Between Blasphemy and Mob Action
In March 1987, a religious riot erupted at the College of Education in Kafanchan (Kaduna State) because of an alleged misinterpretation of the Qur’an by a Christian pastor who had converted from Islam. The mayhem quickly spread to places like Funtua, Zaria, Katsina and Kaduna city, leading to hundreds of deaths and the burning down of several Churches, Mosques and Hotels. On December 26, 1994, Gideon Akaluka, a young businessman from Orlu in Imo State was arrested by the Police in Kano State, for allegedly desecrating the Qur’an, even where there was no evidence. He was told that his detention was for his own safety, but within a few hours a mob invaded the police station, lynched and decapitated citizen Akaluka, and paraded the city with his head fixed on a pole.
In June 2016, Bridget Agbahime, a 74-year-old trader from Imo State was brutally killed by a Muslim mob at the Kofar Wambai Market in Kano State, for an alleged blasphemy. Those charged for the crime were suddenly released on the instructions of the state Attorney General. In April 1991, over 200 people were killed in Katsina State due to a riot by the followers of Mallam Yakubu Yahaya in protest against an alleged blasphemous publication in a local magazine. In October 1991, over 200 lives were lost when Muslims went on rampage in Kano, angered by the visit of German Pastor Reinhard Bonnke. Their main grouse was the fear of Muslims converting to Christianity. First, they pressured the Government to cancel the permit for the use of the Kano Racecourse, and when the organizers switched the venue to the grounds of St. Thomas/St. Louis School in Sabon Gari, all hell was loose.
There have been so many other religious disturbances in Nigeria since Independence, but the above instances have been highlighted because of the common thread that binds them – a lack of due diligence and a resort to self-help.
In a supposed Constitutional Democracy, there should be respect for the Supremacy of the Law but that does not seem to be the case with some of our Muslim friends. There is a school of thought that seems to propagate jungle justice as a religious duty. Many of us would have seen videos of Clerics in Northern Nigeria commanding their flocks to kill anyone who committed ‘blasphemy’. The question arises then as to whether the fatwas issued by those preachers supersede the laws of the Federation. This question is at the core of the current debate surrounding the gruesome lynching of Deborah Yakubu Samuel by her supposed classmates. It seems like the blasphemy laws in Northern Nigeria have no parameters and no judicial process; anyone could be the accuser, prosecutor, judge, and executioner at the same. And that is the tragedy of those who support the way the young woman was murdered brazenly in the name of God.
Another worrisome dimension is the fact that anyone who condemns this gruesome act of brigandage is quickly reminded by some supposedly educated leaders that respect must be shown to their religion, as if there was any doubt about the need to do that. What happens tomorrow should Christians begin to execute instant justice on Muslims who blaspheme against their religion. Will the Muslims support them, or will they see that as a declaration of war?
To be clear, no one should disrespect any religion whether they agree with its tenets or not but arrogating to oneself the power of the judiciary and executioner of a capital punishment simply beggars belief.
One mistake though being made by Christians in Nigeria is the unwitting characterization of these mobs as uneducated people. That is inaccurate because these people are acting on religious belief and not intellectual power. Faith is higher than knowledge and it can make you do absurd things even as a Christian. That is why people are ready to die for not what they know but what they believe. To underscore the power of faith over knowledge, we have seen examples of Christian pastors convincing their followers to eat grass, drink detergents, lie down to be matched on, etc. Imagine that some of them began to indoctrinate their flocks that it was permissible to kill people for Christ, we would have a fireball in our hands. One example is what was obtained in Northern Ireland during the Troubles - the ethno-sectarian crisis period of 1968-1998. An average Protestant child was made to believe that Catholics were evil and undeserving of anything good, and vice versa. This is where the role of Islamic Teachers in Northern Nigeria needs some scrutiny. I believe that in Christianity as in Islam or any other religion, faith comes by hearing and hearing comes from what is preached. In a country that is so highly fractured along ethno-religious lines, the preachers must be uniters and not dividers. It is amazing that the part of the country that shouts loudest on the need to keep Nigeria one is where the centrifuges of hate and division are being fired with so much ferocity.
Deborah Samuel is a victim of the Nigerian State and so are her classmates and supposed friends who lynched her in the name of God. Both are victims of the radical Islamofascism propagated by some preachers in Northern Nigeria. No rational being would support speaking disrespectfully towards someone’s religion, but the rule of law must prevail at all times. So far, the only supposed enlightened people that have openly and deliberately blasphemed would be Gov. Nasir El-Rufai who insulted Jesus in his infamous 2013 retweet, and Mr. Abubakar Suleiman whose Sterling Bank Easter Message compared the Resurrection of Jesus to the rising of Agege Bread.
Imagine that our Christian pastors had the same mindset as some of the radical Muslim preachers in the Northwest on the issue blasphemy. There is a solution though: It is called due process. Deborah Samuel deserved her day in court and her lynching and incineration robbed us of a great opportunity to combine religious fervour with the rule of law to make for a better society.
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