Religion And Tribal Persuasions In The Geopolitics of Nigeria: The Thrusts And The Storm
Taiye Olaniyi
Chief Obafemi Awolowo's assertion and the description of Nigeria as "A geographical expression" manifests in time past, now, and the future in tilts and thrusts toward the religious and tribal persuasions of the peoples in places and the political life of the people.
Every aspect of the phenomenon in Nigeria usually reflects both the religious and tribal affiliations and enunciations of the peoples in places and the carryover of such into their political trends.
The traditional religions of average Nigerians did arise from the interplay of a man with the environment, the dictates of natural laws, the geographic features, and how many such have dimensional meanings with some that became apotheosized as deities of worship.
As in many sociocultural geographic areas deities and ancestral spirits are revered and invoked as means of accessing the path of gods of their understanding, so also certain phenomena of life are demonized as being the manifestations of tradoreligious beliefs, lives, and living.
So, every tribe and ethnic configuration partake in rituals and feelings including the pride in such religious dispositions underlined by the sociocultural ethical values of the peoples in places.
The advents of Christianity especially in southern Nigeria, the fringes and pockets of such in the north, and, Islam and its geographic spread, the associated Jihad helped to expand the frontier of Islamic traditions and religion from the northern to the southern parts of Nigeria. The perceived and proclaimed puritanical nature of both Christianity and Islam, the superiority complexes over and above the traditional religions in all the sociocultural and geographic configurations of Nigeria daily brings into yore of politics and economics and the whittling of age traditional religious practices.
The question then is, to what extent have the Nigerians' religious persuasions helped in the personal realization of the one and only God who is the Creator of every living being everywhere? How have the religious beliefs, proclamations, observances, and practices in Nigeria truly been convincing that the God Nigerians claim they worship is that of light, life, and love against the bitterness, conflicts, superiority/ inferiority complexes, call for religious war, and their skirmishes everywhere? How have religious differences associated with different and different tongues and tribes in Nigeria proved convincingly the dictums of "Unity in Diversity" and "The Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man"? Think about it.
How have our tribal, ethnic including religious practices therein helped to edify the benevolent, merciful, and glorious God of our understanding and of the same humanity against our penchants for political and economic powers that are packaged merely in corruption of all sorts, drug abuse, merchandising of fake drugs, dubious businesses, malpractices, communal and community disharmonies, ritual killings, armed robberies, bandit armies, kidnapping, economic dependencies, and political mismanagements at all the levels of selections, election victories and lost be they rigged or unrigged?
Could we all seriously examine our hearts and minds, all, the same creatures of God in this part of His created creation to ascertain what role(s) or the none of them we individually or collectively play in the lives of fellowmen whether or not they belong to the same religious, ethnic and tribal persuasions and affiliations of others? Think about it.
If no human has the right to deprive others of existence and means of lives and living should your religious, tribal, and political dispositions continue to deprive and compound the miseries and woes already the portion of millions of Nigeria because of who and what you are including who and what you wanna be?
As we all have the right to agitate for one phenomenon of life or the other but should such an agitation make your life blood-stained?
I concur with the statement that states that " Every human being is a born agitator but give him a pot of soup and he forgets his agitation". What a truism in the affirmation of a sage, "When conscienceless power rules over powerless conscience, it is the former that first laughs and the latter laughs last and laughs best".
North-South, East-West, home is the best. It is therefore incumbent on us all to carry the touch of unity and make our way from the North to the South and from the East-West and vice versa clinging to the dictates of the Divine Light, Life, and Love "wherever we go, wherever we are, do not say Yes when you mean to say No".
Religion or no Religion, Tribe or no Tribe", do not say Yes to Peace when in heart and mind you meant No. Whatever the case God has a wonderful plan for our lives just as we need to worship Him in spirit and truth. God bless Nigeria.
Taiye Olaniyi, a retired Postman of the Nigeria Postal Service, is based in Lagos