The Marriage of Religion and State in Nigeria

Peter Damilola Adegoke

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 religiousity 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.