OPINION
By Ofio ‘Lojuayegbe
This new soft drug is Religious Fundamentalism ingrained into their consciousness by preachers seized by hate and bigotry
Slave merchants in the Atlantic trade era were able to ship about 10 million Africans between the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra in a spate of 250 years, largely through the exchange of commodities regarded by scholars as “Soft Drugs “, for slaves who ended up in sugar and tobacco plantations in the Americas.
These soft drugs are so-called because of their addictive nature. They include Sugar, Tobacco, Tea, Coffee, Chocolate and Spirit (alcoholic beverages). They were highly sought after commodities as a result of the status each confers on the users.
“There are several videos of preachers disseminating contents that completely deviate from the tenets of their faiths and one can only expect the relevant authorities to monitor these purveyors of hate speech and use all appropriate legal means to rein them in”
Many empires, including the famed Ife and Oyo Empires, collapsed under the weight of both internal and external strives and the struggle to keep up with the insatiable demand for slaves by Portuguese and other slave merchants, enabled by the acquired taste for foreign commodities, including soft drugs, by African political elites.
The brutes who placed a Fatwa on Deborah Samuel, her very own classmates, were on a different type of soft drugs, different from those inhaled or swallowed by their forebears who sold their kith and kin into slavery. This new soft drug is Religious Fundamentalism ingrained into their consciousness by preachers seized by hate and bigotry. The result of their perverse doctrines is evident in the bones interred in Niger State over the weekend by Mr Garba, Deborah’s biological father.
Deborah’s classmates who passed a Fatwa on her and executed it, are products of many households. They probably must have held their fundamentalist views about their faiths from cradle. Many of these youths might have been possibly fed this soft drug of religious fundamentalism from their madrasas by clerics way before they began attending Western-styled schools.
There are several hate-filled messages and videos on social media and even websites propagating hate speech, and many of the purveyors are bigots from the two major faiths.
Illicit drugs such as Tramadol, Codeine, Cocaine, Cannabis, etc are often categorized as hard drugs in Nigeria and their devastating effect on public health can only be imagined. When we juxtapose this category against soft drugs such as religious and ethnic bigotry; these two have more far-reaching debilitating effect on the harmonious coexistence of the over 400 diverse ethnic groups in Nigeria.
There are several videos of preachers disseminating contents that completely deviates from the tenets of their faiths and one can only expect the relevant authorities to monitor these purveyors of hate speech and use all appropriate legal means to rein them in. There are videos currently circulating of religious clerics encouraging adherents of a particular Faith to commit murder against those who “insult” the holy Prophet. Thankfully, a leading cleric, Sheik Gumi has admonished Muslims against killing in the name of punishing those who disrespect Prophet Muhammed (PBUH).
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From the founding of Nigeria, tongues and tribes were the prominent classifiers of our diversity but as we progress or regress in our socio-political journey as a country, religion is far becoming the most prominent classifier of our collective existence. We have a constitution that professes our country as a secular State but we find every opportunity to promote either of the two dominant religions or both even at government functions.
Many politicians court the same clerics they are supposed to admonish for peddling soft drugs just to appropriate the large following these preachers command. In the aftermath of the brutal murder of Deborah Samuel, disciples of these soft drugs peddlers even had the effrontery to threaten a former VP with their votes, for asking government to bring the killers of Deborah to book.
The signs have always been there that we are getting to a point where even the peddlers of these soft drugs, the preachers of hate, may not be able to control their followers. A case of the falcons no longer listening to the falconer. Prominent leaders from the North have condemned the actions of the fundamentalists who murdered Deborah in cold blood, but sadly their appeals to them might just fall on deaf ears.
“From the founding of Nigeria, tongues and tribes were the prominent classifiers of our diversity but as we progress or regress in our socio-political journey as a country, religion is far becoming the most prominent classifier of our collective existence”
The riot that occurred in Sokoto following the arrest of two suspects in the murder of Deborah is an indication that things may be getting out of hands. From passing a fatwa on a supposed “infidel” and executing the fatwa, these bigots may graduate towards ethnic cleansing. Businesses belonging to non-Hausa-Fulani were attacked over the weekend in the riot that erupted in Sokoto and in some videos being circulated online, some men could be seen mercilessly flogging a lady.
Obviously a lot of these youths perpetrate these acts of religious intolerance out of sheer ignorance of the true tenets of their faiths. They possibly rely on the interpretations by their religious clerics to make sense of what their holy books preach. If crimes like this are being perpetrated by those that have one form of education or the other, then we should be alarmed by what this soft drug could do to over 18.5 million out of school children.
It’s important for knowledgeable religious scholars to guide the minds of these youths and not fill their hearts with hate through their warped preaching. Politicians and leaders should also be bold enough to call out those clerics who use their platforms to disseminate hate speeches regardless of whether they stand the risk of losing their patronage or not. Religion has become part of our sociocultural existence but religion should not dictate who lives or who deserves to die because of whatever views they hold. On a final note, we can only build a better society if we all respect our various sensibilities and learn to tolerate one another.
