleading canard popular here in Black Africa that we have to abandon our indigenous culture, and mindlessly ape Arabs and Jews in other to “progress”.
On the contrary our cultural roots are indispensable for achieving greatness as a nation. A tree without roots to derive nourishment from the soil cannot grow well. Our future will remain bleak until we proudly embrace our African heritage.

By SR