Coronavirus, the Death of Religion and the Resurrection of Science

Over the last decade, respect for religion has gradually diminished in Nigeria, not only among atheists but also among the wider public. Discontent towards religion is fuelled by many factors including the campaign of Boko Haram, continued revelations of perfidy by religious leaders, and the saturation of the public sphere with ideas directly challenging the previously appropriated monopoly and gate-keeping of the clerical class. Rapidly rising internet penetration in Nigeria has fostered the emergence of new discursive spaces and a very different set of ideas that depart from deeply inscribed traditional norms, religious beliefs, and cultural identities. Reportedly, access to the internet in Nigeria grew rapidly from 0.06 per cent in 2000 to 42 per cent in 2017. The boom in internet access created safe spaces for religion-critical communities to discuss subjects that would, more likely, have been censored by religious clerics in the pre-internet public sphere. In a recent study ‘Social Media and the Rise of Atheism in Northern Nigeria: Causes, Consequences and Recommendations’, Aisar Salihu Musa argues that the birth of social media and modern technologies gave atheists the freedom to actively organize into associations such as the Atheist Society of Nigeria, Northern Nigeria Humanist Association and the Nigerian Secular Society. There is no contention over the fact that the proliferation of social media gave rise to the accessibility of information that sometimes breeds religious skepticism in young Muslims’ minds. Religious scholars are aware of how social media threatens their claims to authority, especially in an age where young Muslims are beginning to embrace an autodidactic mode of learning. Perhaps, the realization of this gradual erosion of power to guard the minds of young Muslims against the accommodation of atheist and non-religious thoughts explains why religious clerics are now more engaged with the internet and the new media.