What Has Religion Got To Do With It

Religion and The Sanctity of Space of Social Interaction: A Personal Narrative On The Situation In South West Nigeria
By Jahman Anikulapo

PREAMBLE
The title and content of this piece have been inspired by a speech delivered by the South Korean Ms. Irene NG, a former magazine editor, who later became a Member of Parliament, at a workshop for journalists in South Korea in 2002. Ms. Irene, in her speech, Walking The Middle Line, which was basically a narrative of her personal experience as a journalist dealing with matters of inter-groups relationships, uncovered some uncommon roots of conflicts among groups of divergent orientations and ideologies. She suggested ways by which a communications worker or any social worker and, by extension, the larger society could effectively navigate the vast and precarious landmine wrought by differences in belief systems as well as cultural orientations, that fill our current social order.
Substantially, Ms. Irene speaks to my experience in various dimensions: as a Nigerian who while growing up and schooling, lived through varied encounters with differing religious tendencies and who, has had to contend with other experiences as a cultural journalist in the past 18 years.
Interestingly, it is in this later dimension that I have come to realize certain basic truths that we, as thinkers and opinion-molders, ought to uphold in our search for answers to the many questions bordering on the survival of our contemporary society(ies). We shall return to these truths later, perhaps, in our conclusions.
But we may stress at this initial stage that the Social Space of Interaction which is that vast field where human beings meet on equal terms i.e as creations with blood and flesh, without the various barriers erected by man and the circumstances of his existence… must be firmly protected by all instruments necessary -- legislative, legal, political, social -- so that it will remain inviolable. It means that the State and its administrators and the people will ensure that even when peddlers of Religious interests including the Entrepreneurs and Profiteers, insist on seizing the control of political and economic powers, they will at least spare the Space of Social Interaction. The Cultural field is the most active of the various fields in the Social Interaction Space and so, we propose that the State must make deliberate attempt to invest in the field so that it could harness its vast potentials of diffusing the tensions that are bound to come with the day to day running of the State and human interactions.

This presentation is the product of a little project began by the Culture Working Committee (an arm of the Culture activist group, the Committee for Relevant Art, CORA, founded 1991) last year after the Colloquium on Culture of Peace that was part of the 13th National Festival of Arts and Culture, NAFEST, in Port Harcourt.
The NAFEST itself had been initiated as the Nigeria Arts Festival (NAF) in 1970 – a few months after the end of the 30-month Civil War -- by a group of cultural intelligentsia of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, as their contribution towards quickening the pace of Reconciliation and Reintegration among the various sections of the country that had been fragmented by the political conflicts that led to the war. The festival was taken over by the government after the Second World Festival of Black and African Arts and Culture, FESTAC in 1977. It then became a yearly event though it suffered a break between 1983 and 1988.
At the 2002 NAFEST, the government had included a Colloquium on Culture of Peace as a continuation of an on-going national discourse the best means of resolving the various conflicts that attended the nation’s quest for Democracy and freedom from the long Military interregnum.
A group of Cultural Journalists who were attending the Colloquium, perhaps wearied by the unfruitful results of the many conferences that had been held on same issue of finding solution to the crisis and; perhaps also, noting that certain so-called social activists and public commentators had installed themselves as professional speakers at such events thus putting a question on the integrity of their contributions and sincerity of the conferences, had thought of initiating a more practical means of approaching the matter of Peace and National Cohesion.
They thus decided to take up a little project of documenting their individual story with focus on the type of orientation (upbringing, educational and working life) that had shaped their adult perception of life and society, particularly, as it affects the ‘Other People’.
The project is in three phases. And the first phase is the production of the Literatures (such as in this presentation), which will then form the basis of some Conferences and Youth-Focused actions in the nearest future. It is our own little way of creating an atmosphere of better understanding among the people and emphasizing on those positive values in our social orientation, which have been upstaged by activities of politicians who masquerade as purveyors of Puritanism and Protectors of God’s Lore.
So when we confronted the title ‘What Has Religion Got To do With It’? We decided to moderate the sub-text of that theme by adopting the title of the song of the famous American pop star Tina Turner, ‘What Love’s Got To Do With It’. So we asked ‘What Hasn’t Love Got To Do With What God Has Created?’ The creations we refer to are The Earth and its Human Occupiers.
This presentation will oscillate between the personal narratives and the cold facts of historical antecedents as they relate to the topic and particularly, the experience of the South West of Nigeria.
****
NIGERIAN POLITY AND ETHNO –RELIGIOUS BALANCING
Ethnicity and Religion have always dominated discourse in Nigeria polity. These same issues have also, always been prevalent in the many conflicts that Nigerians have experienced in the past decades.
Governance of the country has been largely influenced by ethnic and religious considerations, particularly since 1914 when the ‘geographical expression’ that is today known as Nigeria was contrived by Britain, the former colonial administrator or ‘master’, from the Northern and Southern Protectorates.
Activities of consecutive Nigerian governments particularly, in the sharing of political largesse, have always placed emphasis on where the beneficiary comes from and the religion, which he/she professes. Similarly, the composition of Federal (as well as some state) cabinet has always been sensitive to balancing of the various ethnic and religious divides, although one can say that for religion, the contention is always between Islam and Christianity.
The Traditional Religion practitioners who are said to account for about 60 per cent of the over 120 million population, are always excluded except when there is a major rupture in the religious world of the nation and they are called upon to join their Muslim and Christian fellows to proffer solution to the crisis. Perhaps, the first major attempt to include the traditional religion in the national agenda was with the recent appointment of Professor Wande Abimbola, a renowned Traditionalist and Culture Scholar, into the Federal cabinet of President Obasanjo, as Special Adviser on Culture and Chieftaincy Affairs.
Throughout its political history, the composition of the Nigeria Federal Executive Council has always respected the Islam and Christianity dichotomy. At independence in 1960, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo Christian was elected the President while Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, a minority-Hausa Muslim was Prime Minister.
In 1979 during the Second Republic, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, a Fulani Muslim was the President and Dr. Alex Ekwueme, an Igbo Christian, the Vice-President.
Although the 1983 Presidential elections paraded two Muslims (MKO Abiola and Babangana Kingibe), one, a Yoruba and the other an Hausa on the ticket of the SDP, the issue of religion was topical particularly, in the campaign of the second party, the NRC.
The present dispensation since 1999 when the country re-adopted democracy follows the same pattern with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian as President and Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, a Hausa Muslim as Vice-president.
But the dream of the founding fathers had always been a land of equal opportunity. As a matter of fact, the dream to have a pluralistic society where every component -- every people and every individual -- is free to adopt, develop and practice its (his) own faith and set of beliefs -- is well entrenched in the consciousness of virtually every Nigerian. And indeed, certain national policies are founded on this dream and aspiration of mutual respect and, accommodation of, for interest of other people.
For instance, the Second National Development Plan -- which has come to be known as the most definitive of the various Plans (that have always been abandoned at birth in any case) -- stressed five key objectives of the nation. These are to build:
oA free and democratic society
oA just and egalitarian society
oA united, strong and self-reliant nation
oA great and dynamic economy
oA land of bright and full opportunities for all citizens
However, these objectives have been abused and manipulated on many occasions by those whom Ms. Irene had described as Religious Entrepreneurs but whom we have also identified as Politico-Religious Merchants and Profiteering Puritans, who capitalize on the gale of social and economic depression that have over the decades, unleashed strain – physical and spiritual -- on the people.
The activities of these selfish leaders and opinion molders have also over time, managed to have some degree of backing by the corrupt tendencies in the State as well as the profiteering 'Big Brothers' from abroad.
The institutionalization of these Fifth Columnists in the affairs of many African states, in particular here, Nigeria, has led to the advent of frequent religious crisis.
It wasn’t until the 1980s that cases of very serious religious intolerance and violence started showing up in Nigeria polity and; though widely reported (because of their novelty), they were mostly isolated cases. The 1990s brought the most damning of the crisis in the infamous Maitasine Riot -- a Muslim sectarian conflict that was promoted as inter-religious crisis and which rocked the nation to its foundation.
But we must note that the 1990s recorded the most disruptive events in the political and economic lives of Nigeria. The Second Republic, which was the country’s second romance with Democratic Governance, was annulled in 1983 by the Military adventurists (politicians) who had halted the First Republic in 1966.
Also and very significantly, Nigeria took the International Monetary Fund, IMF loan in 1985 and launched the strangulating economic regime of Structural Adjustment Policy, SAP, which of course, sapped hope, confidence and self-esteem from the will of the people to live and survive.
Thus the wave of aggression that enveloped the national spirit can be gleaned from the perspective of economic emasculation of the populace and the dislocation of the political movement of the country. This aggression and sense of disorientation did not spare the religious conviction of the people. It buried anger in their souls and hatred in their senses.
****
NIGERIA AND THE SOUTH WEST
Nigeria is usually divided into three rough zones — North, East and West. Each of these zones portrays the two major religious tendencies of the country. The East (including the relatively new branding — the South-South), is largely Christian while the North is predominantly Muslim.
The West, however, is almost evenly divided among the two. In fact, there is hardly any family in the West without some of its members who do not share sympathy for either of the two main religions – Islam and Christianity -- even when the main family professes to either of the faiths.
The dominant ethnic group in the West is Yoruba and they are largely cosmopolitan and liberal in social, cultural and even political orientation. And there are shared fundaments between the traditional norms and the so-called Modern influences.
****
RELIGION OF THE YORUBA
Defining the religion of the Yoruba has always been a subject of contention among sociologists and other classes of researchers. Certain hasty conclusions had said at some point that it was Paganism and they based their resolve on the preponderance of perceived cultic influences in the norms and cultural practices of the people.
But this only signifies the problem of Labeling, which goes beyond mere categorization. The term is often used derogatorily by the adherents of the two main (foreign) religions who perceive themselves as the ‘authentic’ or ‘righteous’, to express their subjective conviction of the ‘Other’(s).
Paganism is no doubt, a convenient choice of label or perspective by Muslims and Christians for a set of beliefs rooted in the culture of the people and, which they cannot understand or have refused to comprehend.
However, one point on which they all agree is the fact that there is the sacrosanct place of the Supreme Being who occupies the same status as God in Christendom or Allah in Islam. All power flows from the Being and he dispenses his authority through the various deities, who other researchers have defined as similar to the various prophets in the other religions.
Also, debates have been had on whether Yoruba religion could be seen from the perspective of Monotheism — i.e. because of the Central place of the Supreme Being; or Polytheism i.e. because each of the deities also occupies important place of worship in the pantheon.
However, Bolaji Idowu, in his landmark 1962 publication, Olodumare — God In Yoruba Belief (Longman, 1962), contended that:
"It is rather dubious if we could speak of the religion of Yoruba people in precise term. What we have seems to be a mixed bag of individual cults out of which everyone chooses according to lineage or family tradition, or as the circumstances of life dictates. Nevertheless, the one big Bag which holds the individual cults together, is Olodumare (also Oluwa, Olorun etc).
This suggests a pantheon in which Olodumare is one among many... He is a part as wholly. His relationship to the divination being that of "the sovereignty by which He orders His dominion in which they are included". And none of the deities operate its power and will without the direction and supervision of Olodumare.
Generally, the Yoruba attitude to religion is one of tolerance and moderation, hence the title of any Oba as ‘Baba Ilu’ i.e. father of all. An Oba is expected to attend all religious activities in his domain, be it of Christian, Muslim or indigenous colouration. Indeed, there are certain Festivals which mandate that the Monarch must be a father of the entire community and that irrespective of his Religious inclination, he must be part of the spiritual comfort of the people as expressed in their Festivals as well as other social functions.
We have the Osun Osogbo Festival in Osogbo, Osun State. We have the Olojo Festival, in Ife also in Osun State. We have the Eyo Festival in Lagos. We have the Ekimogun Festival in Ondo State; We have the Okebadan in Oyo State among others. In each of these places, the Monarch is either a Muslim or a Christian but he still has to be the ‘father of all’ by leading activities in each of the national festival or ceremony in his domain.
Recently, some Obas who refused to respect this doctrine of being a father to all in the community have faced problem with the community.
Some studies have suggested that the Polytheism undercurrent in Yoruba religion coupled with the cosmopolitan nature of the people accounts for the attitude of accommodation of the two religions with little room for conflicts. But this accommodation has always discomforted the people of the two other religions who insist that the commitment of a Yoruba person to a religion is suspect. For instance to most Muslims in the North, the Muslim in the South is a ‘kaferi.’But the fundamental of the Yoruba to religion is borne in the song :Awa Osoro Ilewa
Esin ope kawa masoro
Awa o soro Ile wa
****
Religions apart, people of the southwest are mostly driven by the virtues of kindness, love, tolerance and humility.
Consciously or unconsciously, they could be seen to have hearkened to the submission of the Holy Qur’an when Allah says: "Oh Mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (Not that ye may despise (each other). Verily, the most honoured of you in the sight of God, is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And God, Has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).



YORUBA CONTACT WITH FOREIGN RELIGION:
Whereas, Bolaji Idowu stated that it is difficult at the moment to say exactly when the two religions first made their contacts with the country, their coming is bound up with the early history of the Yoruba. J.M Groves speaks of Christian missionary activities of the Portuguese and of the Spanish in the Benin Empire between 1485 and 1655. Also Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics notes missionary activities in Benin, Angola, Upper Volta, about same time. Benin is only 180 miles away from Ife the cradle of the Yoruba.
Christianity came again in 1841 through slaves who were liberated in Sierra Leone.
It is difficult to put a date on the entrance of Islam into Yoruba land, but if we consider the fact that many of its neighbours like the Nupe, the Madingo and Hausa who trade extensively with Oyo people received Islam by the 10th century, it is certain that the northwest of Yoruba land must have some Muslims as far back as the 11th or 12th century. However, A.D. Bivar and M. Biskett in the "Arabic Literature of Nigeria: A Provisional Account" (BSOAS, XXV, 1962) and; H.F.C. Smith: "Arabic Manuscript Material Relating To The History Of the Western Sudan", made reference to Yoruba Muslims in the 17th century.
Christianity however, helped to further reinforce the Yoruba's belief in a supreme life and human responsibility.
Islam, which was also recorded to have come through Sudan via Northern Nigeria also help to reinforce such values as pre-destiny and fatalism. Islamic fatalism – the will not to question the will of the Supreme Being.
****
But the two religions have had a weakening effect on Yoruba's belief system. The Yoruba religions have been known to suffer immeasurable disruption through intervention of the two religions. Stated Bolaji Idowu: "Besides the internal weaknesses which makes for its retrogression, the religion of the Yoruba has been affected by the incursion of two world religions – Christianity and Islam – which came into the country with their attendant culture.
****
But we race ahead to another of conception of our conclusion that the insulation of Yoruba communities from religious conflicts, the volatile dimension of it, as had often been witnessed in other parts of the country, is rooted in the fact that the Yoruba culture in the context of its socio-cultural milieu including its norms and practices, has been able to contain the excesses of the two foreign religions – Islam and Christianity. Whereas it has managed, even where they in their philosophical contentions have gone against its foundational principles, to accommodate them, it has maintained its sacred doctrines of love, brotherhood and tolerance of all shades of opinion.
****
However, we should not be under any illusion that the Yoruba culture and by extension, religious conviction from future conflicts or clashes with the foreign religions. As a matter of fact, we have noticed the aggression of the newer forms of Islam and Christianity ‘to fish’ for their ‘new men’ from the vast seemingly unexplored traditional religious fields to which the Yoruba religion is often confined. The Evangelisation or what has been termed Missionarism principles of the younger sects of the two main religions are bound to sooner or later run into conflict with the liberal contentions of the Yoruba cultural norms. Already we can see the manifestation of this future conflicts in the activities of the Gospeller cults of the two main religion which thrive on condemning or derogating the existing beliefs or practices to legitimize its own convictions or justify its own existence.
Thus we have in the South West, we have the rise of a new (militant?) gospelling Muslim body called the NASFAT which is redefining the traditions of Islam worship of Muslims. Its members now worship on Sundays at about the same time that the Pentecost Christians mass for worship in their various churches. Besides, the NASFAT is exploring the Pentecosts’ norms of tele-evangelism. It is thus curious when on Sunday mornings, young Muslim clerics come on the television screen preaching the gospels of Islam. They even stage Praise and Worship in the established Christian practices. And the famous Lagos-Ibadan Expressway which has in the past few years been colonized by Christian movements of Pentecost persuasions has suddenly become choice spots for the establishment of worship centre by the NASFAT. In other words, there is Jihadist colouration to the practice of the new Muslim movement and it is easy to project that the next Religious conflagration may actually come from the seemingly Conflict-insulated South West… and it may just begin at the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
****
NARRATIVE: Social (Childhood) Orientation:
The years of childhood were, of course, spent ignorant of the demarcation between the various belief systems. Every religious festival was a feast and we as children partook of all. In December we visited the homes of the Christians in the neighborhood and feasted on the famous Christmas rice that always appeared specially prepared and had a flavour that was distinct from the usual that we were used to at home. And after the month of Ramadhan, the Odun Kekere (Eid-Fitri), was our time to visit Muslim homes for the rice and ram and occasional amala and ewedu soup.
Soon it would be Odun Ileya, Id-el-Kabir or the big Muslim festival and again, the children would be there to savour the offerings. At this time, we were children of the entire community, and so we had to be fed by whoever’s turn it was to celebrate a religious festival. Only few parents would try to dissuade their children from participating in the feasting.
It was a feeling of camaraderie, which the entire community shared; the closely-knit bonds which the sociologist of renown, Emile Durkhiem, spoke about. There is a subtle social sanction for the parent or guardian who attempted to stop his children or wards from being part of the feast — and this had to do with winning the scorn of the other members of the community. In any case, it was difficult to even claim to be the child of one’s parents alone. Not with the aphorisms among the Yoruba that Oju Kan ni’ nbimo, igba oju ni nwo (You are born of only your parents, but weaned by 200 (the entire community)". This translates to the child being a property of the entire community or the neighborhood.
Of course, it was the responsibility of all the adults in the community to effect discipline on any erring child. And such an adult had no need to explain why he had to discipline the child. This was a measure of social control. With this kind of setting, it was possible for one, just as many other children, who grew up in similar circumstances, to have imbibed a liberal attitude to matters of religious differences.
The fact was we never knew the difference. The children of Muslim parents and those of Christians lived, ate and played together. The social interaction space was ruled by collective will for survival of the people rather than by primordial sentiments of race, faith or ethnic background. My father lived and worked in the northern part of the country, specifically in the very heart of Islamic community of Zaria. He worked as a building contractor, constructing residences for many of the rich people in that part of the University City. He had been there since 1958, some five years before I was born in 1963. My childhood memory recorded faintly this bearded fellow who always showed up in our family house in Agege, in the suburb of Lagos, about twice or thrice a year, and showered us, the children with many gifts particularly of Donkunu and Kuli kuli — two popular Hausa snacks.
I also recall that he had a funny (at least then to my little mind) accent that was indeed very strange. He spoke as if he was rolling some consonants on his tongue or sometimes over-stretching his vowels. But then I noticed that he always slept in my mother’s room and that the bigger room in the foremost part of the house, which usually remained close for most part of the year, was always opened anytime he visited. It was very much later that I came to realise that he was my father.
Much later, I was to be told that some of the little ones in the household were not his children but those of other people who had been in the house. I recall that on one occasion, when the bearded man was visiting, he came with about eight strange people dressed in long robes who spoke a very, very strange tongue. They were given a little feast at which a ram was slaughtered and that certain other bearded fellows came to the house, sat on a mat, and proceeded to give us names that one later understood to be Muslim names. We were told that the man with the beard had become a Muslim.
Perhaps pressured by the exigencies of the needs of his new friends, the strange talking ones he brought from his adventures in the north, the bearded fellow had gone ahead to convert the piece of land by our house to an open-air praying ground, where he and his friends prayed. The manner of prayer, which appeared as a game, soon drew the curiosity of the young ones in the neighborhood as we joined them to pray.
The praying ground gradually soon had a covering with corrugated sheets and an Arabic School started. We were enrolled. Thus in the morning we went to the Catholic School and we came back in the early afternoon to attend the Arabic school only to return to the school compound in the evening, to the St. Peter’s seminary, to partake of the bible study. These activities in our young minds were fused… one continuous experience of studying. We had no cause to interrogate the content or context of the two contra-distinctive experiences.
Thus we read the Holy Bible with as much fervour as we studied the Holy Qur'an. We could recite the Suras just as much as we could do the psalms and passages from the bible. And the status of every child was possibly judged by his adeptness at the recitation of excerpts from the two books. In fact, the elderly youths at night would hold tablets of Goody Goody sweet in the evenings at playtime and summoned the kids to recite from the two books. The ones who won in the competitions got a prize of the sweet. In all this, there was no knowledge of who was the child of whom in the neighborhood. Particularly the young ones were not supposed to know. Or so it seemed.
To one’s young mind then, every child who lived in the house was a child of the bearded fellow whom we had been told was the Bale-Ile (head of the household). I recall in particular distinctly my horror the day I was told that my favourite playmate, the oval-faced boy Eyinayya, whose name I could hardly pronounced well, whom I had always taken to be from my mother’s womb, was the child of another woman who had come from a distant land. This time I was already in Primary five in 1973.
****
EDUCATIONAL ORIENTATION
Papa Eyinayya, I was later told, was only a tenant in my father’s house. Yet this was the first patriarchal figure in my childhood mind. He was the figure that stood as my father as far as I was concerned and he played the role well.
Papa Eyinayya was a Catholic by faith. And at the time we were ready to be enrolled in school in 1969, he was the one who took me and other children of my age in the house and perhaps, the entire neighborhood, to the nearest school to us — St. Peter’s Primary School to be registered for the beginning of our educational journey. At the Catholic school, we went through all the rituals of baptism, of church attendance, Holy Communion and the rest. And the full account of all these activities we related to our mother whenever we returned home.
Eventually, I was one of the few people chosen by the only white priest at St Peter’s to live in his house and serve as ‘special server’ at the church. Of course, by the grace of this circumstance, one could remember having started life as a Catholic, as we attended mass every Sunday and none of our parents ever raised an eyebrow.
Later our neighborhood became expanded, especially with the movement into our house of a set of twins, who were Christians no doubt. They were always dressed in white shirts over a black pair of trousers and in one's memory they seemed to be permanently attired in this dress. On Sundays and most evenings, they could be seen carrying a bulging bag. We were later told that they were members of a Kingdom Society and that what they carried in their bags were tracts and pamphlets that contained excerpts from the Holy Bible. Even at that, one could notice that they were not really so much interested in discussing the contents of the bible with one. They did not seem to share of the content of our religious learning in the Catholic school either. They seemed to have a different view of so many of the teachings in the bible. But what did it matter to such impressionable minds as ours. We loved them both as th ey were always neatly dressed and had handsome faces. Our generous father was soon so enamoured by the depth of the twins' knowledge of the way of the world, that he hired them as home teachers for us.
Thus after the Arabic classes that usually ended shortly before the sun finally set, we would converge in the passage of the Boys' Quarters for home lessons. While we learnt the secret of Mathematics and Additional Maths, we also learnt more of the doctrines of the Kingdom Society (KS) and got to know the fundamental difference between the KS, the Jehovah Witnesses and the Foursquare Church. The surprise was that these three appeared fundamentally the same, save a few variations in the beliefs.
However, when the population of the children in the twins class increased, the passage became grossly inadequate; and so another piece of land on the left side of the household was given to the twins by our father for the purpose of the evening classes. Thus began the emergence of a church on the street. Our household inevitably became sandwiched between a church and a mosque. Yet, we as kids had no problems traversing the two worlds. At most times, even the adults joined us in the classes.
Eventually, it was one of the twins who registered us in an Anglican School, United City College, when it was time to attend Secondary School. He was a teacher in the school and he had, one afternoon, brought the forms of the school home and asked us to register. The surprise was that we were registered at the school with the consent of our father who had only less than two years before, caused us to adopt Muslim names in cognizance of his new found faith. Though also a Christian school, United City College had a different orientation from the Catholic school. The ritual was less intense and the atmosphere was less regimented. There was much more songs and games and drama in the school and social life was freer. We were in the boarding school, and every Friday, we were allowed to go home at least for two hours. Sometimes, we took excursion to other schools and on some occasions we were allowed to stay the night during which we shared social activities. Of course, we were now older than when we attended St. Peter's. We were mature and so trusted with more freedom.
A shock find. In the curriculum of the Anglican United City College, there was the Islamic Religious Knowledge, IRK, which was made compulsory for all Form One Students just like the CRK -- Christian Religious Knowledge. The residual knowledge from the Arabic school was of great advantage here as our unformed tongues relished the singsongs of the surahs. Most of the teachers in the schools were Christians, but there were about three that were indeed Muslims; and every Friday afternoon there were special Jumat services, which the students were made to attend. It became fashionable for almost all the students to attend them as the service was always followed by the special meal of Tuwo and Gbegiri (millet meal and bean soup). On Sunday, it was the tasty rice and chicken stew. The foodstuffs came always from the large farm at the back of the school where every student had a little portion of land and was allowed to plant variety of crops. At the end of every school term, harvest from each student's farm, which had been recorded at end of every week, were adjudged and awarded marks for the Agricultural Sciences class.
However, the romantic feel of United City College was short-lived at the end of our first term in Class two when then General Olusegun Obasanjo's Government abolished private ownership of schools. The students of the school were relocated to some other schools that had earlier been taken over from the missionaries by the military government.
We were relocated to Progress College, which though had a Christian background, was not so pronounced in the profession of allegiance to any Christian denomination. However, we would not even attend classes for a day at Progress as yet another circumstantial occurrence would intervene. A stocky elderly fellow, who was later to be identified by me as Baba Friday, had taken it upon himself to intervene. He would not allow his son Friday to attend Progress College, a school already labeled as peopled by miscreant-like youths who were known to play pranks around town when their mates were in school. Being perhaps the most educated in the neighborhood -- he was a supervisor in one of the factories owned by the Asians on the other side of town and only came around at weekends -- Baba Friday's opinion was highly respected in matter of schooling. He had decreed that none of the young ones relocated to Progress College would attend the school.
Next morning he herded the young ones into a file and marched us to a school some five kilometers from the neighborhood. This was Saka Tinubu Commercial School in Orile Agege. The school had an Islamic background, being the commercial arm of the famous Ahmaddiyah College (later Anwar-ul-Islam College) that had been founded in the early 1940s by some radical Muslim missionaries. Saka Tinubu, like most schools in the South West, accommodated diverse human experiences. The student population was something akin to a rainbow coalition. Students from various schools had been relocated to the school and so there were indigenes of various ethnic groups in Nigeria. Also, people of different beliefs and persuasions could be found in the school.
The principal of the school, Olukunle, was a Christian of Baptist persuasion, while his deputy, a woman from eastern Nigeria was a Catholic. But the head teacher, a Yoruba like Olukunle, was a Muslim and the Mathematics teacher, otherwise called Mastilo, as well as his Fine Arts counterpart, were never known to be identified with any particular religion. In fact, every Wednesday, during the time for religious activities, they were known to be engaged in the game of scrabble or Ayo, while the French teacher would twang away on his guitar with a sizeable number of students forming his audience. I recall that he later joined the famous juju music band of King Sunny Ade and toured many parts of the world with the international musician. Notably also we had Mr. Kodjo, a Ghanaian as English Teacher and he was probably a Protestant as he was always to be found in scriptural debate with the headmaster during the Physical Education period later in the afternoon.
The school, as a matter of fact, harboured a mosque next door to the junior staff quarters on the southern part of the vast compound. Few metres away, where the long block of classrooms for the junior class land marked by the famous footpath to the football pitch, was the little prayer house which served as the church. It was in the same room that the music lesson took place because of the organ that had been mounted in it. It would not be a surprise that much of the content of the music class was based on liturgical hymns and themes. But almost, or so it seemed, the entire student population participated in the activities in the room. This was evident by the fact that the Muslim-dominated student populace had to be organized into groups so the activities of the little rooms could accommodate them.
Besides, the students met in other extra-curricular activities that defined the social life of the school. The drama society was as strong as the literary and debating society. There were the Man O' War, Girl's Guide, Boys Scout, Junior Scientists, Farmer's Club, Home Science club, the Red Cross, the First Aid team as well as the various sporting clubs led by the Winsome Football Club for which I was the ruthless Number 6.
****
There were few elite schools in Lagos of the late 70s and they were mostly to be found on the Island, which harboured the Central Business District as well as the residences vacated by the former colonial administrators and currently occupied by the Nigerian elite most who had been educated abroad but had come home to relieve the expatriates of the posts they were leaving in the aftermath of Independence. The children of these elites attended those schools spread around Lagos and Victoria Island, Ikoyi and its suburbs. However, located in the far-flung Agege outskirts of Lagos was the Ahmadiyyah College. Outside of its location, the school, which later became known as Anwar-ul- Islam, shared every attribute that the St. Gregory College, Ikoyi; King's College, Lagos; Methodist Boy's Missionary School and the very few others in their category had. It had a huge reputation in academic and a good profile in sports. It was the breeding ground of young stars and future leaders in various human endeavours. And Nigeria's current political, economic, cultural and scientific professions are filled with products of the school. It was the dream of many parents that their children or wards attended the school. Of course, our parents were no less ambitious. But there was the scare. Ahmadiyyah was known for its strict admission policy, especially with the claim that there usually existed only very few spaces after they had reserved a third of such admission spaces for candidates from other African countries, the West and Mid-East who usually come on exchange programmes.
To secure admission to the Ahmadiyyah College for the Higher School Certificate (HSC) studies, the lot once again fell on Baba Friday, the educated hero in our neighbourhood. He insisted that all the Secondary School graduands in our area obtain application for the school. He also undertook to pay for the special coaching of all the applicants towards the entrance examination which, indeed, was a nightmare of many aspiring applicants to the school. The exams came and at least four of the six that applied were successful -- two for the sciences and two for the arts.
Ahmadiyyah, though a well-rooted Muslim school, was even more adept at stressing ‘meritocracy’. There was no marked programme to stress the differences in religion, ethnicity, class or even the more mundane state of origin as primordially indented in the Nigerian polity. In fact, it was at Ahmadiyyah that one had a full opportunity to study Christian Religious Knowledge, not as part of programme for the HSC but as one of the three optional classes that an HSC student could take from the School Certificate Classes. We had fellowship just as much we had the MSS -- Muslim Students Society programmes. As boarders, we observed every Friday for Jumat services and Sundays for Church activities. Above all, sports and cultural programmes coordinated by the Drama and Literary Society were the greatest weapon of unification in the school.
****
University days at the University of Ibadan were, of course, most accommodating of all religious and ethnic persuasions. As a matter of fact, if any organization attempted to be over-zealous or overreach itself, there were many organisations without affiliation or sympathy for any primordial sentiments on the campus to neutralize such conflicts. I recall the widespread shock that attended an attempt in the mid-eighties by two students organisations representing the two dominant religions on the campus of the University of Ibadan….
The Muslim students had complained that the location of the huge cross depicting the crucifixion of Jesus, which belong to the Chapel of Resurrection church, was discomforting to them. They claimed that the cross usually obstructed their views of the East where they are mandated to face while praying. They wanted the cross relocated. However, the Christian community countered that, well, the cross had been there before the mosque was built and so it was the Muslims that should move their praying centre.
Now this was a conflict never heard of in such a liberal community of academics. The anger of the rest of the university community was so huge that it eventually drowned the contentions of the two aggressors. This neutral position was instrumental to a quick resolution of the brewing crisis. In fact, it influenced the character of a panel that was quickly set up by the University authority to intervene in the crisis. The crisis was nipped.
A similar crisis had become a regular occurrence in higher institutions in other parts of the country. At times, something as trivial a matter as the mode of dressing by female students had sent a university community on fire in such parts. However, over time, religious differences have become more sharply emphasised in the academic communities of Nigeria, even in the South West. But none of the conflicts had assumed the status of a conflagration to cause the type of mayhem that had been witnessed in other parts of the country.
****
While taking part the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme in Kafanchan, in the Je'maa Local Government Council area of southern Kaduna State in 1987, perhaps the most damning of such a religious conflict in an academic environment occurred. The conflict was recorded to have taken its inspiration from the 1985 Maitatsine Riots in some parts of the north, where a Muslim sect unleashed mayhem on those who profess to other faiths, including Muslims of a different persuasion.
On this day, in cosmopolitan Kafanchan, which by virtue of its being a Railway town was populated by people from different parts of the country, the College of Education campus was bristling with activities marking the Students Week. In the courtyard of the school, there had been mounted a carnival of performances. Two of the key events of the week was a congregation of the Christian students association and the presentation of the play "The Gods Are Not to Blame" written by Prof. Ola Rotimi and directed by the head of the English department of the school, Mr. Joab Bonat, with assistance by me.
On the day the riot broke out, the play was billed to be staged. At about 2 pm, the cast and crew of the play, all students of the English department with a sprinkle of those taking elective courses in the department. Just as a member of the crew mounted a stool to fix an electric bulb in the center of the social hall at the extreme end of the school, a group of students in long robes walked in. They demanded to speak with the head of the department. He was not around, they were told. But his assistant, Mr. Anikulapo, the youth corps member was. One of the students mouthed certain statements about the corps member being an infidel. The hall fell into a shock. However, the aggression was suppressed. Some of the drama crew demanded the mission of the intruders. It was a demand that two of the cast members, who were Muslim girls and members of Muslim Students Association, be withdrawn from the play. According to one of the students, drama performance is idolatry and no genuine believer should be engaged in the vocation.
Particularly irksome to the intruders was the fact that the female students were part of a particular scene in the play which mandated that the women are dressed in a wrapper tied around their waist while leaving their upper part bare in accordance with Yoruba maidens' dress mode. The targeted girls were the first to raise protestation. It was their affair, shouted the more outspoken of the two, Mairo. One of the transgressors charged at her and attempted to slap her. He was restrained. But his comrades soon seized the two girls by the wrist and dragged them out of the hall. Of course, this act instigated a pandemonium as other members of cast attempted to challenge the intruders. There was much argument and fisticuffs and the scene of the latest morbid drama had gradually shifted towards the courtyard where a congregation had been seated and were in the midst of preachment by a young clergy.
Perhaps it was the tension imported from the social hall, for in no time, another argument had begun, all of a sudden, where the congregation was seated. There were shouts of obscenities and angry words. In no time, chairs and other items of seating were flying in the air. Many of the students had dangerous weapons such as daggers and broken bottles in their hands and many students already bore wounds as smell of fresh blood filled the air. At the other corner of the school, the little Mosque neighboured by the library was in flames. The campus had turned to a battlefield and there were wounded bodies sprawled all over the place.
Fleeing towards the town where the Corpers' Lodge was located, I could observe that some houses, especially belonging to people from other parts of the country were already on fire; and a popular businessman in the town, said to be the leader of one of the ethnic groups from other parts of the country, had been felled by an arrow shot into his head. He was reportedly attacked by one of those he had engaged for more than five years as a maiguard (security guard.)
The businessman had been known to be the main financier of the Muslim community in Kafanchan, having built mosques and served many years as patron of the Muslim Students Society of the College of Education. to which in 1987 one of his sons was serving as an officer. Yet those who burnt his property and killed him were alleged to be members of the same student society! This would indicate that much of the killings that occurred during the Kafanchan riot were not necessarily based on ethnic differences but purely the inexplicable thirst for blood by Religious Profiteers.
The news of his death only fuelled the riot. The so-called foreigners in Kafanchan launched a reprisal attack on the community of the Hausas and not even the palace of the Emir was spared the violence. Notably, the Emir had been in disputation with the indigenes of Kafanchan and suburbs, otherwise called the Kaje people over the alleged perennial imposition of a monarch on them by the Emirate in Zauzzau. The riot was thus a mere vehicle for expression of certain political angst and discontentment with the status quo.
This was the first time that the extent of religious dichotomy in Nigeria first dawned on me and it might have helped to erode substantially my confidence in the capability of modern man and especially Nigerians to safely wade through the murky waters of religious contentions and overcome the machinations of Religious merchants who are growing daily.
This fear is perhaps complicated by the advent of globalization and its emphasis on competition between the various strata of society, races of the world and economic classes.
Again Ms. Irene has noted: "Most of today’s tensions and conflicts are bound up with complex issues, with concepts of ethnicity, religion, identity, nationalism and globalisation. And the latest of these terrorism".
For as noted by James V. Spickard "Why is there a simultaneous growth of both religious divisiveness and quasi-religious unity? … Increased globalization and the growth of an international division of labour have fostered both trends. Such structural characteristics of our global late-modern social order have made plausible key themes of the human rights discourse, specially its universalism. The same characteristics have spurred religious and ethnic particularism as an anti-systemic counter-trend".
In fact the questions that many people have asked is that if Globalisation is that major platform where every component or group of component of the world go to negotiate the\ bases of their interaction and contract with other stakeholders, what is the identity that Africa or the Africans would be taking there? Is it that identity that is rooted in this conflictual religious ideologies or cultural dislocations ? Or an identity of polytheism that belies the conception of homogeneity that the West has always foisted on its cultural experiences?
The answer is not clear even in my mind.
****
Ten years after the Kafanchan riot, in 1997, I was opportuned to work on an anti-conflict theatre project of the International Committee of The Red Cross, ICRC in collaboration with the Nigerian Red Cross,NRC. Under the theme A Vote For Relevance, the project was designated the Red Cross Theatre Project and it was designed top produce a multi-lingual and multi-format theatre package that would campaign against the rising wave of religious and ethnic conflicts in Nigeria as well as in other parts of the world.
The drama package to which I was Assistant Director/Producer was titled Askari and was written and directed by Ben Tomoloju. The package was to tour at least two-third of Nigeria’s 36 states with three versions of the play produced in three centres — West, East and the North. Each of the Centres was to compose its own cast and crew and conduct its own rehearsals to stress the cultural peculiarities of each centre. But there was provision for the overall supervision of each centre and its production by the national crew led by Tomoloju assisted by me.
In all there were 22 performances in 20 states of Nigeria.
The project of course, had a hitch-free proceedings in the South West and safe for inadequate facilities in the East recorded success. However, the experience at the North Centre was another eye-opener for me and it only reinforced my conviction that Religious Conflicts often arise simply because certain human selfish instincts and mercantilist spirit come in to play in decision taking process by leaders in most human endeavours.
In the composition of the cast there were certain extra-artistic factors that were forced on the production by public officials who had been drafted to give the project political backings by the host state governments. They insisted that the lead actor to play Askari had to be not only an indigene of any of the northern states but practicing Muslim.
All appeals to them that theatre lays emphasis on talents, skill, competence and merit was rejected. They contended that a Christian actor who is from Christian-dominated Southern Kaduna was not suitable to play the role as according to them, he was a kaffir and could draw the anger of the local population in the ten northern states that would see the play.
Insistence by the national Crew to impose meritocracy and insist on professional judgement only aggravated the conflict as they threatened to distrupt the show and mount public protest. They were indeed adamant and held the production up for at least three weeks before the National Crew succumbed to the blackmail. A certain percentage of the 10 performances in the centre was allocated to the untrained but imposed actor. These were to be in core northern states with infamous records for religious volatility.
Needless to say that the performance of the actor was chaos. Interestingly however what drew the ire of the various audiences peopled by the youths and students, even in the so-called core northern states, was the inability of the actor to carry the role and speak loud and intelligibly enough for the comfort of the audience.
****
Again the Religious Entrepreneurs had won. They were guided neither by the genuine interest of Islam nor the will of the Northern people whose needs they professed to protect.
This same fraud is well entrenched in the Nigeria national polity and has been responsible for the inability of the country to attain its full potentials politically and economically. Merit has always been slaughtered on the altar of such retrogressive considerations as Federal Character, State of Origin and Quota System.
****
The second phase of the Red Cross Project had had to be cancelled by the ICRC based on the various obstacles placed on the path of the project by such primordial sentiments as experienced at the North Centre. This experience in recorded in A Vote For Relevance, a booklet on the project co-authored by Ben Tomoloju and Jahman Anukulapo.
And eight years after the Askari experience, Tomoloju faced a similar obstacle in the course of preparation of a theatre project for the on-going Eighth All African Games, Abuja 2003.
He had been billed by the Wole Soyinka-led Creative Task Force set up to produce the Ceremonies of the games, to produce a play on the legends of the heroine Queen Amina, a northern matriarch of anti-female oppression.
In the course of researching into the legend, a Professor of language who had worked on the material and wrote a script began a campaign which was to the effect that Tomoloju being a Christian, and from the South, was not qualified to handle the production. It took the adamant posture of Prof. Soyinka and the COJA officials to ensure that the production was handled as originally conceived.
****
CULTURAL JOURNALIST
I started work formally as a Journalist in 1987 shortly after Youth Service. My special interest has been in Cultural Affairs and I particularly loved the festivals.
My experience has been that aside of Sports which always as in many other societies break down the barriers between all men, even if only temporarily, Culture remains the most potent weapon to counter conflicts of all dimensions. In cultural expressions all differences dissolve as a dance like music, painting, architecture, drama is only an expression of man’s innermost sense of aesthetics. And the expression appeals to the positive segment of a man’s emotions.
Having reported and participated in the many editions of the yearly, NAFEST otherwise called Feast of Unity, I have come to the conclusion that for the Nigerian nation, to quicken its pace towards sitting peace, needs to invest much interest, energy and resources in its cultural materials and ensure frequent expressions of same. There may be over 400 ethnic nationalities (and may be as so many religious sects)in Nigeria, they all as had been proven, share so many cultural ideas and attributes that are easily identifiable even if they all met at a single forum.
****
Indeed, it is not as if the Nigerian political elite is blinded to the place of culture in creating a less-conflict prone society, it is just that there is a pall of lack of political will and honesty to do that which is right for the common good. And this tendency has been witnessed in the approach of consecutive governments to the various religious conflagrations that the nation has witnessed.
As a matter of fact, the 2002 editions of the National Festival of Arts Culture had focused on the Culture of Peace as a contribution of the Culture intelligentsia to the discourse on finding a stratagem for resolution of the frequent religious conflicts in the country.
Among others the Communique of the conference had observed
oThat elite have distorted various forms of cultural processes that make for peace in the polity and;
o That causes of conflict in the Nigerian state include non-physical visit between peoples of different backgrounds, ignorance, linguistic barriers, intolerance, corruption, non accountability, insecurity, injustice, sensational and sectional journalism, poverty, hunger, dysfunctional educational system, manipulation of the youth by the elite in the prevailing political, economic and moral environment.
The conference thus recommended
continued and improved funding of cultural sector to empower it to discharge its responsibilities and render quality service as a broker of peace in the nation.
inclusion of culture studies in all levels of formal educational system.
use of time-tested cultural imperatives and paradigms in ameliorating, diffusing and resolving conflict situations and tensions in the nation.
Empowerment of the culture sector, artists, craftsmen and other professionals in the arts by inaugurating and launching the National Endowment Funds for the arts and culture.
****
My proposal, even if it sounds simplistic, is that Culture and the Arts given a well-defined operative environment and honest administration and foundation, remain the key to solving many of the conflicts of today and that was the essence of Ms Nasa’s postulation that for culture workers and those working in the sociological fields, designing a model for resolution of the various conflicts including religious must place emphasis on respect for the individual cultural norms and practices of the people.
We must stress that Europe and the West, the civilizations from which Africa taps its current political and ideological orientations have shown that developmental objectives must take off from the cultural foundation.
This is where their national aspirations derive from and that is why aside from their diplomatic missions, they have insisted in maintaining strong cultural presence in Many parts of the world. That is the mission of the Goethe Institutes, British Councils and the United States Information Services among others.
Unfortunately, the African nations which really need these cultural paradigms are the least interested in harnessing their cultural resources and intellectual potentials as well as services of their intelligentsia to tackle the many contradictions of their existence including religious contentions.
****
CONCLUSION
Due to the continued deterioration in the economy and social infrastructure of the country, many more Nigerians are seeking solace in Christian and Muslim organizations. With swollen membership, these organizations have gained visibility and are exerting pressure to play increasingly crucial roles in the society, for good or for bad. Managing these will be crucial too.
It is necessary to constantly remind ourselves of the various submissions on the precariousness of Religious Conflicts and as well the extent to which our current world is prone to incessant conflagrations fuelled by differences in convictions and faiths.
****
Contended a religious scholar: It will serve us all better if we realise that truth is dialectical in nature. When extremes are emphasised, divisions occur. Consensus rather than authority or arbitrary majority coercion is the best atmosphere in which understanding is facilitated, but such dialogue usually slows and temporises group action. The same basic truth issues tend to be raised century after century.
The greatest degree of unity and cooperation is achieved when ideals, purposes, and goals are emphasised rather than theological agreement or polity conformity. Theological balance along with broad freedom of opinion and action is most conducive to constructive relationships. The conflicts of evolutionary religion are most effectively transcended by epochal revelation.
And Pickard continues, "If this battle between universalism and particularism – the theological battle of our age – is as much social as intellectual, then democratic governance of pluralistic societies can only succeed by paying attention to such underlying social correlates.
And we conclude thus:
In addition to Promotion of dialogue, the state must ensure that the space of social interaction – the vast field of cultural experiences… where everyman drops his burden of religious and racial convictions is protected and made inviolable.


References
* G.O. Gbadamosi, The Growth of Islam Among The Yoruba 1841-1908, (London: Longman, 1978.
*The Holy Qur’an, Chapter 49 verse 13.
*Bolaji Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, (London: Longman 1962).
*. James Pickard, Ph.D. (Department of Sociology and Anthropology University of Redlands, Redlands, California) "Human Rights, Religious Conflict, and Globalization: Ultimate Values in a New World Order"