Power and fanaticism in Nigeria

SIR: The problem of Nigeria dates back to the colonial era, when the caliphate and the emirates did not want Christian missionaries to come to their own territories.

How could another religion come after they had successfully routed adherents of African Traditional Religion (ATR)? And if you know how the Igbo Christians have been ruthless against adherents of ATR, you know it has nothing to do with Jesus Christ who saw Good Samaritans among the Gentiles.

In Yorubaland, both Christians and Muslims attack adherents of ATR in those days in Osogbo, continually in Iwo, Ibadan, Iseyin, Sagamu, Okitipupa, etc.

Why? Christianity and Islam are territorial religions, imbued with power, and power goes with wealth acquisition by the elite that control it.

Christians and Muslims lie that ATR divinities are God’s rivals, even though they are God’s agents or ministers, as Prof. Emmanuel Bolaji Idowu rightly calls them.

Christianity and Islam are territorial religions, imbued with power, and power goes with wealth acquisition by the elite that control it. Christians and Muslims lie that ATR divinities are God’s rivals, even though they are God’s agents or ministers, as Prof. Emmanuel Bolaji Idowu rightly calls them.

Christians and Muslims call the divinities “gods”, even though the Supreme Being has no diminutive English equivalence of God. Even if the divinities were God’s rivals which they are not, could God not handle His own rivals by Himself? In Yorubaland, the Muslims appeal to people: Ẹbáwadásít’Ọlọ́run – the Christian equivalence of F’owó rẹ yin Ọlórun–use your money to serve God (or is it the pastor?).

No, God who owns the world cannot be a beggar; it is human beings who beg. The main issue, however, is for Christians and Muslims to respect Nigeria’s secularity, and allow Nigeria to be for all Nigerians, irrespective of faith or creed.

We now know that God had nothing to do with the crusade and jihad wars that Christians and Muslims had used and are still using, even in many universities, to cow fellow human beings.

Islam restricts hajj to Muslims who can afford it; why are Nigerian rulers spending public funds for that? Nigeria’s constitution stipulates Nigeria as a secular state, why are the elected politicians politicising religion, and catering for pilgrimages and religious festivals when they cannot cater for the people supposedly put under their care by the Supreme Being? Are people who cannot afford three, even one good meal a day less important than those going on pilgrimage in foreign lands?