A Candid Advice to El-Rufai

By Msonter Anzaa

El-Rufai

These must be testing times for the governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai. Since it became public knowledge that the executive council has sent a bill to the State House of Assembly to regulate the activities of religious groups in the state, there have been reactions daily across the nation. The reactions come from several quarters and equally vary in harshness and method of delivery. I contemplated writing on the subject matter for a long time before arriving at the decision to write today. My reluctance was first of all because the real issues were so crowded in so much emotion and sentiment that I could not easily ascertain them. Secondly, since the issue of religion is such a dicey matter in Nigeria, I needed to take time to educate myself on the content of the bill and the core of the arguments about it, in order to be balanced and clear in my own perspective.

I think one must agree with Governor El-Rufai that the current state of religious fragility for which Kaduna State is known cannot be long allowed. It must be with the desperation to find a lasting solution – one that adopts a different approach from the typical Nigerian method of setting up committees of inquiry into religious crises: committees that end up with reports that neither solve nor address the root causes of the crises – that El-Rufai sent the bill to the legislature. In a summary, the bill seeks to empower the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, and the Jama’atu Nasril Islam, JNI, to regulate the activities of Christian and Islamic preachers respectively, alongside and interfaith committee to be set up by the government. It also restricts the playing of religious recordings in public except in designated places of worship. Taking a non-sentimental look at the bill, one readily sees some of the ills it seeks to handle – hate speech, religious incitement, violence, and disturbance of public peace.

Well-meaning as the bill is, it is facing stiff opposition from several quarters including those whom the state government hopes to charge with the duty to regulate the religious activities. What seems to be the unanimous position of the opposition is that the bill will consciously or inadvertently stifle the freedom of religion and worship granted by the nation’s Constitution. First of all because it chooses to recognize only two religions as the main religions in the state which is unconstitutional because it forecloses the possibility of any other group practising its beliefs and faith. Secondly because it imposes the CAN and JNI on religious organizations, whereas these bodies in the first place do not necessarily represent the entire spectrum of religious groups and interests. On a practical note, it is argued that it will negatively affect public evangelism which is a cardinal practice in both Islam and Christianity, and also provide opportunities which state organs can exploit to silent dissenting preachers and persecute groups which the state may find uncomfortable for political reasons.

Quite frankly, for religion to be what it claims to be, it cannot be regulated by the state. This is because religion claims to originate from God – a Being which is not accessible to the state as a corporate body. True adherents of religion believe they receive the way to practice their religion from God and owe their primary allegiance to Him. The state does not rank higher than God in this hierarchy, which implies that the state cannot exercise regulatory roles over what God has instructed. On a practical note, this means anybody can get up and claim to have received instructions from God and proceed to carry them out notwithstanding whether or not the state believes him. And even if the state were to honour God as a corporate body, in the first place, it does not even have the means of verifying whether indeed these people are saying the truth. But even if the state had access to all the gods of its people, how would the decision be made on which god’s instructions would be complied with since some of the gods might make demands which oppose those of the other gods?

Freedom of religion in a multi-religious or secular state therefore implies that the state will allow its people to practise their religions in obedience to their gods, and that while it will not endorse any one of those religions, it will not also get in the way of those who choose to practice religion. So a situation inevitably results whereby there are religious practices which the state does not like, just as there may be state practices which religion may not like. This results because the state and religion are not one and have different allegiances – the state owing its allegiance to its constitution, and religion owing its allegiance to God. Therefore, conflict results whenever there is an attempt by the state to cause religion to conform more to her values, or an attempt by religion to cause the state to conform to religious values. And most religious conflicts around the world result from extremist state activists who seek to eliminate religion altogether or extremist religious people who seek to eliminate the state altogether. As a result of this conundrum, whenever the state sets out specifically to regulate religion, it will fail. First of all because religion is wary of state influence and will readily mobilize itself against it, not necessarily because there is no merit in the particular action the state wants to take, but because of the mere fact that it is the state that is doing it. Secondly, opposition will arise because the merit being in what the state wants to do, the state decided to do it against religion – that is, the fact that it is religion that is the target.

One way to meander this sensitive balance without crisis is for the state to avoid dealing with religion on a wholesale note. The state is empowered by the constitution to make laws for the sake of peaceful governance and development. This means it can make laws against any perceived excesses of any religious group – hate speech, murder, forced marriage, illegal building, obstruction of traffic, and disturbance of public peace. First, it solves the problem of why it is the state that is doing the regulation because everyone recognizes that the state is empowered by the constitution to make laws for governance. Secondly, it solves the problem of why the regulation is targeted at religion because it will not have to target religion. Hate speech can come from clerics, but it can also come from secular musicians. Noise can come from loud speakers conveying religious content, but it can also come from people advertising their products. Churches and mosques can be built illegally, but so can provision stores. Religious processions can obstruct traffic, but so can political rallies conducted on the road. So you see, these vices can come from any sector, and we can regulate them without having to single out any sector. It is the apparent isolation of religion as the only source to be regulated that is causing the current uproar.

I think we are having this debate at this time because of a breakdown in the law-enforcement system. What we need is the rule of law. If an imam or a pastor commits hate speech, let him be prosecuted by the police. And if his congregation causes disturbance of public peace on this account, let the law also have its way. We do not need to set up a religious committee to handle that. Will the committee also prosecute or withdraw the license of a secular musician or politician who commits the same offence? In the last presidential election, it was widely reported that a prominent politician told a campaign gathering that Muhammadu Buhari was not a true Muslim because he had entered a church. Which committee qualifies to prosecute this kind of incitement? Are we going to set up a political committee to oversee such matters? What is the basis for judging hate speech by a cleric differently from the one committed by a politician? What I am saying is that we cannot make a law or set up a committee to selectively address a certain crime only if it happens to be committed by certain people.

Let Governor El-Rufai reflect on these possibilities, strengthen the criminal laws of Kaduna State where they might be weak and put in place stringent enforcement mechanisms. This will address the regrettable issue of religious extremism while preserving the right of the peaceful majority to practice their religion and pursue the cause of their God.