Nigeria and the vagaries of religion

First, a tribute. Chief Dan Agbese, accomplished journalist and writer, who has just passed on is being showered with well-deserved panegyrics from several quarters. The impact of his superlative writing skill on me was such that I wanted to write on his liquid, manicured and profound articles as my Long Essay at the University of Benin, Benin City. My supervisor, however, turned it down as she felt that the subject was narrow. But, somehow, I had to find a way to work on a personality who had become a stubborn force in the process of choosing my own career. Four decades after, I still hope that I’ve not been a poor student of this legend. Yesterday, as I pulled out my bachelor’s degree project, “Tone and Diction in Selected Editions of Newswatch Magazine”, from my bookshelf, it took on a new meaning. The one who inspired it and who had sufficiently demonstrated that the written word could actually have a robust life of its own had gone the way of all flesh. Good night, Sir!

Now, religion. Or, better still, where it has led the country; what it’s up to here and how to make it work optimally for us all. To be clear, God and religion are not one and the same. The former is the supreme being seen by many as the creator and ultimate controller of all things. Even some of those who spend their entire lives denying his very existence are known to have cried for his help at the point of death. The mystery of his relevance and sovereignty is that compelling. And the latter represents the ways human beings attempt to know and serve him.

All through the ages, problems show up as people grapple with the arduous tasks of trying to understand the almighty and his words for themselves and also communicating same to others. Scriptures contained in the Bible and Quran, for instance, have remained unchanged for centuries – a major proof of their immutability and sanctity, at least in the estimation of their believers. But not so for their interpretations. Transcendental meanings are sometimes attributed to what is recorded in black and white. That way, whole denominations have grown out of existing establishments. Virtually all religious schisms are products of irreconcilable differences emanating from how individuals and groups view what they consider to be holy teachings. The conflicts produced by religions are, therefore, both intra and inter and their scopes can indeed be complicated.

The challenge is never with God. And no apologies for that submission. It is, instead, with the human agents who go into the profession of speaking on his behalf with their own prejudices and other shortcomings. It’s difficult to convince me that the men and women who continually spew hate, bloodletting, chaos and doom from their pulpits are true representatives of the God of love and mercy. That such persons keep growing more confident in their dark trade in this country and in this dispensation indicates assured collective destruction if nothing is done to stem the tide.

In Nigeria, Christianity and Islam, two faiths that lay claims to God’s direct commandments, have since pushed the traditional modes of worship to the background. Perhaps, the ways our forefathers sought to reach and please God were inferior to these two religions and could simply not withstand their crusading powers. Whatever the case, the Nigerian population is now largely distributed among both entrants. Nothing to worry about, ordinarily. But these aren’t the best of times.

Nigeria’s current most daunting predicament – insecurity – is traceable to Boko Haram, a group of bloodthirsty people who hid behind their own interpretation of religious dictates to enter and disrupt public consciousness. It wasn’t hard for the discerning to see murderous criminality through their façade from the beginning. It’s on record that Christians and churches were their initial targets. Sadly, it was only a matter of time before everyone became unsafe. The other terrorists and bandits who came after them only helped in further dragging the name of a religion literally translated as peace into the mud.

But, make no mistake! Violence and bloodshed are not synonymous with Islam. The history of Christianity too isn’t spotless. From the 12th Century to the 19th, the Inquisitions – Medieval, Portuguese, Spanish and Roman – saw the torture and extermination of hundreds of thousands of people considered to be heretics and non-believers. Just imagine such horrors perpetrated in the name of Jesus who had declared that he wasn’t here to condemn the world but to save it! So, one responsibility before us is to checkmate the ‘holy’ energisers of wickedness in our midst. We shouldn’t underrate the greater havoc and pain they’re capable of causing.

Robert Greene and Joost Elffers’ 1999 bestseller, The 48 Laws of Power, provides a window into the psyche of these merchants of morbidity. Law 27 – Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cult-like Following – reads in part: “Having a large following opens up all sorts of possibilities for deception; not only will your followers worship you, they will defend you from your enemies and will voluntarily take on the work of enticing others to join your fledgling cult. This kind of power will lift you to another realm. You will no longer have to struggle or use subterfuge to enforce your will. You are adored and can do no wrong…. As humans, we have a desperate need to believe in something, anything. This makes us eminently gullible. We simply cannot endure long periods of doubt, or of the emptiness that comes from a lack of something to believe in.…

“Always in a rush to believe in something, we will manufacture saints and faiths out of nothing.… The great European charlatans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries mastered the art of cult-making. They lived, as we do now, in a time of transformation. Organised religion was on the wane, science on the rise. People were desperate to rally round a new cause or faith. The charlatans had begun by peddling health elixirs and alchemic shortcuts to wealth.”

There’s no doubt that the army of misguided and helpless Nigerians is swelling. Vulnerable, willing recruits everywhere. Leaving them as ready preys can only further jeopardise the nation’s safety and prosperity. One urgent duty is to identify our common foes, particularly those who callously utilise God’s name, shame and then disarm them by all means. Religion mustn’t continue to neutralise our capacity for cohesion.

Ekpe, PhD, is a member of THISDAY editorial board.