The Marriage
of Religion and State in Nigeria

by

Peter Damilola Adegoke

Olusegun Obasanjo: Nigeria’s President

The struggle for the
separation of religion and state across democratically minded countries has been
subject of debate for ages now and the struggle in Nigeria, the government seems
to be playing Janus face on this serious issue.

Prayers are said in all
schools across the federation from elementary schools to institutions of higher
learning. A man in my neighborhood in Lagos beat his poor kid to death for not
attending a koranic recitation class; nothing substantial has been done on the
case till date. At the end of every presidential speech, it is traditional for
our head of states to state sanctimoniously thus:

“God bless Nigeria, God
bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.

The 36 states governors are
not left out in this display of nonsensical and shameful practice. Nigerians
pray more than any nation in the world, and the country is backward in the field
of science and technology as no nation in the world can grow scientifically and
still maintain high religiosity as the two cannot go together. These prayers
have not in any way prevent our people from abject poverty, corruption and these
prayers have never save them from bad leaders like a governor who brought a
wristwatch of 3 million pounds while his state (Bayelsa) is among the poorest in
the country.

I could be thrown into jail
for this article because our “born-again” president Olusegun Obasanjo sees
anybody who decides to let the outside world know about the true picture of
Nigeria through the print and electronic media as an enemy of the regime; in
fact he attempted to pass a bill to the National Assembly to prevent anybody
from registering protest against the government on the internet but the bill has
been contested by human right activists in the country; When he couldn’t succeed
with this, he decided to use the visit of the American televangelist Richard
Roberts their to the throne of Oral Roberts to launch a bill that will make
homosexual relationships in Nigeria a criminal offence with 5 years jail term
attached to that “crime”.

On Saturday, December 10,
2005 a Sosoliso DC-9 airliner crashed at the Port-Harcourt International Airport
killing 103 passengers and 7 crewmembers onboard. A popular Nigerian female
televangelist, pastor Bimbo Odukoya was among the passengers and she died of
severe burnt. She was among the seven initial survivors, christains all over
Nigeria and across the globe prayed for her but she died barely 24hours later.

The question on the lips of
rational Nigerians is numerous and some asked why a loving God could allow a
woman like that die in such a painful way. ‘Who Kills, God or Devil?,’ Loyola
Jesuit College, Abuja, a catholic educational high school also lost about 62
pupils in the crash and a priest.  Why couldn’t God save these innocent
children?

Priests, pastors, bishops
and theologians went into deep scripture-twisting to try to explain away this
crash; some say the crash was an action of God to glorify himself while others
says that the crash was coursed by the devil. I asked a friend of mine who
happens to be a peddler of such intellectual garbage the following question:

“ If I am a father and of 5
children and they are in an inferno; if I have a fire extinguisher with me and I
refuse to put out the fire, what will people say about me?”

My friend shouted,
“infanticide” I went on to ask him what his feeling would be if I later told him
that I allowed my kids to burn to death in order to glorify myself, what is
action would be?

He responded furiously that
if I should do that that he would make sure I am committed to jail for life. I
asked him what if God is the father who allowed his children to burn to death in
a plane inferno.  My friend kept mute.

Zamfara state some years
back adopted the Islamic Sharia Law as the legal code of the state contrary to
the constitution of Nigeria of the republic while Nigeria is supposed to be a
secular state constitutionally. You can never become a president, governor,
senator, ministers or hold any political office without swearing to an oath that
end with “ So help me God”. Nigeria’s National Pledge goes thus:

“I pledge to Nigeria my
country,

To be loyal and honest,

To serve Nigeria with all
my strength,

To defend her unity,

To uphold her honour and
glory,

So help me God.”

If an atheist, agnostic,
humanist or a freethinker wish to run for a political office and he refuse to
swear to that oath which is part of the constitutional requirement then he
better not think about going for such post as he will not be recognized because
he must swear to that oath before he could be sworn in.

This display of religious
hypocrisy is part of our political life style in a nation that is said to be the
giant of Africa. If Africa must come out her backwardness then she must shun
religion and embrace science as a tool for national development. Government
spend large sum of money to sponsor thousands of pilgrims to Israel and Mecca
annually with state fund; this wasteful practice must stop, as not all Nigerians
are religious.

Separate Religion from
State in Nigeria and Africa shall be save.

© February 21, 2006
Peter Adegoke is the president of the National Association of Philosophy
Students of the University of Ibadan and he is also the founding president of
the Ibadan University Humanist Society.