Nigerian Politics: Religions As Scapegoats By: Abdulrasheed Ibrahim

In this country some Nigerians like engaging in a debate as to
whether Nigeria is a secular state or not. The only time Nigerians
are united is when the Nigerian soccer team is engaged in the
international football competition.

When it comes to any appointment particularly a political one,
it is then you will know which Nigerian is a Northern, Sothern or
Eastern. It is then you will know which Nigerian is a Christian or
a Muslim and as if the traditionalists are not in our midst. When
the argument is hot, the reference will be made to the Section 10
of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as
amended) on the prohibition of state religion which says :

“The Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt
any religion as State Religion”

With this I keep wondering why there is always the gnashing of
teeth when a Christian Governor decided to choose a fellow
Christian as deputy or a Muslim Governor decided to appoint a
fellow Muslim as his deputy if truly Nigeria is a secular state.
Nasir El-Rufai, the Governor of Kaduna State is now in the news for
choosing a Muslim woman as his running mate for the 2019 election.
Before the coming of Governor Akinwumi Ambode as the Governor of
Lagos State, there was a debate that those who have been ruling
Lagos State had been Muslims and as such a Christian must be the
next Governor which actually came to reality. Also very recently
there was also an argument that any parties in the West whose
governorship candidate is not a Christian should be voted against
in 2019 election.

If Nigeria is truly a secular state why must some people be
seriously concerned that a particular candidate for a political
position must be a Christian or a Muslim? One of our problems with
Nigeria is that we place more emphasis on things that are not
necessary. Rather than people being concerned about electing those
who will add value to our life socially and economically when they
get to the position leadership regardless of their religious
affiliation, people begin to raise the dust of controversy as to
why a particular candidate should chose a person that belong to his
religion as his running mate. Is having a candidate whose running
mate is of the same religion or opposite with him guarantee or
assurance of good governance when they get to power?

In Nigerian politics of today ,religion is now a scapegoat in
the sense that a candidate who belongs to a particular and refuses
to pick his running mate from the opposite religion will in most
case attract the outcry and the condemnation of the people from the
other religion .You will hear in some quarters that such act is an
abomination. While some Christians will say the Muslims are trying
to Islamize them or their state, some Muslims will say the
Christians are trying to evangelise or Christianize them or their
state. The irony of this is then that at the end of the day, those
elected leaders who claim to be Christians or Muslims and are sworn
in with their Holy Books when taking the oath of offices but will
never embrace the true tenet of their religions on how good leaders
should behave when they get to the offices. I do not think there is
any religion that encourages its followers in the position of
leadership to embezzle public fund and breach the public trust as
we have been seeing among our politicians in the country. Most of
these leaders at the end of their tenures are found wanting and
arraigned before the court of law to account for their stewardship
while those found quilt are sent to jail.

We should rather be concerned about being led by leaders who are
competent, upright and God fearing rather than promoting religious
hypocrisy. If it is a Muslim/Muslim ticket or a Christian/Christian
that will do us great good and promote peace, unity and
understanding among us, why not settle for it rather than
Christian/Muslim or Muslim/Christian that may not guarantee our
peaceful co-existence. We have had a regime in this country when
the two top most leaders belonged to the same religion and were
able to instilled discipline and patriotism on Nigerians. The
Nigerians were getting it right and imbibing the spirit of
patriotism when suddenly there was regime change and the rest was
history. In the aborted 1993 presidential election, Nigerians
shunned religious bigotry and voted for a Muslim/Muslim ticket as
the President and Vice President of the country before the election
was eventually annulled.

It is what politics was subsequently turned into in this part of
the world that has seemed to make this kind thing impracticable
today. While in the civilised world, people see politics as
carnival where people embrace one another to vote for the
candidates of their choice without any hindrance, but here people
see politics as do and die affairs wherein it does not matter if
politicians would march on the blood of the electorates to get to
power. Another bad way of playing politics in this part of the
world is that you see a politician turning is back against those he
believed did not vote for him by refusing to develop their area or
give them sense of belonging in his government as a mark of
retaliation. A good politician or leader must know how to play
decent politics by give everybody the sense of belonging whether
they voted for him or not as this may even give those who voted
against him change of mind in the subsequent elections.

To me the dust and controversy being generated by the decision
of El-Rufai to have a female Muslim from Southern Kaduna as his
running mate in the next year gubernatorial election is unnecessary
if truly we operate a secular state in Nigeria as that will amount
to nothing but hypocrisy. If in the future another Christian
Governor in that state decides to choose a Christian running mate
nobody should complain or raise an eyebrow. Anywhere we should all
be concerned about having leaders that are competent and reliable
chosen or elected not on religious affiliation but the ability to
deliver and serve people selflessly. Those who are raising the dust
are crying more than the bereaved. In a press release attributed to
the Southern Kaduna Elders Forum and signed by one Rev. Musa
Kokwain, it is stated:

“…It will be selfish of us if we persecute Dr. Hadiza to
alienate her from her ancestral home of Southern Kaduna by denying
her this opportunity particularly because of her faith. When we
pushed for this onerous cause of a united prosperous Gurara State
in 1995, we had the least of worries that we will be confronted
with this petty level of divisiveness nontolerance. If we had
gotten Gurara State will we drive Muslims and traditionalist out of
Gurara State?…As a medical doctor how many of us ask her what was
her religion is before meeting her in hospital ?If we didn’t play
politics or religion with our health why shouldn’t she be a Deputy
Governor if elected? That will be hypocritical. We THE SOUTHERN
KADUNA ELDERS FORUM after careful deliberations hereby endorse the
Deputy Governorship candidacy of our daughter Dr. Hadiza Balarabe
for the 2019 elections.”

In another statement attributed to the Mr. Charles Danladi, the
Executive Chairman of the Sanga Local Government Area of Kaduna
State, he said :

“…The hypocrisy they are now spreading, or about to start
spreading in Kaduna is to use religion to condemn having female in
a position as that of deputy governor .I have seen one even went to
the extent of condemning the Islamic clerics for keeping mute while
El-Rufai picked a female as running mate. Can you imagine! For both
arguments, El-Rufai is out test his popularity haven known that
majority of Kaduna Christians, especially from Southern Kaduna will
not vote for him as they never did before .There is currently a lot
of campaign of calumny against him by Pastors and Christian
religion leaders despite his efforts to unite everybody and make
Kaduna peaceful.”

Since there has not been any rebuttal to the above statements
made by the Reverend and the Chairman calling their assertions fake
, I believe any right thinking person must commend their the
courage of the two gentlemen. I believe if every one of us truly
understands the true essence of religions as preached by those sent
by the Almighty God with those religions,there will not be any need
for the controversy . Religions which ought to be a uniting factor
among people and guide them in all their undertaking have today
been unfortunately bastardized. It is the failure of those who
profess to various religions and refuse to abide by their
principles that is responsible for the sorry state we have found
ourselves. Any wrong doing committed by a person that claims to be
religious even if it is against the principles of that religion is
attributed to the religion rather than the so-called religious
person which is why the religion has become as a scapegoat.

An Americana or Briton may not claimed to be religious as a
Nigerian but with the way each category of these people relate
among themselves in their respective countries ,you will see that
those who claim not be religious have trust in God and understand
Him more than those who claim to be religious. No wonder you will
hear in America that IN GOD WE TRUST. True to this you will hear
the likes of Barack Obama, the former President of America
saying:

“…Part of what makes our country great is that our membership is
based not on what we look like, what our last names are, it’s not
based on where our parents or grandparents came from – or how
recently they arrived – but on adherence to a common creed: that
all of us are created equal.”

A lot of people are still getting it wrong in our midst and that
is why we are not developing and progressing in this country.
Anybody interested in politics or power should know the right thing
to do by joining any of the existing political parties or in the
alternative comply with the stipulated law to register their own
parties and engage in political campaign to be voted into power by
the people. The idea of forming underground organizations to
terrorize people and create confusion in the land does not befit a
nation that is qualified to be called a civilized one. For the sake
of being misunderstand, I am not saying everyone must not be
allowed to be involved or given sense of belonging, but am only
against the attitude of insistence by making religions scapegoats.
We have had time in this country when some people argued that
Nigeria was not progressing or developing because it had not been
ruled by university graduates, but when a PhD holder eventually
ruled this country what did we have?

REMARKABLE PRONOUNCEMENT

“Politics in Nigeria should not be a do or die affair. Anyone
without profession except politics must have nothing to do with
politics in whatever form. Above all let the budding politicians
should leave jobless people who now turn into thugs as supporters
alone, so that more harm will not be done to the electoral
processes.”

Per PAT-ACHOLONU, JSC in Buhari vs. Obasanjo (2005) ALLFWLR (Pt
273) Pg 203

THE SETTLED PRINCIPLE OF LAW

On whether a party who consented to a wrong procedure can
challenge same

“It is settled law that where an irregular procedure is adopted
with the acquiescence of a party,that cannot be a ground of appeal.
Also where a wrong procedure has been followed in filing a process
and no objection was raised by the party that should have objected,
the court is entitled to proceed with the hearing despite the wrong
procedure.”
See Ojiegbe Vs. Okwaranyi (1962) ALL NLR 605; Sonuga Vs. Anadein
(1967) ALL NLR 91; Obajinmi Vs. A-G. of Western Nigeria (1967) ALL
NLR 31; BUHARI Vs. OBASANJO (2005) ALL FWLR (Pt. 273) Pg. 100,
Paras F-G

For more Settled Principles of Law and Remarkable Pronouncements
from our Supreme Court Jurists from 1956-2016, obtain or order for
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