On a frigid December day in the year that had just been laid to rest, two disparate and seemingly uneventful but hugely significant events took place in Kaduna state.
The first was the attendance by about 525 adherents of the Islamic faith at the Christmas service of a church by the name Christ Evangelical and Life Intervention Ministry located at Sabon Tasha, Kaduna South. The Muslim faithfuls from such sects as Tijjaniya, Shiiat, kadriyya and Sunni including Imams and other leaders of the Islamic faith congregated from far flung states such as Kano, Katsina, Niger and Abuja to join their christian brothers and sisters to worship, listen to the sermon and fellowship in the spirit of Christmas.
The other no less significant event took place in Zaria also in Kaduna state and it reportedly witnessed members of the popular Shiite Islamic sect not only worshipping with christians at the church but also presenting gifts as tokens of love and solidarity to christian congregants.
It must be instantly recognized that the political elite had since independence striven to divide Nigerians along sectarian lines in order to perpetuate their hegemony and stranglehold on the voting public. In a country ravaged by a bigoted and dogmatic adherence to a factional point of view sometimes tethering on unrestrained and bloody conflict, the development being x-rayed here ordinarily should be excellent news to the political elite but it is doubtful if this will result in a cause celebre by the elite.
Nigeria has had it fair share of etno-religious violence and conflict such that it is nothing but sheer Grace that the country despite the fragility of its union and the several attempts at its dissolution or fragmentation still continues to exist as an indivisible entity. The proponents of balkanization to be sure have plausible and engaging litany of reasons for their quarry the fundamental ones being the skewed and parochial nature of appointments, the inequity and inequality of revenue generation and its corresponding distribution and/or sharing amongst the varying components, the vexed issue of over centralization/concentration of political powers at the center to the detriment of the federating units and of course stemming from the above the lack of exactitude and perceived manipulations in population figures viz-a-viz political representations at the federal level.
Whilst the President, despite the self confessed withering and blight associated with his advanced age, appears to be a just and decent man with an exemplary degree of personal moral uprightness, the same sadly cannot be said of his political assemblage most of whom shorn of any moral underpinnings gravitated under circumstances of perfidious chicanery from the other major political party to the ruling party on account of nothing but sheer personal gains. Any man can only go as far under these circumstances.
The unending strife and acrimonious divisiveness in our polity on tribal and religious fault lines which began in the first republic through all of the military interregnum has yet to suffer any major attrition even up until now despite the questionable professions of nationhood by the political elite and their insertion of largely vagrant and tenuous body of rules and ordinances under our various constitutions since independence.
It is precisely in the midst of this unsatisfactory season of unending discontent that we should endeavour to situate the recent events at the Kaduna churches as a faint glimmer of hope that Nigeria could yet rise again from the rubbles to take her appropriate place in the comity of Nations. The Civil war was a bitter lesson to swallow and behaving as if we had learnt nothing from that perilous armed conflict and hostility resulting in the loss of so many innocent lives must be an unfortunate testament to our heedless sense of history if not an attitude of outright recklessness.
Rwanda not too long ago travelled along the same route and trajectory but that country today is a sterling and shinning example on the African continent with developmental indices almost rivalling some of those in the western hemisphere. Nigeria with her endowments has scant reasons in the world to be placed at the bottom rung of comparative development indexes in all major indices of national growth.
We must commend both Presiding Pastors at the Kaduna churches as well as the Imams and members of the Islamic faith who participated in and were actively Involved in the Christmas service prescription of the christian faith. To be sure, this is not the very first time the program is being held for according to Pastor Yohanna Buru- ” last year (2020), the number of Muslims that attended the service outnumbered the christians”. The genteel Pastor said further ” We must remember that we are created by one God, and we are the children of Adam and Eve, and we both have our holy scriptures from one God as a guide on how to live in peace and harmony with one another”. He could not have put it better.
Paradoxically, ideals of piety, charity, altruism and benevolence which ought to acquire the status of standard texts for replication not only in our worship centres but in our hearts and minds have now been relegated to the back burner of outright irrelevance against the backdrop of vain preachment on unbridled materialism. Pastor Buru has by his action given demonstrative credence to the injuction as captured in the book of St. Mathews 5.44 on showing love to your enemies and offering blessings to those who curse and persecute you. When last did anyone hear sermons along these lines from our religious leaders from across the two great divides?.
The entire symbolism of the developments at the former political epicenter of the old Northern Nigeria should not be lost on us. With the right political leadership at the national, state and local tiers of governance providing the enabling environment, those orchestrating our socio-political polarization and religious disharmony will be out of business after all poverty, illiteracy and allied excruciating inadequacies do not wear the peculiar vestment of a particular faith, ethnicity or political party for that matter.
If given sufficient expression and manifestation in our subconscious and personal lives, the lyrical composition of the National Anthem and the National Pledge of allegiance are both imbued with the vast potential of turning around the destiny of our beloved country if we are ever to be taken seriously on the canvass of nation building and the provision of the greatest good for the greatest number.
We must as a people encourage the rebirth and renewal of hope in the fatherland if only to serve as a beacon to gravitate towards arriving at the shores of the legendary promised land.
ADEKUNLE ADENEKAN is a lawyer, based in Lagos, Nigeria.
