A National Own Goal?

Religion has been a recurring theme in party politics and elections in Nigeria. The 2023 general election was no different. The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) chose to field a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket—a decision that had precipitated religious anxiety in the polity and threatened to upset Nigeria’s ‘delicate balance’. Before the presidential election, Olu Fasan, a political economist, writer and analyst, had argued in Vanguard that APC’s same-religion ticket was an affront against Christian faithfuls who constitute a significant voting bloc in the South. I will go even further to submit that APC’s same-faith ticket, which ‘won’ under INEC’s massive logistics and technical issues, portends a likely implosion and could be interpreted as a religious war against other religious groups in Nigeria. With such an unpopular ‘win’ at the presidential poll, consequences could be dire for the country and Nigerians at home and abroad.

RELIGIOUS AS MUCH AS POLITICAL

Historically, monarchs derived legitimacy from religion. Religious figures sanctioned the monarch’s reign in order to ensure the community’s devotion. In some African societies, monarchs were next to the Gods. In Europe, it was similar. The Divine Rights of Kings sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church guaranteed monarchical absolutism i.e. monarchs wielding power as they pleased. The Age of Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries put a stop to monarchical absolutism, severing ties between state power and religion—ushering in state supremacy, republicanism, secularism and humanism in Europe.

Nigeria’s socio-political development has been antithetical to trends across the globe. Here, religion has neither been severed from state power, nor has it bound politics for greater good. The fact that Nigeria is a multi-religious society makes the race for state power among religious groups inevitable. In fact, it is not an overstatement to say that religion was layered into the foundations of Nigeria’s nationhood. Islam and Christianity have both made strong imprints on the country’s demography since their spread in the 1800s, reducing the influence of indigenous spiritual systems to the periphery.

Speaking on the relationship between religion and politics in Nigeria, Tunde Odunlade, curator and director of Tunde Odunlade Arts and Culture Connexions, voiced his disdain of religion as a factor in determining Nigeria’s next leader.

Those who are against APC’s Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket may have their reasons. It does not matter to me Muslim or Christian, Christian-Christian, Muslim-Muslim, Muslim-Christian, Christian-Muslim. What matters is what merit do they have? What love of the country do they have at heart? What service are they going to give? What government are they going to form that will move the country forward?

Odunlade, aged 68, went on to stress the complementarity of religion and politics and how both could help each other.

Politics is the way by which people are ruled, by which some decisions that people make -best known to them- are applicable to other individuals. Religion can help politics if religion were to be playing the role it is supposed to play which is a way in which people are taught, or people’s minds are put to understanding that you didn’t just come to this world. There is something that goes beyond you as an individual which is where godliness comes. So, religion becomes a medium through which you seek spirituality and which you can use prophetically to help politics.

Odunlade would liken religion and politics to two parallel lines that must not clash. And to those who then wish to see a clash between them, he posits that ‘Those are people I call aríjẹníbimọ̀dàrú, those who get their booty from confusion…If we allow religion and politics to clash, everybody will lose at the end of the day.’

This being granted, one might expect more vocal dissent from religious groups against the ruling party’s same-religion presidential ticket and ‘win’. Surprisingly, many prominent Christian groups have been silent. Perhaps APC’s same-religion presidency had been presumed a bait to provoke Christians. Perhaps in a bid to avoid reducing the presidential election into religious crusade vs. religious jihad, Nigerians have adopted silence as a golden tactic. This silence however, is no mark of complicity or weakness. The stance of Christian institutions on APC’s same-religion ticket and ‘win’ is becoming more pronounced as election draws to a close. Even until now, with APC’s presidential ‘win’, no formal statements have been issued by the Christian Association of Nigeria and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria.

Subscribe to our free newsletter

You're in — welcome to The Republic

Complete your onboarding

Read

Connect

Apps

More

Read

Connect

Apps

More

A National Own Goal?

RELIGIOUS AS MUCH AS POLITICAL

You've Reached Your Limit of Free Reading.

Ad-free reading experience

Unlimited access to exclusive archives

In-Depth Deep-Dive Reporting

You've Reached Your Limit of Free Reading.

Ad-free reading experience

Unlimited access to exclusive archives

In-Depth Deep-Dive Reporting

Comments

SHOP THE REPUBLIC

Related Stories

There Is Too Much Ideology in Nigerian Politics

Does Nigeria Need 36 States?

Kidnapped From the House of God

What Endures in Borno Are the People

The Bombing That Changed Abuja Forever