National Association of Philosophy Students (Nigeria)

Religious Laws and the Secularism of the Nigerian State
by
Peter Adegoke

It is not uncommon these days to watch on local and foreign media grotesque pictures of dismembered and bombed bodies of innocent civilians by those who felt they are doing their god the favour of punishing infidels and these evil is spreading like wild fires around the globe. The resultant effect of these religious inspired crises is phenomena as people may not necessarily killed if you insult their mother, country, and other focus of endearment but they would likely killed thousands if their God is insulted or is believed to have been slighted by others.

It is as a result of these hostilities that some people have agitated for the separation of religion and state and religious injunctions should be made private while the state is common to us all and should not be used as an instrument for the propagation of a particular faith whether such faith is in the majority or otherwise.

The separation of church and state is a political doctrine which states that the institutions of the state or national government should be kept separate from those of religious institutions. The concept has been a topic of political debate throughout history. The term separation of mosque and state is sometimes used in context when referring to an Islamic or Muslim-majority country, separation of synagogue and state is sometimes used in context when referring to Israel, etc. These substitute terms are often used facetiously (Wikipedia Encyclopedia).

In 1802 Thomas Jefferson wrote to a group of Baptists known as the Danbury Baptists, in that letter he quoted the First Ammendment of the United States Constitution,, he writes thus: “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.” The last phrase of Thomas Jefferson in this quote from the Letter to the Danbury Baptists (1802), led to the formation of that technical term used by advocate of separation of church and state in the United States.

The war between advocates of secularism and the adherents have raged for long in the history of the world. There was a time when the popes decide the fate and faith of Europe with puppet emperors and kings in place as figure-head rulers. These periods were known by some as the Dark Ages, at that time the books to be read was determined by the church. Many people were killed for attempting to translate the bible into the original tongues of the laymen. In 1559, Pope Paul IV began compiling the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (the Index of Forbidden Books), the list of books deemed to have blasphemous or profane content. Over 40,000 titles, including the total out put of Balzac, Dumas, Stendhal, and Alberto Moravia, were included. The Index continued till 1966 when the catholic church stopped publishing, so many books were placed on the index of forbidden books including some books used in catholic and Protestants seminaries today. Many people were burn at stake for heresies, freedom of speech and thought which is the hallmark of modern democracy was unheard of in those days. Witches were killed as ordered by Exodus 22:18 Exodus 22:18 “Suffer not a witch to live” and by this singular scriptural pronouncement, many people were killed.

This action of religion trying to infringe on the civil and secular life of the society is not only peculiar to the Catholic Church, the protestant were also not left out. John Calvin killed his friend for publishing a book which challenges his doctrine of predestination. Martin Luther orders the Germans to kill the Jews for their evil against Jesus, it is a pity that apart form the last pope who came out to apologize for the evil done by the church in those age of ignorance, the Lutheran and the Calvinist are yet to come out and apologize to the world about the evil of their founders, instead they have gone ahead to rewrite history and to paint their leaders as saints and perfect figures of absolute emulations.

Islam is the chief culprit of this evil and Islam does not see any difference between the mosque and the state, in fact the Muslims are expected to be under the Sharia law and they disdained any form of civil legal codes. It is sheer hypocrisy and ignorance to assume that the Muslims advocating to be governed by the Sharia laws instead of the civil laws are doing so from extremist point of view. Every true Muslim is expected to be under the Sharia law, this belief led to the agitation by some among their ranks for the eradication of all forms of western legal systems for a true Islamic theocracy where the word of Allah would be supreme.

In Nigeria, the constitution declares the nation as a secular state but the people handling the affairs of the state seem to be blind to that fact, not too long ago, the governor of Zamfara State, a north western stat in Nigeria adopted the Sharia law, alcohol was banned and men were coerced to grow beard. The secularity of the constitutions of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has been questioned by some people. One of the arguments used to argue against the claim to the secularism of the Nigerian constitution is the fact that right in the Nigerian Constitution, public holders, the president, governors, senate presidents and assembly men are expected to take oaths ending with an appeal to God. But the God referred to by that constitution is not clearly stated hence people have injected their own God into the constitution. The first stanza of the Nigerian National anthem has no mention of a divine entity but the second stanza neutralizes the secularism of the Anthem, Our national pledge of allegiance ends with “…so help me God”.

Some people might think see no harm in God been mentioned in the constitution or in state affairs but I would like to say that secularism is that system of belief that allow religion to be kept privately without forcing your won idea of God on others. If God and religious themes are allowed in public places and government organs then we should prepare for another holocaust, the United States learnt their lessons in the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre.

Let me use a case in point here, in the Christian scripture the punishment for stealing an ox is given in Exodus 22:1 “If a man shall steal an ox, and kill it or sell it; he shall return five oxen, and four sheep for a sheep.” But under the Sharia law, the hand(s) of the thief must be cut off. A case in point is apt here, shortly after the introduction of the Sharia in Zamfara; Mr. Bello Jangedi had his right hand chopped off for stealing a cow. If we were to allow religious themes in our public live would it be wrong for a Muslim to cut off the hands of thieves and stone adulterers to death? I do not think so because he is doing the bidding of his God as stated in his sacred book.

The Government uses public funds to sponsor religious activities which does not speaking well of a democracy, pilgrimages were sponsored for the two main religions but adherents of other faiths and believes are not entitled to state funding. Why can’t the government sponsored traditional sacrifices to appease the gods al the villages and towns in some part of the countries where african traditional religions are been practiced, pilgrimages to the Arochukwu shrine, the Osun Osogbo Groove and Ile-Ife should be sponsored by government too if the Christian pilgrimages to Mecca and Jerusalem should be fully or partly sponsored by our government.

Nigeria as a state should learn to promote secularism in governance, as any attempt to do otherwise would mean that the nation would disintegrate to Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia or to Christianity under the inquisitions. Weeks after circulating its “Ramadan Messages”,Kano State governor have been under strong criticism. One of such messages urges Muslims never to consider Christians as friends. “He among you who taketh them (Christians) as friends is one of them”, it warned. This is coming out from the mouth of a state of a country which is expected to be secular according to its constitution. Christians in the state condemned the utterance of governor Shekarau but I agree with the words of Ibrahim Garba, Kano State Commissioner for information, who responded that the state government is not promoting religious disharmony but in his words: As Muslims, we have no other book to promote than the Holy Quran. The verses we sponsored t be published in newspapers are Quranic verses; so, I see nothing wrong in propagating such verses”, Garba stressed. [Culled from TELL, October 30, 2006]

I see no reason why people should blame Shekarau and his government since they were merely propagating what is inside their Quran, anybody who accuses them of fundamentalism is only trying to deny the obvious. Describing the acts of these persons as extremism is akin to trying to deny the fact that these injunctions were not part of their holy book. In an interview titled “One Brave Woman vs. Religious Fundamentalism published in Free Inquiry (Winter 1998-1999), Taslima Nasrin spoke thus:

“I don’t find any difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalists. I believe religion is the root, and from the root fundamentalism grows as a poisonous stem, If we remove fundamentalism and keep religion, then one day or another fundamentalism will grow again, I need to say that because some liberals always defend Islam and blame fundamentalists for creating problems. But Islam itself oppresses women. Islam itself doesn’t permit democracy and it violates human rights.”

I think Shekarau and Ibrahim are referring to this verse of the Quran:

Malik Translation: “O believers!  Do not make intimate friendships with any but with your own people. The unbelievers will not miss any opportunity to corrupt you. They desire nothing but your destruction: their malice has become evident from what they say; and what they conceal in their hearts is far worse. We have made Our revelations plain to you, if you do want to comprehend”. [Sura 3. Al-ilmran Ayah 118] (Quran 3: 118)

Who would read this verse of the Quran without hating and desiring to bomb the World Trade Centre? There is no where in the world where fundamentalism under the guise of theocracy is allowed to subjugate the secularism of the state where there wouldn’t be terrorism or human right abuses on others especially the minorities. The same is true of the Christian scripture where Paul asked believers not to befriend unbelievers.
“Beye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” (II Cor. 6:14) Some theologians have tried to explain away this verse, but the two words in this verse “unequally yoked” and “unbelievers” could best be understood in their original rendering in Greek. The word unequally yoked together with, is derived from the Greek word τεροζυγέ̔
(het-er-od-zoog-eh'-o) and it means “associate discordantly”. The second word “unbeliever” is from the Greek word “ἄπιστος” (ap'-is-tos), it is a negative particle and it means ‘disbelieving, that is, without Christian faith (specifically a heathen), faithless, infidel, unbeliever (-ing). (Exegesis of these two terms are taken from the Strong Exhaustive Concordance).

 

These verses from the bible and the Quran leaves us with no option but to keep religion away from political affairs as religion can never serve as cohesive materials to bind the society together. All canonical religions strive to win the control of the populace by proselytizing and if we do not want the resurgence of the Zango Katarf crisis of 1992, the Kano riots of 1991, the Kafanchan uprising of 1982 and the Ahmadu Bello University crisis of 1979, then government should stop sponsoring religious activities, citing of churches and mosques in government house would not bring us together it would only announce the supremacy of some religion over the other thereby breading unhealthy rivalry and rancor. Government must desist from
promoting religion as beliefs and religions are private.

 

Even people of similar faith differ in their interpretation of about the will of their God(s), a protestant will not like the citing of Mary Shrine in government house, while the Jehovah witnesses do not see any reason to worship Jehovah with those others which they regularly referred to as “apostates”, the Jehovah witnesses and the Adventists belief and teaches that the Pope is the Anti-Christ. The Sunni muslims belief that the Ahmadiyyahs are infidels because the Ahmadis belief that another  prophet came after Mohammed, the other muslims belief this to be the height of blasphemy as their scripture teaches them that Mohammed is the last and chief of the prophets. In fact to worship on Sunday is a sin to the Seven Days Adventists and other Sabbath observers.

 

Hence, to claim that state sponsorship and endorsement of religion, through holy pilgrimages, building of religious structures in public institutions, taking oaths with religious themes, including religious themes in public documents and other para-religious practices would promote peace and order in the society is to distort history, as there as never been any society govern peacefully for a decade by religious laws.

 

I am advocating for a secular Nigeria, where a southerner can contest and win election in the north and a northerner can be the governor of Anambra State, this can only happen if government promote secularism and if public officers are made to realize the fact that the State is not a private property to be use to promote ones selfish interest. I am suggesting that the ‘… So help me God’ which end the Nigerian National Pledge be removed and that Government should stop supporting building of National Church and National Mosque as there is nothing like national church because Deeper Life Church members, Jehovah Witnesses, Seven Days Adventists, and some other Christian sects will never agree to worship there with others. A true Catholic will never accept Holy Communion from a protestant priest likewise would a true Adventists, then why disturbing ourselves and why the wastage of scarce resources.

Let us separate religion from state affairs in Nigeria!

 

©Peter Adegoke, the National President of the National Association of Philosophy Students and the Co-Chair of the Transhumanist Students Network, USA.