Religion for justice
society by setting aside proceeds to build roads, hospitals schools and so on that are affordable to the needy. We may never have had militancy, Boko Haram and social disorder to the types Nigeria faces daily and, maybe the state wouldn’t have been a boiling cauldron. As a youngster, I saw a late cleric on state television and his sponsored sermons on private television, heap dangerous scorn on adherents of other faiths; what the televiser cared about was the money paid for air time. Ethics of the profession went with the mind. Don’t the regulators and the management of that station know the importance of censorship, the importance of peaceful co-existence in a pluralistic country like Nigeria battling with a fratricidal war?
State apparatuses are used in Nigeria to promote hatred and hate messages, and clerics on the loose do the same in motor parks.
Gone are the days when children of different faiths slept and ate with their neighbours, sharing joys; the days when people interacted but not on the basis of religion. Now religion has been elevated negatively, not for the good of society but for some selfish and mundane considerations. It is a clear statement from them that they are above the law. And that is not acceptable in a nation that has law and order. Anywhere you go to in Nigeria you hear daring assertions not Sotto Voce with pride. Core traditional values of the pursuit of knowledge, equal justice, self-reliance, family, hard work and universal brotherhood doesn’t appear to work anymore in Nigeria. Diversity, inclusion appears to be concepts that are hard to grasp. Nigerians are habituated to xraying fellow country-men narrowly by judging people from where they are from, their beliefs, social status etc. Instead of looking at other people’s uniqueness because of different cultures and perspectives that they bring to the national table. The moral cosmos is relativists.
Inclusion into national life must be far removed from talks always about tolerance. Diversity is more than tolerance but about respect for the dignity of all people and the sharing of opportunities, power and wealth. Why then can’t we fight shy of ethnic groupings, and allow people into the larger room that development provides. Until we operationalise diversity in Nigeria and make people know that diversity means that people think differently and act in a different way absent superiority we can never develop strategies to make Nigeria grow. Not with these knavish feelings and serpentine entitlements everywhere. Not with moneyed interests elevated above love for man and the gaudy panorama of supremacy without reason. There is a language common all man, and it is the language of multi-culturalism, social justice, diversity and inclusion and it is no respecter of boundaries.