By Chiedu Uche Okoye

WHAT is religion? Religion can be defined as a way by which a people try to reach their gods or God. Religions are human creations. However, not a few people believe that religions were founded by men under the guidance and inspiration of God. And, almost all religions in our contemporary world have the doctrinal foundation of love as common denominator. To the best of my knowledge, no holy books – whether Koran or the Bible or Gita- contain teachings that encourage people to perpetrate acts of wickedness such as murder, armed robbery, slander and so on.

Today, Christianity and Islam are the two predominant religions in Nigeria, and millions of Nigerians from diverse ethnic backgrounds profess these religions. Christians, for instance, believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the ransom for our sins. And the Bible, which is the holy book of Christians, says that those who exercise faith in the redemptive death of Christ on the cross and abide by His teachings shall enter the kingdom of God when they shed their mortal garments.

In time past, Christian clerics always preached about righteous living and holiness to their congregations. They often inculcated the virtues of charity, forbearance, temperance, and forgiveness into adherents of the Christian faith. Not surprisingly, then, Christians would exhibit good and exemplary behaviour. Righteousness was their trademark and they became the beacon of hope in our vile and morally depraved world.

Sadly, however, with the passage of time, men of the cloth, started espousing and enthroning the message of prosperity above the teachings of love, righteousness, and faithfulness. Nowadays, the founders of Pentecostal churches glamourise ostentatious lifestyles and despise poverty in all its grotesque manifestations. In those churches, the dirt-poor are despised and made to believe that they are the scum and the accursed of the earth.

But the Bible says that we shall always have the poor among us. While the billionaire church founders fly in private jets, a vast majority of members of their churches wear disintegrating shoes and threadbare clothes. Their faith-based schools were built with the money collected from poor church members, yet children of the poor cannot attend those schools as fees charged in the schools are way beyond the financial means of poor parents. What obtains in those churches is a case of extreme wealth sitting side by side with abject poverty.

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It is, however, not only Christian clerics who do hide under the cloak of religion to commit atrocious deeds. Members of the Boko Haram group, who are fired up and indoctrinated with distorted teachings of Islam, have embarked on the mission of turning the North to an Islamic theocratic state. They justify and rationalise their orgies of blood-letting by mouthing religious shibboleth and piffling.

These blood-thirsty religious vampires have added the abduction of schoolgirls to their repertoire of egregious religious activities. When they raided a Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, they took many of the schoolgirls away as war booties. All the abducted Dapchi schoolgirls had been released, save Leah Sharibu who is still in Boko Haram captivity for refusing to renounce her Christian faith. Today, Leah Sharibu has become a symbol of resistance to forced religious proselytising. The pleas and negotiations carried out by the Federal Government to secure her release have not yielded positive result. Leah Sharibu’s story is simply heartbreaking.

But more worrisome is the likelihood of Nigeria exploding into a huge religious conflagration with dire consequences owing to the proscription of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, IMN. The government’s clampdown on the Shiite Muslims following their bloody clash with soldiers and their subsequent violent protests is heavy-handed, inhuman, and unjustifiable. It negates the practice of the rule of law and infringes on their right to freedom of association and assembly. The Federal Government is trying to kill a fly with a sledgehammer.

Going down memory lane, we should remember that the Federal Government tried to squelch the Boko Haram group in the past as it is doing to Shiites now. It’s their unsuccessful repressing of the Boko Haram group that gave rise to the group’s mutation into a murderous insurgent group. Can’t government devise a strategy to handle the IMN issue with tact and seriousness?

With members of the IMN appearing suicidal and ready to become martyrs, the Federal Government that is finding it difficult eradicating the Boko Haram incubus, may end up creating another blood-thirsty monster by its callous and injudicious actions. Worse still is government’s identification with Sunni Muslims at the expense of the Shiites.

Sadly, here, it is obvious to us that imported religions like Christianity and Islam have become our albatross. Instead of leveraging religions to cause moral rebirth in our country, some of our Christian clerics and Moslem mullahs are putting their religions to bad uses.

Our excessive religiosity stifles our curiosity to know more about nature. If we acquire knowledge about nature, we can use our knowledge of the workings of nature to push back the frontiers of science and technology in Nigeria.

Investing our creative energies in developing our indigenous technology is more rewarding and profitable than expending time and resources in fighting needless intra-religious battles.

Okoye, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Uruowulu-Obosi, Anambra State.

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