RELIGION AND THE NATIONAL CAKE

RELIGION AND THE NATIONAL CAKE

Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua

My experiences in Fatima College, Auchi were very refreshing especially when the Muslim Students asked for permission to build a Mosque in our Catholic School. Then the principal was a Catholic Priest. The School authority considered it a noble idea even though we did not have a separate building for a chapel. We used the multipurpose hall for masses and the regular morning, afternoon and evening prayers. For us Christians, it was good news that our Muslim friends desired a Mosque at their own expense. We did not think of building a Chapel to compete with the Muslims. Rather we assisted the Muslims voluntarily in carrying blocks, fetching water and the required manual labour. It was as if we all grew up in an environment were our parents did not train us to be religious rivals.

Later in life, it would be normal for me to see Muslims contributing even financially to the building of some of our Churches. This dream was realised in my early priestly life. When the Catholic diocese of Auchi was created, the joy of the Otaru of Auchi was manifest in the ceremonies and financial contribution to the reconstruction of the Cathedral. Some Muslim Alumni of Fatima College came out to support the Church in kind and cash. For us, this was no news. It was the normal way to live. In my days in Fatima College, I had a class mate who was also my room mate. We studied together but he would not say his prayers like every devout Muslim would do. We had our first term examination. I passed very well while he failed very well. He was very sad and asked me why he did not pass. I simply told him, “It is because you do not pray”. From that moment, he started going to Mosque to pray as required by Islam. We had the second term examination and both of us passed very well.

What eventually gave my friend a moral conversion was very dramatic. It was on a market day! We came back from school very hungry in the afternoon. We went to the market to buy ingredients to cook. A young girl came from nowhere and gave my friend a slap saying, “Bastard, you think I will not catch you! I will kill you today”! I quickly held my friend and begged that he should not retaliate. He shouted, “O boy! I am not a Christian like you, I cannot turn the other cheek for this stupid girl, leave me to teach her a bitter lesson!” I refused to allow him fight back. Later, the girl realised that she mistook my friend for someone else yet did not apologise. We returned home. I started cooking while he was still very embarrassed and confused. Gradually, he recovered himself and we enjoyed our late lunch laughing over the incident of the “lady gladiator”. I enjoyed the way and manner students teased each other those days, making jokes out of very serious issues! The next day, there was a loud cry not too far away from our house. Tragedy, the girl that slapped my friend was found dead in her mother’s room in the morning! What saved my friend were the testimonies of some people that witnessed the incident in the market.

 

Each of us has a beautiful story to tell about Muslim and Christian relations in our various parts of the world but my experience with Muslim relatives, friends and colleagues in my local environment would today plunge me into “the danger of a single story” (to use the words of Chimamanda Adichie). I have narrated my encounter with so many good Muslims in some of my essays. Among my single stories are my experiences in Mali and Egypt. I stayed in a hotel in Segho, Mali. There every worker was a Muslim. They identified me as a priest because of my clerical wears yet their hospitality was extra-ordinary. You can imagine my amazement that in this same Mali where I saw good Muslims witnessed the dawn of (religious) insurgency that same year. In Cairo, Egypt, the staff who happened to be Muslims in our Hotel arranged a vehicle and a driver to take us round the city. We visited the pyramids and other beautiful places. That same year the (religious) insurgency in Egypt started.

I am trying to reconcile my single stories to the stories narrated by some Christians in the Northern part of Nigeria. Some of these stories are frightening and look like fictions. Other stories especially from our Muslim partners in dialogue appears to be convincing that some Christians and Muslims are allowing themselves to be used as cheap tools by a few privileged people in Nigeria to grab the National cake and positions as if it is Christianity and Islam that are in competition and unhealthy rivalry. I need further help from our Northern Muslim brethren to reconcile these stories with the report that just reached us in the course of writing this essay from Frs. Kelvin Obineche and Lemark Peter, the priests of St. Theresa’s Catholic Church Funtua in Sokoto Diocese on April 1, 2014 that on March 31, 2014 afternoon some armed youths forced their way into the parish compound and destroyed the Church and other buildings alleging that a Christian Corp member insulted their Prophet- Mohammed.  The report continued that a similar scenario had taken place on March 11, 1987 and April 18, 2011. They said that this wreckage is coming just two weeks after the completion of the renovation of the damage of 2011.

Recently, a lot of conversations have been going on between Christians and Muslims. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has had two interactive sessions with Muslims of various sects this year 2014 in January and March. A lot of conversations are also going on in different groups between Christians and Muslims. The level of openness and frankness on the side of Muslims and Christians has reached a point where the divides are able to tell each other what they like and detest in each other.  Some people traced the root of the competition between Christians and Muslims to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The impression is that religious rivalry looks like a policy in the political history of Nigeria. Among the examples cited with statistics is the number of times religious traditions are mentioned in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. According to which the words “Sharia” is mentioned 73 times, “Islamic” 28 times, “Kadi” 13 times and “Customary” 66 times, while the word “Christian” does not exist in the constitution.

Others refer to the discriminations in some States in pilgrimages as if this is the obligation of Federal and State governments. The way and manner Christians and Muslims make demands on government based on what is done for one religion and not done for the other is taken by some people as a basis of religious rivalry. These are only few examples of what appears to be a religious struggle and scrabble for the national cake. This attitude is affecting efficiency in so many sectors of the nation. In appointments, instead of asking if a person is competent, the first question borders on whether the candidate is a Muslim or a Christian and where the person comes from. There is the story of a Senator who is always sleeping at every session but he wakes up occasionally to ask, “Are they insulting my people”? If the answer is “no”, he would continue his slumber. 

A lot of people have advised that Federal and State governments should not interfere with religious institutions and religious issues. If a person in government has the resources to build a Mosque or a Church, because of his or her belief, that is a different story. Religion and the share of the national cake have been identified as an indicator of religious injustice that gives birth to conflicts in Nigeria. Therefore, Religious leaders should be prudent enough to know that as long as the government is involved in religious affairs, religion looses the power to be the voice of the people. Religion should serve as the moral conscience of the government. Government officials should use their religious values to promote justice, human dignity and peaceful coexistence in Nigeria. When they go astray, the religious clerics should have the courage to bring them to the right course. Let us not forget that he who pays the piper dictates the tone. 

Fr. Prof. Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua is the Director of Mission and Dialogue of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Abuja; and Consultor of the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims (C.R.R.M), Vatican City (comonokhua@hotmail.com).