IDEOLOGICAL AND ATTITUDINAL DEFAULT: Nigeria's Worse Nightmare

Uwode E.Josephine 

jojoamaniarea@gmail.com

5/06/2019

Nigeria's greatest nightmare cannot be divorced from religious , ethnic , and political sentiments which to a large extent define the belief system. Ideology and attitudinal patterns are largely shaped by beliefs. A faulty line of reasoning /belief begets a negative attitude and evil antecedents. Thus such a scenerio can be in brevity tagged "Ideological and attitudinal default ".

An archetypal  concept that expressly connotes the above is the political, religious and ethnic interpretations given to every government's policies and programmes of the Buharis administration by the entirety of Nigerians. 

The chanting of the Islamization rhyme in recent time has become so amplified and  turned a subject of debate. It is a glowing testament of how the evil of misconception syndrome  (ideological defect) has necessitated the staging of verbal war, resulting to the partitioning of Nigerians along religious , ethnic and political plane. Obviously, alot of issues have been misconstrued to mean an islamization agenda. For instance, the clampdown on  the AIT broadcast media is better tagged a clear case of political witchhunting and professionalism gaps which has no connection with what some divisive elements label an islamization attempt.

Nigeria is a secular state characterised by the multiplicity of ethnic and religious breeds. The question beckoning for answer is why countries who share similar diversity experience a geometric progression of development while Nigeria is distant from a simple arithmetic pace of economic and political prosperity?.

In making this analysis as it connects to the Islamization agenda which is a reflection of the level of ideological and attitudinal constrains suffered by majority of Nigerians,  the octopus approach will be employed to carefully  crawl-walk through issues surrounding. 

Islamization has become a narrative in the Buhari led government. The concept has ferociously eaten deep into the spines of many as a Muslim president depicts islamization movement and the emergence of a christian in any political office to probably mean a christianization agenda. What a level of distrust among entities. This perception is a sure sign of intellectual dwarfism. These obnoxious perceptions and discrepancies surrounding the islamization agenda will be settled after bullet pointing basic fact as elaborated upon below:

1)Muslims are victims of herdsmen and Boko Haram activities, mosques are bombed as well as depicted in the killings of over 16 persons on Sallah day in Zamafara state. If it were to be a vengeful pursuit of the Islamic course as speculated, their heinous activities would have cancerously  spread to and ravaged the South west, South-South and South East regions where the chunk of Christians are domiciled and probably attacks targeted at a particular tribe to give it a fulanization undertone, but in this case even Fulanis fall victims of banditry. The siege on the home town of president Buhari, Daura , Katsina state by bandits further buttresses this point.

The narrative has become so devastating that when Islam is mentioned in the domestic setting, the first tribe that comes to mind is the Hausa/Fulani Muslims. It becomes baffling to ask if one is not indirectly accusing our Yoruba Muslims  or any other practicing Muslims of bloodshed as many still ignorantly perceive Islam as a religion of war. As far as one is concerned, Islam doesn't give preference to tribe as there is no Hausa or Yoruba quaran neither Hausa or Yoruba Muslims or any tribe practicing Islam. 

If truely Islam exists to kill, why then are our Yoruba Muslims not indulging in bloodshed ?. The problem is sure not religion  but the faulty mindset of people who hide under the guise of religion to perpetuate evil.

Religious practice is individual based dependent on the perception of the person on issues. For instance, despite the fact that Islam permits polygamy, there  are still Muslim faithfuls who imbibe the practice of monogamy and even go as far as marrying christian faithfuls and yet live in peace. The reverse is also the case of some Christian brethren.

Most security challenges are obvious signs of government's  negligence in prioritising basic developmental issues which in turn lead to self defense. The proscribed Ooduas Peoples Congress (OPC) and the Arewa Peoples Congress (APC) and their millita activities such as  the flagrant abuse of human right, under the guise of self defense along ethnic lines, erupted from government's inefficiency to guarantee effective policing system. These  movements have divided Nigerians along ethnic lines misconstrued to be tribally and religiously motivated.

2)Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC): there is no point being allergic to the truth. The undiluted fact remains that the inability of Mr president to deliver an inaugural speech on 29/05/2019 must be condemned in its entirety. Its been cultural for an incumbent president to do so. 

However the area of discordance is the affiliation of his jetting to Saudi Arabia for the OIC meeting on the said day to mean an embarking on an Islamization mission.

Giving religious  colouration to his attendance of the OIC meeting is uncalled for. It has been established that president Goodkuck Jonathan attended similar summit in Cairo in 2013. A similar summit was held in 1986  and attendance captured members of the National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF), targeted at checkmating religious fanatism that could breed terrorism and the event was covered mainly by Christian journalist to show transparency of purpose. Besides OIC does not exist to promote Islamism , rather its an international body bedrock also on promoting trade and bilateral relations among member nations.  Also I see it as a misguided utterance from a certain political class and religious group, as no one cried christianization when a one time Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) president's jet was accosted  in Johannesburg, South Africa on 25th September, 2014 for conveying a whooping sum of $10million, alleged to be for the purpose of arms deal. As inciting as the scenario was, no one cried out a christianization agenda.

3)Shiite Islam: President Muhammad Buhari has suffered high degree character assassination as he consistently gets accused of spearheading the Islamic agenda through his policies and programmes. If there is any potent instrument for the actualisation of the islamization agenda it would have been the use of the shiite Muslims. Yet Mr president refused to see to the release of El-Zak Zaky the mastermind of the Islamic movement in Nigeria. Despite series of protest by the group and the effect of the threat on the second term ambition of Mr president, he refused to succumb to the numerous plea and threats to see to the release of El-Zak Zaky. How on earth can someone accuse Mr president of being in support of any Islamic movement ?.

4)Radical Islamism : The killings in the country have been so much linked to an Islamic agenda. There exists plurality of denominations and doctrines of the two dominant religions in the country. If the Jihadists believe in the conquest agenda and are hiding under the auspices of religion to perpetuate heinous crimes, such inhuman act of tarnishing the image of the generality of Islam should be quarantined with immediate alacrity. In every religion there are always the good and the bad eggs as established by Colonel Nwobosi In his chronicle of the Biafra struggle where he  drew a thin line between the peaceful Muslims and the radical ones. He also affirmed that these societal shortcomings basically in form of insecurity necessitated the civil war. As such one cannot say these trends are peculiar to the Buhari's administration as such happenings are rooted in history.  

5)Religious Intolerance : Religious and ethic intolerance breeds conflict of great magnitude. "Respect is reciprocal and sine quanon to peaceful coexistence".

When people place their religion and tribe above others, the end product is sure an unhealthy building up of violence. The Nigeria plight today has been deepened following the politicisation of religion to achieve egocentric and political objectives, thus necessitating other concepts as political Imams and political pastors who specialise in spreading falsehood, hate speech and all forms of political Juggernauting. 

Its so disheartening to hear a cleric preach to the congregation from a misconstrued perspective of the cattle colony policy to mean an Islamization and Fulanization agenda without examining the impact of climate change with consequences of natural resource depletion and competition over scarce resources to mean the cause of the herders and farmers clashes, synonymous to the case of Sudan. 

Islam I say is not the issue here but the manipulation of minds of congregants by  religious big wigs who now puppet themselves to politicians for the enriching of their private pockets.

One begins to wonder where religion was in the good old days when  the North was once a peaceful abode of hospitality and commerce base for people of diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds. It is true that attitude is a function of what you hear, process and act. When people keep listening and process wrong information, they are bound to act negatively irrespective of their religious inclination. 

At this juncture it becomes necessary not to accept the message without looking at the messenger because the depth of the message is influenced by the understanding or intent of the messenger.

6) Fulani/Nomadic Radio: issues of Islamization have also spring up from this initiative. The dark truth remains that conflict resolution is a blend of coercive (Military intervention ) and diplomatic measures mainly dialogue.

In as much as military intervention is not yielding desired results optimally, the integration of herders through talks is considered indispensable. Amnesty for bandits may not be holistic but at least will partially address the issue since it has become glaring that security architecture of the country is almost rendered impotent.  

Radio Fulani if activities are regulated by the National Broadcasting Commission, perpetrators of violence In form of herdsmen killings ,using local dialect can help signal these unpatriotic elements on the consequences of their actions, chat the way forward out of the menace, targeted at punctuating the herders and farmers clashes with a full stop. 

Nigerians also at this point are anticipating similar action meted on AIT on the premise of spreading divisive comments to be applied to Fulani Radio if they are eventually found guilty of similar offence following their broadcast activities.

Fulani Radio is only perceived to be an avenue for the actualisation of the fulanisation agenda forgetting also that other broadcast network have overtime aligned their activities along political lines. Meaning some exist to suit the interest of a particular political part yet no one is torch lighting their activities.

7)ORGANISED CRIME: No doubt some unpatriotic elements have taken advantage of the security decrepitude bedeviling the country to execute heinous crimes that have assumed the dimension of kidnapping and banditry. If these killings are targeted at islamising the nation, one begins to wonder why such authors of violence will demand ransoms and release victims which is far from the quest of making people accept an opposite religious faith?. The testimonies of some released kidnap victims have established the involvement of people of diverse tribes and religious belief in these atrocities. Every region today is bedeviled by one security challenge or the other, as such the societal disturbances experienced is not a function of the spread of any particular religion. 

Also the penetration of the Nigerian borders via Burkanifaso, chad and even Shaki in Oyo state, is an indication that the crimes cannot be linked to any particular tribe and religion.

8)Bitter Politics: Politicians have made themselves obvious authors of confusion by using the antics of religion to brainwash gullible Nigerians. The Islamization cry is echoed majorly by embittered politicians playing the opposition. To buttress this point, I will not hesitate in making reference to the role of the CAN president in the arms deal as at 2013 under the watch of a christian president and I begin to wonder where these producers of the Islamization lyrics were as at that time the investigation into uncovering the dark truth surrounding  the arms deal which finally entered a  stalemate .

With all these developments, I begin to exercise fear for the future of my dear county Nigeria as I cannot stop but imagine how these biased chronicles of perceived Islamization, Fulanization and possible christianization concept would be told to future generations and how toxic it will be to their coexistence.

It is true that the slow motion approach of the government in tackling security issues is worth being frowned at by all and sundry. Amidst all the trials, it should be noted that insecurity requires collective efforts to address and not the politicisation of the predicament to aggravate the state of events. Religious and ethnic diversity will only be our  strength  when  Nigerians imbibe the culture of leveraging on the good side of religion, ethnicity, politics  to avoid public disturbances. Respect for religious and ethnic diversities is a bail out of this menace. 

",The Rhetoric of Division must not Supersede Nigeria's Unity" (vice President Yemi Osibanjo. www.punch.com/05/06/2019).