Revisiting the Jos Religious Crises: Religion or Poverty?

By

Suleiman Dankano, Ph.D.

dan2kano@yahoo.com

The incessant religious conflagration between Muslims and Christians should be everyone’s concern. For decades the problem has continued unabated whether during military or civilian regimes. There is no point giving a list here but at the last count, we have had no less than 30 of such crises from 1976 to date. Over the course of the last eight years we have had the bloodiest and yet nothing practically has been done by the governments, whether federal, state or local to tackle this problem. There has been no planning either by the government or religious bodies to stop this mayhem that has become a part of life in Nigeria. The government has always developed a cosmetic approach to the problem trading blames between Muslims and Christians. During the regime of General Ibrahim Bababgida, he polarized Muslims and Christians to perpetrate corruption and the evil he brought on Nigeria by using a divide and rule tactic. Obasanjo’s incompetent and corrupt government only aggravated the problem by his failure to define the so-called constitutional provision on the separation of church and state. By his incompetence, Obasanjo merely described the Shari`a regime as political Shar`a that will fizzle away. Whether these crises have mainly been religious is left to any one’s guess.

Many have pointed to the religious difference and intolerance between Christians and Muslims as responsible for these crises. Others have pointed to politics, while yet others have pointed to economics as the source of these crises. As one who has studied and written on the religious divide between Muslims and Christians, I have come to agree that the three factors have played a role but do conclude that the most prominent variable is economics. In my doctoral dissertation some years back, I discovered that while religion, politics and economics have been the main cause of religious tension between Muslims and Christians in northern Nigeria, economics has trumped everything else. First, there is an interface between politics and religion. Second, there is also an interface between politics and economics whether a society is primordial or advanced. We just witnessed an election in America that was religiously charged with the Republican Party seeing itself as the Christian Party fighting a Democratic party that was either pagan or Muslim. We heard pastors say they would not elect a man who does not identify with American values, and by American values they meant Christian values. Lest we get lost from the main theme of this write up, it is my firm belief that economics is the main cause of religious crises in Nigeria.

The Jos crises once more brought to the surface the time bomb that has been waiting to explode. Since the country got its independence from Britain forty eight years ago, we have never witnessed such abject poverty and endemic corruption beginning from 1999 to date. Nigeria seems to have regressed more than 100 years just within the last nine years. Infrastructure was left to rot, no employment generation, people losing their jobs and businesses failing, insecurity, upsurge in armed robbery and people breaking the law with impunity and getting away with it. In short, the only people that could be said to own Nigeria are the politicians and their cronies. One doesn’t need to enumerate the kinds of financial crimes that happened under Obasanjo’s watch. The last time I went to the city of Jos, I was moved to tears. There was hardly any running tab. People had returned to their wells dug in the 1950s as their source of water supply. The roads were unmotorable and electricity was no longer part of the discussion as people simply went back to their old kerosene lanterns. Are you surprised that a gallon of kerosene costs more than a gallon of fuel? Those who can afford it now resort to the use of generators. One of our American friends, visiting Nigeria remarked, “I wonder how you can run a country on generators.” The Jos I saw two or three years ago was very different from the Jos I knew in the early 1970s into the 1980s. The story is not different when you travel to other parts of the country. 70% of Nigerians live below the poverty line on less than one dollar a day and scavenging for survival in a country that is the fifth oil exporting country in the World. The Nigerian nation has been so dollarized that one sometimes wonders if the Naira is any significance. The government bases everything, the budget, trade, you name it on the dollar but the only thing that has not been dollarized is the salary of workers and the common market woman.

The minimum wage in Nigeria is $35 a month and yet our leaders are quick to cite America as their model for doing things. Just last month the governor of Anambra State wanted to take his whole House of Assembly to the United States for a retreat until the American Embassy denied them visas. He took them to London any way. Congratulations greedy Brits who pretend they are helping us fight corruption by arresting the likes of Dariye and Aleimasaye. Well, I live in the City of Los Angeles, in the state of California where the minimum wage is $7.85 an hour. This means Nigeria’s minimum wage in a month is less than a week’s wage in the State of California. I currently buy fuel for my car at an average cost of $1.75 per gallon (43 cents per litre), the highest in the United States whereas the Nigerian, if he gets it at the controlled price pays about $2.39 per gallon (60 cents per litre). This is happening in a country that exports oil to the United States. The average civil servant working for at least twenty years takes home a salary of about N50,000-60,000 ($427.35 -512.82) a month compared to the minimum wage in California which is $1256 if a person works for the minimum of 40 hours a week. These are the comparisons our government does not make when talking about the United States. Our legislators only talk about the salaries and allowances of elected officials in the United States and not what the ordinary person benefits from the government. At least there is unemployment benefits to the person who just lost his/her own job and there is social welfare for those who do not have jobs at all. Hello, Nigeria, if you want to copy or talk about the US talk about what the common person in the US gets from his/her government.

Lest the main topic slip off, let’s look at the main cause of religious crises. It is poverty period. The people are poor and idle and at the slightest provocation they explode using religion as their base. In the middle of this year a pay raise was approved by the Salaries and Wages Commission which granted every member of the House of Representative $1000 per day in addition to other allowances. These include Wardrobe allowance, Housing allowance, Utilities, Car allowance, etc, etc. the list is endless. I calculated their allowances a month and it came to about $100,000 a month. This does not include their salaries. Now you do the Arithmetic, if the only form of employment is politics, why wouldn’t people kill to get elected?  And don’t forget the fact that over 60% of the members of the house and senate are bench warmers. There are some who just go there for gala nights or fashion parade. Just take a look at the way they dress and you know that some of these knuckle heads simply go there for a fashion parade. Some spend the entire four years without proposing legislation or even participating in any. And guess what? Senate President, David Mark just confirmed to Nigerians last week when Senator Chukwumerije challenged the “bow and exit” policy for former legislators nominated for ministerial appointments that they owe no allegiance to anyone except the National Assembly. David Mark said the National Assembly was their primary constituency. Really? When did the national assembly become the primary constituency for its members? But the senate president could be right, legislators owe no allegiance to the people that elected them but the National Assembly because they were not elected in the first place. Mark himself was rigged into the Senate; forget about the so-called court ruling in his favor. We are intelligent enough to do the calculations and to know that the court decision was a political one. You are a legislator before you get elected, right? Thanks to Professor Ewu or is it Iwu they call him. Mr. David Mark, the American Senate you so adore screens every nominee irrespective of who they were and no American legislator sees the Congress as his primary constituent. Please copy right not copy wrong! For your information, Senator Hilary Clinton would have to go through the screening process and be confirmed by the Senate irrespective of the fact that she has been a senator for over seven years!

Nigerian politicians do not see the people as their primary constituency and David Mark was just confirming it. If you are a governor, the Government House is your primary constituency, if you are member of a House of Assembly, the House is your primary constituency and if you are a local government chairman, the local government secretariat is your primary constituency. Are we surprise that politics has become a matter of do or die? Oh, lest you forget, it wasn’t Obansanjo that invented the do or die approach to politics, it has been in our national life since 1959 when we had our first national election. Remember the NPC, Action Group and NCNC? Yes, do you remember such names like Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Balewa, Nnamdi Azikwe, Michael Okpara, Michael Akintola, and Obafemi Awolowo? Yes, I know you remember them. Did any of them have a constituency? Well, David Mark would have to give you the answer. I thought there was something called grassroots politics. Well, never mind, Professor Ewu redefined it. Remember, the Professor who said the American political system should come and learn how to rig elections from Nigeria? Yes, that is the Nigeria-American Professor Ewu who thinks like an ewu himself redefining politics. You don’t have to be elected by your constituents, just walk into the National or whatever assembly if you can pay for the certificate of election issued by Professor Ewu!

Having said this, I believe the religious problem will be extinct from Nigeria when we get rid of unemployment and greed, when our economy is improved and the average Nigerian can go to the store and buy what they need. Religious crises will be a thing of the past when the degree of illiteracy is reduced or completely eliminated. The north has the highest of level of illiteracy and poverty and the only thing left to these idle youths roaming the streets is destruction. How can anybody link a political election with the burning of churches when the political party offices are left intact?  Why wouldn’t Nigerians riot against these corrupt politician who turn their backs on them rather than burning down churches and mosques? Why can’t we use this energy to challenge our governments rather than killing innocent people? The answer lies in the thugs that we often call our preventatives be they at the house, government house or the local government. I call them thugs because it was just last month that a member of the House of Representatives from Port-Harcourt described himself as thug and street boy when Festus Keyemo appeared before the committee to challenge Speaker Demeji on the car scandal. Remember the committee members who said they can kill? Yes, these are the thugs that are in our legislative houses. If you have such thugs speaking and no one calls them to other, why would you expect that thuggery would not rein if they fail to win election? To stem the tide, these thugs hiding under the guise of religion for their political gains must be flushed out of our society and jailed for life so that they would not have an opportunity to harm anyone. The Bin Ladens are hiding now because they have reached the end of hypocrisy, which is simply fighting their economic wars in the name of religion.

Let me say this in conclusion, religious crises will continue to have their day in Nigeria for as long the people remain in perpetual poverty. This is the goal of our politicians. They don’t want to improve the educational system because once people get education they will know their rights. They don’t want to create jobs because they know once everybody has a job they can no longer manipulate them for their selfish ends. They do not want to improve and grow the economy because once this happens, security will improve. They are happy to see people dying in these crises, dying on our ill-maintained roads, dying of air and water borne diseases. They are afraid of making our hospitals work, so they can steal our money and pretend they are going for medical check-up abroad. These thugs are scared of only one thing; develop Nigeria and guarantee freedom, and then their days of manipulation are over. It is the people who must stop this, not the government. They can do this by refusing to be manipulated and by chasing these corrupt thugs who parade themselves as their representatives out to oblivion. It is the people that must tell the government we have had enough. Demonstrations should be directed at our elected officials and not the masses and places of worship. Enough is enough, Christians and Muslims. Please preach this in the mosques and churches. Religious leaders must stop dinning and wining with these corrupt politicians. Governor Jang enough of your sermonizing while Plateau State is dying. The prophets must speak up against injustice, against the king and against politicians. Enough of the prosperity messages from our Pentecostal churches; preach the word, chastise the corrupt and prophesy against the king. Enough is enough. The church must be the light of the world. Once we extinguish the light, there is no more hope for the world. Pastors, Imams, Reverends, and Prophets, let us rise and defeat this hydra headed monster called religious crises. Say no to political manipulation sending innocent souls to their premature deaths.

Suleiman Dankano, Ph.D.

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