Throughout our country’s history, we have had to face some sort of unpleasant, tricky and oftentimes, some devastating truths about our existence as a people living in a so-called nation. One of the many truths we have faced and endured, is the role of religion in our politics, and how this element manipulates our lives and our actions without any empathy, regret or understanding. There is no doubt that politics is for everyone, so far you are capable, irrespective of the gender or religion. But many a time, it has been a bone of contention among people of different religions. Our politicians and religious fanatics have continued to endanger our secular democracy. From America, Europe, around the world, and to Nigeria.
In our Constitution, and most other Constitutions of other democracies, there is a "clear seperation of religion from politics". There has always been religious neutrality in public affairs, despite the many pragmatic judiciousness of politics and religion mixing in our political experiments. The ways politics is infused with values and in other concepts of our lives have become far more contemptuous now, than ever before in our country. It has been abundantly clear that the virtue associated with religion has always manifested as being good for government, and that despite the associated concept of separation between religion and state, the role of religion in upholding virtue and morality in our societies, and in the functioning of government, is still perceived as necessary.
However, it is evident, that religion and its various practitioners have polluted the affairs of the state. The possibility that our religions have exerted immense influence over public matters, is more prevalent now in many climes around the world, than ever before.
Only recently, some of our political leaders with somewhat shaded history of religious dogmatism, have deployed strong determination to entangle religion with the affairs of the state, ignoring the long-proven fact that each function better, if left untrammeled by the other. Without any doubt, these actions gravely impede the functions of government and distort national cohesion, unity and peaceful coexistence. To think that the beneficial religious culture and atmosphere that we enjoyed in the distant past have given way to a collapse that undermines and breeches this separation, is rather bewildering and utterly disturbing.
For example, a certain Governor was caught on hot mic berating Christians from his State, and threatening and boasting that he has perfected a devilish strategy on how to ensure that his State will only produce Muslim governors and deputies. This Governor succeeded in isolating this State that once boasted some pretence of equality along religious lines. The sins of this Governor did not stop with the feckless treatment of his citizens, but he took his careless egotistic noise further by announcing to the country that his, and his accomplices goals was to Islamize Nigeria. These pronouncements were not only disgusting but also mirrored the rise of religious nationalism, and shows that by politicizing religion, it has completely lost its revered and prophetic voice, required for nurturing and advancing human coexistence and world peace. The Governor, whether he realises it or not, has done an incalculable harm, through his privileged position, to national peace and democracy. His radical ethic of using his religion to promote his politics.
During this past Presidential elections, a certain Presidential candidate was captured on tape speaking to one of these Pentecostal Pastors. The essense of the conversation was the politician seeking the help of the magical Pastor to reach out to members of his congregation to vote for him. The implication of this taped conversation, if it was authentic, was a pandering of a Christian candidate to a priest to sway his Christian followers to him based on religious affinity. And there has always been a long-drawn-out intension by some political miscreants to falsify and distort the religious, and even the tribal and ethnic equilibrium that have for long been the stabilizing pillars in our body politic. What would one call the Moslem-Moslem partnerships and tickets in our political contests? Whatever happened to the balance in our political and religious process? The inclination for one religion to dominate the affairs of the State with sufficient instigations and temptations by taking the road of uncanny perilousness, portends nothing but danger for the growth and unity of the Country.
Many believe today, with anecdotal evidence, that the United States of America’s Supreme Court has sold its soul to the Christian Right and to the Conservative party. The court in its stride, is overturning precedents and shifting many old laws to the religious right. As in America, many religious issues in Nigeria have permeated the laws of the land. The sharia laws introduced by some state governments in complete override to the Constitution, is a case in point. It didn’t matter to the politicians propagating these religious laws that they could be harmful to, and damaging to the country’s constitution, in endangering the principle of the separation of religion from the state. Now, to behold our politicians and their accomplices saddling religion as a tool to (mis)rule us with deliberate degeneration, is abysmal to say the least.
The big question now is, how to keep religion out of government?
Constitution to the effect that everyone has a right to determine one’s own religious belief and also a right not to be force-fed a belief with which one might disagree, is sacroscant and cannot be abridged by any government. What is the business of our government in our religion? Is it to use it to secure national morality and cohesion, or for the basis of prosperity, life, or freedom? Isn’t religion a matter which lies solely between man and his God? Why is our government interested in sponsoring and paying for private citizens to go to Mecca, Jerusalem and Rome for religious pilgrimages? Is it to mend their minds, or to control their lives? Where are the positive effects of these government actions? It must appear that the more we visited God’s tabernacles and mosques on these pilgrimages, the more we perfected our acts of wickedness once we returned home. Specifically, the forewarned adverse effects of government intrusion into religion can only be imagined.
The religious institution should not deploy its moral authority or influence to seek political empowermente because the religious institution, itself and its practitioners are even more susceptible to the leavening and corrosive effect of political power. That is to say, that, instead of the religious institution reforming or transforming the state, the corruptive tendencies of the state will transform and deform the religious institution. Despite the avowedly overwhelming influence of religion in our political establishment, and the apparent unity between both, the existence of that extraconstitutional phrase
As Christians we must submit to the tenets of our religion where the scripture enjoins Christians to pursue their goals, be it political or otherwise, through the spiritual disciplines of prayer, worship, fasting and believing. The desperate and corrosive effects of seeking political powers through ungodly ways compromise the Christian faith. We must recall how Donald Trump became some sort of a salvific figure directed by the Christian God to save America and reclaim America’s Christian heritage. With the exposition of the mountains of scandals that followed his regime, it became apparent that God never sent him, and that his evangelical followers and their morality propositions, were nothing but hot air and unnecessary political privilege peddling.
To be clear, Christian leaders as well as other religious leaders while seeking to participate in the political process through their alliances to their countries with a moral responsibility to reform and transform their political systems, must entrust their ultimate loyalty to God in propagating those virtues as enshrined in the holy books and scriptures. To do otherwise will degrade the basic known ethic of religion, and deprive us the glorious role reserved for our various religions in being the conscience of the world.
Bishop Kukah wrote: “After independence, in order to build a great nation, each country went to work… but in Nigeria… our people went to pray and fast… while we were praying, Malaysia came and took our palm seedlings and built great factories of it, …while we were praying Singapore went into investment in technology… India went into ICT, China went into massive industrialization. …while we were shouting Alakuba and going to Mecca, UAE went into massive infrastructural development… while we were mounting huge speakers and building gigantic mosques and churches, America was mounting man on the moon…”.
As we ponder roles of religion and politics in our affairs, we must recognize that there exists an inherent contradiction when citizens battle to figure out if they are under the authority of God or the state. Voluntary consent to God (religion) as the higher authority, compels citizens to require that public officials (politicians) govern in a manner reminicent and consistent with divine justice, equity, rightness and goodness. At the same instance, citizens will stand against the same state intruding in the affairs of their religion, no matter under whatever reasons or pretences.
Separation of religion and State” still remains the guiding principle, if not so, there are dangers of state interference in religion, and on the other hand, the potent dangers that religious interests pose to the political order (the state). Because political stability can exist alongside religious vitality in our society with each acting independently, but in synergy for the attainment of a stable and progressive human society. Our institutions will benefit from the mutual exclusivity of our religions and state, if our powerful politicians will learn to obey our Constitutions and obey God.
©2023, Lawal Aanuoluwapo Rebecca, NSASA PRESS.
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