Religion features at the very beginning of our nation’s constitution. In the preamble to the 1999 Nigerian constitution, it is affirmed that we intend to live together as one united country under God. Indeed the overwhelming majority of Nigerians are religious people. We believe in the supremacy of God. We believe that God is the very basis of our individual lives and our corporate existence. We believe in and relate with supernatural realities through prayers and supplications and through the offering of sacrifices.  We find churches, mosques, shrines and sundry prayer houses everywhere in the land. We take part in crusades, worship sessions and vigils; we offer sacrifices and observe fasting days and religious holidays; and we go in large number on religious pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Mecca, taking pride in being called Jerusalem Pilgrim (JP) or Alhaji the rest of our lives.

While there is noticeable decline in religious fervour in many parts of the world, the religious enterprise appears to be thriving very much in Nigeria, as more and more company warehouses and private buildings are being converted to prayer houses, and our sports stadia all over the country are being used more for religious crusades than for sporting events. Streets within our towns and villages, as well as inter-state highways are often blocked these days by enthusiastic worshippers who flock to churches and camp meetings. In many of our urban areas, there are as many churches and mosques as there are streets! In an article that appeared last year in New York Times (March 13, 2002), the writer, one Norimitsu Onishi noted that “Christianity is growing faster in sub-Saharan Africa than in any other place on earth. Roman Catholicism and the major protestant denominations are gaining more followers every day, but new churches are leading the boom.”

In the last few years, a new dimension has also been added to the thriving religious enterprise. It is the increased patronage of high ranking public officials who not only openly call for and sponsor regular prayers sessions in different prayer houses, but have themselves become born again Christians and prayer merchants, often appearing at church crusades and prayer vigils with all the paraphernalia of public office, and sometimes grabbing the microphone to deliver sanctimonious homilies and earthshaking prayers. At the end of last year the Christmas carol service at the state house chapel in Abuja, which lasted several hours, was televised live on national television. And to usher in the New Year, Governor Ahmed Tinubu, himself a Muslim, had the Christian chapel he built in the Lagos state house dedicated with much religious fanfare. This gesture paid off for him, as many Christians contributed their votes to see that Tinubu retained the governorship at the April 19 2003 elections. 

President Obasanjo and a number of Christian governors have thriving chapels at the State House where prayer meetings, morning devotions, night vigils and praise worship sessions are regularly held to storm heaven and intercede for the nation and its leaders. There are palace prophets and priests who are engaged full time at the state house chapels to pray for the chief executive, drive demons away from him, to curse or call for fire and brimstone over the enemies of progress who may be making life difficult for the chief executive who God has anointed over his people. The palace prophets often lose sight of any prophetic dimension to their ministry, and become part and parcel of the regime, prodding the leader on, and assuring him that all shall be well, even when the rest of us can see that he is sitting on a pack of cards.   

These days, prayer and preaching sessions are no longer limited to churches, mosques and homes. They are held at corporate boardrooms, in government offices, in commercial buses and in open markets. Nigerians going about their daily business can be seen brandishing the Bible or the Koran, the Rosary or Islamic prayer beads. The largest billboards in our towns and cities are those advertising upcoming religious crusades and faith healing carnivals. Religious exclamations such as “to God be the glory,” “praise the Lord,” and “Alaahu wa ku bar,” are often on the lips of Nigerians, at work or at play - from the exalted members of the National Executive Council or Council of State, to the young ones who are about to sit Common Entrance examination. Thus, Nigerians are a chronically religious people. The whole environment is awash with religiosity. No wonder today’s leaders have found it so easy to manipulate religion for political gains. While many critical Nigerians today see Obasanjo as a callous, vindictive and power-drunk dictator who was ready to compromise every principle in the book to stay put in power, he proclaims himself as a born-again Christian, and many Christian pastors have been dancing around him and proclaiming him as the messiah God has sent to save this country from disintegration. While anti-corruption crusaders might have considered former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim a crook, but he was always welcome at major Pentecostal Crusades where he often mounted the rostrum and took over the preaching from the pastor. Critical social commentators might have considered former Minister of Information, Professor Jerry Gana a shallow propagandist who was always available to do the dirty job for President Obasanjo, but he was a high level minister in his church, and he justified everything he did with the fact that he was acting for God. And Governor Nnamani is alleged to be killing his people everyday, but he appears on TV with the slogan “to God be the glory.” The list of born-again Christians in government is endless. Yet Nigerian politics is dirty, and the environment stinks with corruption. Is what we have simply the manipulation of religion for political ends?

July 2003