Between Christians and Muslims: Is there any hope for religious tolerance in Nigeria?

Editor’s note:  Nicholas Oluwaseyi, the NAIJ.com partner blogger, examines the issue of religious tolerance in Nigeria.

Nicholas Oluwaseyi is a young medical student whom God has favoured and committed a great vision of seeing mankind turn into eternal HOPE. He could be reached through his e-mail nicholasoluwaseyi6@gmail.com. You can also follow his blog https://hopecitadel.wordpress.com.

More details in NAIJ.com’s step-by-step guide for guest bloggers.

It's an enormous task to write something about this. We would still be writing and sharing minds about this for aeons. I'll leave this open. It'll still be open for aeons. I know you've your view about this and I'm not here to cast down the superiority of your own opinion. My opinions here are neither superior nor inferior to yours.

I've learnt a few things about expressing my opinion in ways that don't offend but seem intrigued to people. I always love to express myself with what's going on around. I know if I can tell you where I came from, how I came to the ideas and values I have, people will be more inclined to listen to me.

Tolerance as the ability to bear with one another in spite of differences either in opinion, belief or knowledge is an indispensable factor for any meaningful progress and development of any nation. It is a fact that the fear of religious intolerance seems to grip the Nigerian nation as a fear of an epidemic. It is not that the problem is restricted to Nigeria, as other countries of the world have had or are having their fair share of this. However, the Nigerian situation seems peculiar, regarded sometimes as worst considering the spate, and unpredicted nature of the phenomenon. In fact, a little argument between two motorcyclists is enough to escalate into the outright violence of unimaginable magnitude; most time gave religious undertones.

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In the birthing of this article, I sought for views of 3 different people in an ascending manner; a junior colleague, a classmate and a senior colleague with all being people of high intelligence. Below are their opinions:

"I so much desire that we have religious tolerance, and also I pray for world peace, but these seem unattainable. We can see this being played out daily in the middle East, France, U.S. Northeastern Nigeria, etc.

Peace to these two dominant religions means different things, and so tolerance, though strongly desired may be far beyond our reach."

Oluwatosin

"Religious tolerance is accommodating one another's religion harmoniously and can be fostered in Nigeria by understanding the so-called don't of each religion because contradicting the don't may interpret abuse on the religion e.g bagging into a shrines, wearing of footwears into a mosque or white garments church, or blasphemy against a prophet."

Faith

"Personally, I have the view that religion differences should not be a basis for conflicts. I have many christian friends, my roommate is a christian and we are good. It breaks my heart when I see people blasting themselves especially on social media as a result of religion differences. I ask myself- Is that what is taught/preached in churches and mosques?

Definitely NO!

I think religious leaders should be charged with the responsibility of educating/orientating the faithfuls in achieving religion tolerance.

It should be a topic in church on Sundays and mosques on Fridays and other religious gatherings. The Faithfuls should stop being sentimental."

Lateefat

I can call the above a random view. The first opinion expresses a saddened state - he wishes there could be religious tolerance amidst the billions on earth but to him, it's a mountain that seems insurmountable. The second expresses the opinion of someone who believes living by the rules and going in depth into in the knowledge of each religion could save us. The third expresses the opinion of someone with a saddened heart but still holds tightly to the hope of seeing this becoming a reality one day.

Most, if not all of us, fall into these three categories of opinions. In few years back, fear has led many to warn and believe that Nigeria is on the brink of a religious war. Has there really been religious conflict? There have been deaths in churches. There have been deaths in mosques. It is very difficult to disentangle what happened with each of these deaths — an ambiguity that opens a window for manipulation and inaccurate reporting.

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It's saddening that many of the so-called religious faithfuls have been practising the opposite of what is being preached. The inability to accommodate another person's religious beliefs is a social disease that keeps metastasizing like a cancerous tumour all over the world and taking our country as a subset, it seems it's not going to end. The absolute cause of religious intolerance lies within the cobweb of a crave for superiority. To roll back the years, the religious communities have boasted of a kind of flexibility and tolerance amidst one another, but in the recent the rate of the intolerance has been escalating.

In a typical Nigerian religious world filled with fanatics, conflicts have always arisen from the exaggeration of a particular religion like religion itself saves. We have followed the concept of religion blindly while leaving behind the substance in the religion. Wrong teachings, hatred, misinformation and many others have played their parts.

In the real sense, we all never want to accept the fact that others are different from us. It's not easy. We all desire that everyone comes to our side and enjoy what we're enjoying. Many of us demand that people in our surroundings change to our own ways. We press them hard to bend to our philosophies and beliefs and when they refuse to, we invalidate them and crush their feelings and that's the beginning of religious intolerance . To have any peaceful religious coexistence, this is the basic truth we have to accept and live in the reality. We don't need to tell people we would love them and live peacefully with them if only they could change to our own ways. We all say true love is unconditional, but with all these demands we've turned the statement aside. I'm not casting down the need to speak to anyone about your religion from a heart of love willing to show them the way but that can't be achieved by invalidating others differences.

Religion could serve as an instrument of social harmony, and paradoxically, it could also serve as a motivation for violence hence, it has been viewed by scholars as a “double-edged sword” (Maregere 2011:17-23; Obasi 2009). Religious bigots right from the ancient epoch attempted to legitimise violence in the name of God.  In the last two decades, Nigeria had experienced events of tensions violence and killing between Christians and Muslims. These violent conflicts are not unconnected with the complex nature of the interreligious and intercultural relationship that exists in the country, which has been that of religious fundamentalism and riots. The major reason for the violent conflict is largely due to either lack of understanding and misinterpretation of the various religious faiths. Added to this is the fact that the dominant model of religious learning ordered by major Nigerian regions has been faiths oriented and anchored on religious indoctrination and dogma.

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Knowing that no religion is inferior or superior could free us from all the wailings that religious intolerance has caused us. Whether you stand, sit, kneel, sing, chant to worship is for you to choose. The concept of free will is something that makes human being distinct from all creations and every member of the community should be allowed to exercise it without invalidation of their feelings. Just as you would like to respect your religion beliefs, remember to respect others too in remembrance that as it's important to you, it's also important to them.

It's possible for me not to agree with your beliefs and still accept it in respect to you if that's what you choose. We all behave sometimes like the nonacceptance of our beliefs by someone decreases the truth rightly embedded in them.

Know very well that others are like you. Know that they can give clear reasons for what they choose as much as you can. Know that they also have a perspective that guides them as much as you do too. Know that invalidating others differences because you're superior or because they decide to be silent is not a way to bring them to your side which is obviously your aim. Be guided.

Be thankful for the differences in your community because they've all opened your eyes to know more about your perspective even better if you look carefully. Appreciate and respect them. The more you learn about something, the less fear you've. Get materials on the faith you disagree with and know more about them, not from a heart to criticise it but from a desire to learn more. It will help you to understand other's perspective a bit better and helps you respect it better.

Fighting and bickering we do sometimes over religious issues take us miles away from what we claim we're even protecting. The more the intolerance the more you move away from the centre. While there are many issues to focus on within each Faith ,we're spending time focusing on what doesn't need our time.

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Nicholas Oluwaseyi is a young medical student whom God has favoured and committed a great vision of seeing mankind turn into eternal HOPE. He could be reached through his e-mail nicholasoluwaseyi6@gmail.com. You can also follow his blog https://hopecitadel.wordpress.com.

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