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Religion and Hypocrisy
in a Decadent Society: A Case Study of Nigeria By Dr. Nura H. Alkali Nigerians have claimed to be among the most religious people in the world. In a recent survey conducted by the British Broadcasting Cooperation, Nigeria topped the list of ten countries by having the highest percentage of people who believe in God, compared to 46% in the UK and only 28% in South Korea. Yet, the 2004 report of Transparency International, the Berlin-based global corruption watchdog, showed that Nigeria has still maintained its permanent position as the second most corrupt country in the world, after Bangladesh. Meanwhile, episodes of religious violence engulfed the nation once again, resulting in the destruction of property and the deaths of hundreds of innocent victims in Plateau and Kano states. In less than a generation, but especially in the last five years of civilian administration, we have deteriorated from a potentially great African country that was the pride of the black race, to become a menace not only to ourselves but also to the entire world. Nigerians, more than other nationals, have defrauded people worldwide, either through the internet or by other methods of advance fee fraud. Nigerian women are repatriated daily from Spain and Italy, where they have found lucrative markets for their bodies. In addition, Nigerians are among few nationals subjected to rigorous bodily searches at foreign airports because of our reputation in drug trafficking. The rest of the world now views us as a people who, not being contented with the burning of mosques and churches and the prospects of annihilating each other in due course, but who have also managed to become a threat to the international community and a hindrance to the progress of mankind. Within Nigeria itself, not a single community can boast of uninterrupted access to clean water or electricity in any 24-hour period. Hardly a week will pass without news report of ethnic or religious massacre of one people by another. Daily life in our country has simply become synonymous with tragedy, ranging from highway robberies in which several people lose their lives within a shouting distance of a police checkpoint, to the case of government forces wiping our an entire village in order to avenge the death of their colleagues killed by armed militias. In short, we have turned our land into what Jean-Martin Charcot, the 19th century French physician, would call a “great asylum of human misery”. The question then arises, how can a people claiming to be among the most religious on the planet, manifest this kind of behaviour? To a casual observer, the answer must be that ours is a country of religious zealots who have found it difficult to tolerate each other, and that we all worship a god who teaches us to be corrupt and to kill and maim one another, on the slightest excuse. However, as appealing as this excuse may sound to those among us with a guilty conscience, the sad truth remains that Nigeria is a country populated mainly by adherents to Islam and Christianity, the same two religions that are practiced in other countries where the citizens have respect for the sanctity of human life and the rule of law, and where governments dispense justice and good governance. So, did the BBC mix up their facts in declaring us the most religious of countries? Unfortunately, the answer is again, no. Rather, we Nigerians are missing the point. In this article, I will try to show that most of us are nothing more than a bunch of morally decadent hypocrites passing for Muslims and Christians. We invoke the name of God only when it suits our purpose, while in reality we are liars, thieves and murderers who try to deceive ourselves and the rest of the world into thinking that we a more religious people than the rest of humanity, when evidence to the contrary is there for all to see. I will approach this issue by examining the relationship between Nigerians and God, first at the individual level and then at the level of society. The
Individual There is no doubt that most Nigerians claim to believe in God and to worship Him, especially if the form of worship involves public appearances such as Friday prayers and Sunday mass. Many Muslims and Christians also perform daily prayers and fast at some point in the course of a year. However, for most, that is where religion ends and hypocrisy begins. In the case of Muslims, there are two more forms of worship, namely giving out Zakat, or the wealth tax, and performing the pilgrimage to Mecca if one is able. However, these two aspects of Islam have been so distorted and abused by a number of Nigerian Muslims that you wonder if indeed, they believe in God. Many wealthy Muslims avoid giving out Zakat altogether, and those who do find a way of undermining it to the extent that its whole aim is defeated. For instance, some give out only a fraction of what is due, while others give not to the needy, but to their well-to-do cronies, fortune-tellers, etc. As for the Muslim pilgrimage to the holy land, a recurring pattern has emerged over the years. First, politicians award free seats to their mistresses and praise-singers, all paid for by public money, contrary to Islamic teachings that encourage intending pilgrims to pay for themselves or be sponsored by someone, not governments. Accompanying pilgrims on an official capacity is a different matter. This same category of pilgrims will then be denied their basic travel allowance of 500 US Dollars, the money having been claimed by the politician or his lieutenants, themselves Muslims. The intending pilgrim then has no choice but to borrow money for his BTA from friends and relatives, again contrary to Islamic teachings. However, fulfilling the five pillars of Islam, even if done correctly, hardly makes one a complete Muslim. The Quran and the Hadith of the prophet, peace be upon him, have set out explicitly how a Muslim should lead his existence in this world, covering the period of his birth up to the time of his death. Thus, a Muslim is taught how to name his newborn child, how the child should be raised, how he should marry, how he relates with his fellow humans of whatever religious persuasion, how to hold public office and how after his death his estate will be shared among his heirs, and so on. Practically every Muslim in Nigeria knows all these. Whether we practice them is another matter. Take the case of public office. How many Nigerian Muslims have resisted the temptation of receiving bribes or of awarding government contracts to themselves when holding public office? How many Muslim police officers did not demand the payment of bribes in the course of their duties? How many Muslim doctors, teachers, surveyors or government regulators have resisted the offer of a bribe from patients, students, builders and others in exchange for preferential treatment or favourable reports? In Nigeria, I would say quite a few. Yet, we all know the punishment for these sins and we call ourselves the most religious on earth. Christianity has similarities with Islam in that it is monotheism, involving prayers to God, pilgrimage to a holy land and a reward for good deeds and heavenly punishment for sinners. Christians commit all the sins committed by Muslims in equal measure. In fact, a gang of robbers attacking a highway in northern Nigeria is likely to consist of both Christians and Muslims, as police parades of robbery suspects have consistently revealed on television broadcasts. Similarly, the police officers themselves who extort from motorists usually have adherents to both religions in their midst. So, if the overwhelming majority of us believe in a god, to which god are we referring? For an answer, let us start by looking at our societies. The
Society In the city of Benin, Edo state, a group of 11 women butchers were recently suspended from work by officials of the butchers association for refusing to swear by Ogun, the “god of iron”, to clear the suspicion that they were using magic to kill their male colleagues, many of whom have died in “unexplained” circumstances. No one bothered to perform autopsies to determine the true causes of death, but they were labeled as unexplained, nonetheless. The arguments of these women that as Christians, they could not swear to another god were ignored. Most alarmingly, this event has happened in a state where the governor, the attorney general, the police commissioner, and the traditional rulers are all Bible-reading, church-going Christians, but the suspension remains in place, and the poor women are deprived of their livelihood. Meanwhile, whether the affected women and their dependents can still eat three meals a day is no one’s business. So much for a society that believes in God. In Yoruba societies, it is accepted practice to have a child by a woman before wedding, in order to be sure that she is fertile. Similarly, all forms of fetish practice involving the killing of animals and sometimes humans, takes place regularly, to satisfy certain oracles in the process of making someone’s prayers answered. Yet to my knowledge, the Yoruba are either Muslims or Christians, and neither Islam nor Christianity condones murder, prayers to other deities, or having a child outside wedlock. The clergy have not helped matters. The proliferation of churches, “Imams” and “prophets” has ensured a steady stream of sermons in which the topics always centre on “miracles”, “demons” and “forces of darkness”. Not to be outdone, producers of Nigerian movies are reaping millions in profit because they have understood that the best selling films should always have plots involving one form of black magic or another. Superstition is not restricted to southern Nigeria. However, in Muslim societies of northern Nigeria it is more subtle, perhaps because it is seriously frowned upon in Islam. Even then, it is practiced with much vigour in private, if not in public. If for instance, a Muslim begins to question whether magic and witchcraft are real phenomena, others who believe in them are quick to remind him of Quran chapter 114 and some Hadith that reported how Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) himself was a victim at some point in his life. With this justification, a patient who suffers a stroke, an unmarried woman who fails to find a suitor, a young man who has become a drunkard and a trader who becomes bankrupt are all victims of certain enemies, usually stepmothers and competitors. Fraudsters with very little knowledge of Islam but parading themselves as Mallams, readily encourage these beliefs with the prospects of receiving huge payments to either “protect” an imagined victim or to “neutralize” his imaginary detractors. However, the dangers of superstition pale in comparison to our unconquerable desire for ill-gotten wealth and the perception that success in life is determined by ownership of money. There is nothing wrong in seeking money, as long as the process is legitimate. However, to openly flaunt stolen wealth and then be praised by both the rulers and ruled is a peculiarly Nigerian phenomenon. Thus, a civil servant or an elected politician will build a huge mansion and buy a fleet of cars costing several hundred times his yearly income, for which in other countries he will face prosecution and a long prison sentence, if not for theft, then certainly for tax evasion. In Nigeria, the same person will be admired and praised as the symbol of success, and will be honoured with traditional titles by so-called royal fathers. Potential in-laws will be jumping over each other to honour him with their daughters, while universities will compete in awarding him honoris causa. Nigerians like complaining about bad leadership by those in power. Yet, there can be no bad leader without a bad follower. If, as has been proven in the case of Adamawa state, the present government rigged elections in most cases, they did it with the connivance of ordinary citizens. In some cases, election results were altered and in others, voting did not even take place where a particular party has still managed to “win” the “election”. Then, if soldiers, police officers, INEC officials, party thugs and other colluders in this enterprise are not ordinary Nigerians, I wonder who is. Even where there are no malpractices, we tend to vote for those who spend the most money, or based on ethnic and religious sentiments, not those with clear policies that will uplift our well-being. So, why should we expect the elected official to provide us with water, electricity, good roads and hospitals when we should have known that he has to recover the amount he spent on his way to power? What a tragedy for a people who believe in God but sell their votes! In summary, it is clear that Nigerians believe in three types of gods: The God of the Quran and the Bible Whom most of us only worship in ceremonial ways, the gods of our ancestors to whom we make sacrifices and by whom we swear, and the god of money whom unlike the other two, we worship at all times. Therefore BBC was not wrong after all. Ninety eight percent of us believe in gods, although we could have avoided confusion by making this clarification. Other countries with fewer believers also have their fare share of individual and societal ills, but they are less corrupt than we are and better than we may ever be, unless if we change our ways. Dr. Nura H. Alkali Institute of Neurology National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery London, United Kingdom
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