POLITICIZATION OF RELIGION IN NORTHERN NIGERIA AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE NIGERIA FEDERALISM
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POLITICIZATION OF RELIGION IN NORTHERN NIGERIA AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE NIGERIA FEDERALISM
ABSTRACT
This research is primarily concerned with the politicisation of religion in Northern Nigeria and its implications for Nigerian federalism.
The purpose of this research is to examine how religion is politicised in Nigeria and to propose solutions to the challenges that this causes for Nigerian federalism.
The study employs both primary and secondary data approaches, with a questionnaire used to sample the views of people in society, notably those in the country’s northern regions, on concerns of religion politicisation.
However, it was discovered that the desire for money, power, and influence is the primary cause of religious politicisation.
It also has a negative impact on Nigerian federalism by causing riots and communal confrontations around the country.
This study, however, concludes that religion politicisation, while frequent in the north, can still be curtailed via effective public education, particularly among clergy in the region.
More crucially, it is believed that, over time, as a result of globalisation, relying on politicisation would be a tuning of the country’s past.
CHAPITRE ONE
INTRODUCTION
Nigeria had a long history of colonial government before gaining independence on October 1, I960.
What is currently known as Nigeria was formerly a broad expanse of area with many indigenous governmental systems. The Hausa-Fulam Caliphate, the Kanem-Bornu Empire, the Nupe Empire system,
and others existed in the country’s north. The southern kingdoms included the Benin Kingdom, the Yoruba and/or Oyo Empire, and the Ibo acephalous society, among others.
Before the series of amalgamations that followed the arrival of colonialism, there was already a previously strong political organisation of the entire north as a result of Uthman Dan Fodio’s 1804 Islamic Jihad. Northern Nigeria was so well-organized when the colonialists imposed their indirect control regime.
The informal association between the colonial mindset and Darwinism is distorted to Plato’s education and statecraft theory. For example, just as Plato advocates for a class-based education in a society where individuals must aspire to remain in the designated class, the colonial state’s educational programme was similarly structured and planned.
Rather, it was against any form of education, Muslim or Christian, that was not aimed at achieving the colonial state’s agenda. As a result, the colonial state neither destroyed nor developed the Islamic education system, although appropriating the cultural and socio-political ethos of the Islamic faith it encountered in Nigeria to promote its own interests.
Similarly, the colonial state in Nigeria neither eliminated nor promoted Christian missions despite the fact that the state relied largely on the services of Christian educational system products to sustain itself.
The colonial state developed a secularised educational system in place of both the Islamic and Christian educational institutions. It was secularised primarily because religion was reduced to an afterthought – something recognized’somewhat tardily’ – rather than the focal point of colonial official educational policy2.
By the time Lord Lugard left Nigeria in 1918, the colonial state’s secularised educational policy and its antecedents, the Indirect Rule policy and the 1914 amalgamation of Nigeria, were well established. So was the country’s administrative partition into three unequal groups of provinces. This worked in benefit of the favoured.
In comparison to its Western and Eastern counterparts in the Christian South, the Islamic North.
By the mid-1930s and 1940s, the colonial system had become firmly established. Given the greatest possible lack of communication between different areas of the country, particularly between the North and the South.
It was unsurprising that the colonial system bred hatred, suspicion, and all manner of divisive practises in the country’s religious and sociopolitical life. For example, in the North, indigenous Christians were viewed as a political danger to the Fulani-Islamic rule.
In terms of national politics, the colonial administration in the North, unlike the South, had congealed into what became known as the “Northern Systems,” or the Anglo-Hausa-Fulani Islamic Hegemony.
The Governor, Sir Donald Cameron (1931-1935), was so dissatisfied with the system that he referred to it as:
The sacred North, a land apart, suspended in place and time… (which)… slowed growth in the Region and maintained it in an exotic backwater, appealing to its inhabitants.
British guardians, but administratively inefficient, corrupt, and unsympathetic to the interests of its own peoples, particularly non-Muslims and Northerners3.
With the successful implementation and consolidation of the Northern system, Christian missions had to find a way to survive in a hostile environment. One of their survival mechanisms was to hold ecumenical gatherings,
either to counter the restrictions imposed on missions by the Indirect Rule Policy or to see revenue from a compromise with the colonial administration.
This resulted in the formation of the Northern Christian movement. With apparent strength, the mission decided to enter the political battlefield like its Muslim counterparts.
To summarise, religion has determined political triumphs and decisions in the country’s north for many years after independence. The uproar and subsequent impact on the nation’s federalism has sparked academic inquiry like this.
1.1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Political analysts have long held that political changes in Nigeria had historical and colonial roots. This statement is an undeniable fact. One of them is the issue of politicisation in Northern Nigeria in particular and the country in general. Religion has been politicised by politicians in Northern Nigeria to score political goals since the colonial days,
despite the formation of the Jamia Islamiya Mautaneen Arewa (JIMA) which was formed and led by Dr. R. A.B. Dikko (a Christian) and later became Northern People’s Congress and was hijacked by the Northern oligarchy.
This is because religion appeals to people’s emotions and psychology, eliciting varied reactions, most of which are violent, as seen by riots such as the Sharia riot in the country’s north.
Religious riots have frequently challenged the foundation of Nigerian unity; on such instances, pleas have been made for the victims of such riots to return home, where they cannot be certain of security and safety.
This has consequences for national integration. There are obvious signs that religion will play a prominent role in the election and appointment of political leaders from that region in the near future.
What impact does politicised religion have on the federalism of the country in general, and Northern Nigeria in particular? This is how the project usually unfolds.
1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
1. To identify the immediate and remote causes of religious politicisation in Northern Nigeria.
2. To determine the significance of this trend for Nigerian federalism.
3. Determine the extent to which this phenomena has weakened Nigerian national cohesiveness and unity.
4. To provide potential solutions and make recommendations to the government.
1.3 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
The following hypotheses have been developed for testing to lead this study:
1. The politicisation of religion is likely to lead to discord.
2. The politicisation of religion will undermine the federalist premise.
3. The politicisation of religion would result in violent retaliation in Northern Nigeria.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The study’s importance cannot be overstated, especially now that there is a budding democracy and the government is looking for methods to promote things that unite the country and eliminate those that tend to divide it.
This study is significant for the following reasons:
For starters, it would shed light on the importance of religion in Nigerian politics.
Second, it is believed that the study will offer Nigerian authorities with enough information to advise them in the design of policies in the domains of religion and the state.
Third, the study will go a long way towards influencing people’s attitudes towards the bad impression of religion in politics. It is hoped that such understanding will foster a spirit of tolerance and accommodation among individuals of different faiths.
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