WHERE IS NIREC?

WHERE IS NIREC?

Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua

Many post graduate students who are researching on Inter-religious dialogue have visited our office in the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Abuja to ask questions about the Nigeria Inter-religious Council (NIREC). Among the questions asked are whether the Council is on recess in the face of the terrorist activities in Nigeria. They want to know how the statements of NIREC are implemented in concrete situations. They wonder if there is any need for another committee outside NIREC to dialogue with Boko Haram. We often refer the researchers to NIREC office, the media reports and internet. This however calls for the need for NIREC to be made visible at the state level and be encouraged by the state governors. 

In the Daily Trust of 22 June 2008, Salisu Na’inna Dambatta reported that “The Nigeria Inter Religious Council (NIREC) came into being after the dawn of democracy in 1999 to serve as a platform for high-level dialogue between the leaders of Christians and Muslims in the country, thereby promoting public good. The Council is designed to promote understanding, appreciation of one another and the generation of mutual respect between Christians and Muslims. It is made up of 50 members, 25 from the Christian side and the balance from the side of Muslims”. NIREC is co-chaired by the Sultan of Sokoto and president-general of the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) and the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). 

NIREC has been known to be very active in addressing the challenges of violence not only in Nigeria but even in neighbouring countries like Ivory Coast. Among many other issues on the agenda of NIREC are freedom of religion and credible elections in a peaceful atmosphere. The Nigeria Observer, Tuesday, October 30, 2012 reported that the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC), has advised Nigerians to disregard threats by anyone in the country, meant to intimidate them out of their places of abode. However, the increase in terrorism in the country appears to prove NIREC wrong. The report of Punch in October 8, 2012 by Waheed Bakare indicates how much the people are expecting from NIREC. Sha’afi urged the leadership of the Nigeria Inter Religious Council to curb religious violence and ensure that there is peaceful co-existence between Muslims and Christians in the country.   He said that “the leadership of NIREC should be blamed for the perennial religious violence in the country. It is a minus for them and it is an indication that we are not being well led”. He suggested that if NIREC is not able to assist in stopping terrorism in the country, then government should look beyond it. 

We should not forget that there are some indications that NIREC is working. Abdulwahab Abdulah reported in the Vanguard of December 9, 2011 that NIREC advocates death penalty “for anyone found guilty of killing innocent citizen under pretence of belonging to any group in the country”. This was a statement issued at the end of its two-day meeting in Ilorin, Kwara State.  It was reported in the Punch of May 23, 2012 that the President-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, and the current national president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor led a delegation of some members of NIREC to meet with President Goodluck Jonathan in continuation of the Federal Government’s bid to find a lasting solution to the violence by the Islamic sect, Boko Haram. In that meeting, NIREC declared: “we want all the people in this country to know that we are together in this boat and the boat should not be rocked and we should do everything possible to live harmoniously together because if God had wished, he would have made us a monolithic nation. The plurality of this country is strength and it should be made to be so.”

The report of Premium times of Thursday, November 29, 2012 on the National Executive Council Meeting of CAN in Awka, Anambra State calls for serious reflection. The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor was reported to have said: “We at CAN are strongly considering pressing charges against the Boko Haram sect for crimes committed against Christians at the International Criminal Court and we will commence soon.” “The Federal Government should designate the Boko Haram sect as a foreign terrorist group”. He “called on the governors of the 19 Northern States to come together and hold a meeting to know the fate of the people who are being killed in the North” to avoid a reprisal attack. This statement from the co-chairman of NIREC may be interpreted as a clarion call for more serious action. The government was very wise in encouraging and supporting the Inter-religious council that would cultivate the culture of respect for human dignity and religious freedom by:

• Monitoring and identifying potential hot spots for brewing religious intolerance and violence.
• Preventing and managing Conflict.
• Supporting people that are marginalized because of their religious identity through advocacy and capacity building.
• Advising and empowering for the provision of legal protection for those suffering from religiously motivated violence.
• Investigating and reporting on religious tension to legitimate organs of government for pro-active measures.
• Working out strategies for collaboration in the support of human dignity and for freedom of religion.

Terrorism in Nigeria is a global embarrassment. In the last colloquium we had in the Vatican City, Rome, on November 19-21, 2012 some of our Muslim colleagues from Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran were worried about the terrorism in Nigeria. The action coupled with other challenges of Nigeria is really giving the nation a name that Nigeria does not deserve. If the Christians and the Muslims in Nigeria can not come together to enquire through sincere and open dialogue what the terrorists are saying, no court in the entire universe may solve this problem.

It will be wonderful if the leadership of NIREC can sincerely come together more often than ever given the present situation of the nation and look inward without foreign intervention to see if they can identify the sponsors of the terrorists group for dialogue. The government needs both the Christians and the Muslims to solve this puzzle which should not be seen as a conflict between Christianity and Islam. This is a challenge for NIREC to be more united in executing its programmes beyond statements to actualizing its vision, aim and specific objectives. NIREC must strive to reclaim the national unity and peace that can make Nigeria once more a home instead of a battle field.

WHAT JESUS DID FOR A TERRORIST

Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua

The character of a person is moderated by environment. This sometimes gives a limited and fixated horizon. Some people grow with manipulated ideas that cloud truth and values that could enhance life. Sometimes, people obey customs and traditions to such an extent that one wonders whether culture is a creation of the human person or the other way round.  In the past, human beings grow in cultural and religious milieus that do not tolerate questions. Some people find themselves doing unreasonable things in obedience to the customs of the land. In the past, people have died in circumstances that were dictated by the gods and deities. The story of Lesley Hazleton about Abd al-Muttalib (ca. 570 AD) is understood in this context.

Hazleton has reported on the Middle East from Jerusalem for more than a dozen years. She got this story from the writings of Ibn-Ishaq and al-Tabari. She narrated this in her book, “The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad (New York, Riverhead Books, 2013).  Abd al-Muttalib had made a vow which demanded the sacrifice of one of his ten sons to Hubal. To decide who to sacrifice, he needed to consult the totemic icon of the Quraysh tribe: the sacred stone of Hubal, which loomed alongside the Kaaba and acted as a kind of consecration stone. Hubal expressed the will of God – al-Lah, the high one, the great lord of the sanctuary, who was so remote and mysterious that he could be consulted only through intermediaries. Hubal spoke through arrows (Lesley Hazleton, page.15). There were ten arrows, each inscribed with the name of the ten sons. The arrow that pointed toward Hubal was the one marked with the name of Abd al-Muttalib’s youngest and favourite son, Abdullah.

The father was not happy and so needed another opinion. The option left was to consult a Kahin (seer). They consulted the Kahina, the priestess in the oasis of Medina. The spirits that spoke through her were those of the Khazraj. She went into her trance and thereafter asked: What was the customary amount Meccans paid in blood money, the compensation for taking a man’s life? Ten camels, they replied. Go back to your country, she said, bring out the young man and ten camels in front of your sacred stone, and cast the arrows anew. If they fall a second time against the young man, add ten more camels to your pledge and do it again. If they fall against him again, then add more camels and do it yet again. Keep adding camels in this manner until your god is satisfied and accepts the camel in lieu of the young man. They did as she had said, adding ten camels with every throw of the arrows against Abdullah. Time and again, the oracle ruled against him, finally, accepting the substitution only when one hundred camels had been offered (Lesley Hazleton, pages 17-18). This indicated the worth of the life of a person. Abd al-Muttalib celebrated the life of his son Abdullah who would latter be the father of the Prophet of Islam.

Akin to the story narrated by Lesley Hazleton, the life of every human being is so sacred that any attempt to destroy it would amount to fighting God the author of life. In Nigeria and elsewhere, millions of innocent human beings have been slaughtered and killed in the name of religion. This contradicts the very essence of God who is love, merciful and compassionate. The terrorist operation in the world today has made religion a dreaded phenomenon with an attendant question, if the concept “religion of peace” exists in practise. That the terrorists actually think they are fighting for God further justify this question. Jerry Rassamni falls into this group. He narrated his experience as an ex- militant in his book, “From Jihad to Jesus: An Ex-Militant’s journey of Faith. He was born in Liberia, West Africa, of Lebanese parents who were Druze Muslims. The Druze is a small monotheistic group that was founded out of Ismaili branch of Shi’a Islam by Al Hakim, the sixth Fatimid caliph (AD 996-1021). Even as a nominal Muslim, he grew up believing that his faith was the only way of salvation and that everyone not believing it was doomed to death and hell.

Later, his parents decided that his mother should move the children to Lebanon, their ancestral land, so that he and his siblings could attend school there (Jerry Rassamni, page 6). In Lebanon, Rassamni became a full blown militant and terrorist.  His mother found it difficult to control him and his brother.  Jerry says, “We were the product of our surroundings. Filled with hatred, we became desensitised to violence and death. I saw dead men lying on the street in pools of their own blood, no better than dogs. I saw the banality of evil that we each are capable of. I saw the dark hearts of humankind. I saw the darkness in my own soul and it was changed by the horror of it (Jerry Rassamni, page 12).  Jerry became more angry, ruthless, and fearless. He bore arms in his jihad to defend his people against the infidels”. His code name was Astro. He became addicted not to drugs but to gun powder, AK47 assault riffle, B7 (RBG) antitank, B10 mounted artillery, grenade, land mine, sniper rifle and a hand gun (Jerry Rassamni, page 9). At a point, he asked himself: “Why have we become instruments of darkness? Where did we lose our humanity? Why have we become worse than beasts in the jungle? At least beasts kill to eat, but a human kills to satisfy his hatred and thirst for blood” (Jerry Rassamni, page 12).

His mother had to take him away from Lebanon. While in Houston, Texas, he met Jennifer who convinced him to attend Bible lessons even if he would not want to be a Christian. He accepted but with the hope of using the opportunity to find errors in the Bible to use against Christians. The truth he encountered rather changed his orientation to life. He encountered the truth that Jesus is the true peace of the world. Jesus demonstrated his perfect and unconditional love by not raising arms or killing any single human being. Even as a Muslim, Rassamni was not exposed to the true Islam that promotes peace. The only Islam he knew was a call to fight and become a martyr. He discovered haven read the Bible that most people take inherited beliefs at face-value and allow them to form who they are” (Jerry Rassamni, page 2).  For the militant Rassamni, it was either you accept Islam or you die. He said, “I could have lived and died as a slave to ideas I had cherished much of my life, if, like Pilate, I had not taken the time to look beneath the surface of those beliefs. Thankfully, I chose to examine the evidence in search of the truth.”  

This search for truth is what the world today needs in dialogue. This search should not be limited only to the sacred books of our religion. We need to be objective and rational in all forms of dialogue that must point to the value and dignity of the human person. Like Jerry Rassamni, we need the courage to think freely, unencumbered by our traditions and idealism. He confessed: “What I saw changed me forever. I now know that I was once deceived into looking within for answers and redemption, but I am now redeemed into looking at Him who formed me and who knew me before He laid the foundation of the world” (Jerry Rassamni, page 3). 

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