By Kayode Emola

The average person in Nigeria claims membership of one of the three major religions prevalent across the country: Christianity, Islam or Traditional worship. Some even concurrently subscribe to more than one, as they see fit. In view of this, it is safe to say 90 – 99 percent of Nigerians are ‘religious’. However, before I go any further, we ought to clarify what is meant by the term “religion”, in order to help us understand whether we in Nigeria are truly religious or not.

Religion has been defined as a set of organised beliefs and practices, usually shared by a community or group. In this case, we can expect that those belonging to any one group would behave in the same manner, reason and act alike for the mutual good of said group. I am not very versed in the Qur’an, so I will limit my exposition on that area; however, I do know a few verses in the Bible, and I wonder if those of us who claim to be Christian truly live by the beliefs and practices of Christianity.

For instance, in order to demonstrate our piety to the world, we make our public officials swear on the Bible or Qur’an during the oath of office ceremony. However, I do not think this is a proper thing to do unless we have really grasped what was written in those holy books.

Part of the Bible contains the Ten Commandments, among which are found the “thou shall not”s. These list the things we as individuals must not do, such as stealing, lying, covetousness, bearing false witness etc. Yet those people holding high office of state consistently fail to uphold these Commandments, as so a disregard for their value thus permeates into every aspect of our society. When we wonder why we have a degenerative society today, we have failed to look at where our problem really started. Those in authority who should know better have disregarded their duty to be the shining light that society can rely on.

Apart from the African traditional worship we inherited from our ancestors, Islam and Christianity were both alien religions brought to our shores by foreigners who had their own ulterior motives. In the case of radical Islam, there are people who believe that it is their duty to kill infidels in the name of Jihad, in order to secure their place in paradise. How killing a fellow human being can be considered a laudable act, that can make someone deserving of paradise, remains to be seen.

In the case of Christianity, many countries in the world today have written their constitution based on the tenets prescribed by the Bible, thanks to the European explorers. The Europeans who introduced Christianity also told us that we serve a forgiving God who is willing to forgive us our trespasses every time we commit an offence. As true as this may be, we need to look at the motives underlying the introduction of such religious sentiments.

When we Africans were practicing our traditional worship, we were morally upright and everyone was ready to tell the truth if a matter needed to be taken to the deities for resolution. This was not always borne of our free volition, but rather because circumstances compelled us to, for fear of repercussion from the gods if we did not. However, when the Europeans brought in Christianity and the all-forgiving God, and we did not need to go to the shrines anymore, our true human nature of self-aggrandisement began to reveal itself.

This newfound religion of Christianity, brought to us by the Europeans, allows us to commit sometimes heinous crimes and still be forgiven without repercussions. This today is one of the main motivations for religiosity in Nigeria. Many of us claim to be Christians, however do nothing in our everyday life to demonstrate that we actually follow the tenets laid down in the Bible. It is the reason a politician can get into office and be ready to steal the collective wealth of the people, thereby wantonly breaking one of the Bible’s golden rules. After stealing the wealth, they then go on to lie about it to the people, thus breaking another golden rule. Before you know it, they are wilfully breaking all the rules of same Holy Bible that they swore by.

Considering that this immoral religiosity in Nigeria is the bane of many of our problems, perhaps we need to discontinue this practice of people swearing on the Bible when they take public office. After all, requiring people to swear on any object or religious material throughout this last century has not brought us anything tangible other than looters and liars.

We need now more than ever to build a new society based on heeding our moral conscience to inform us of the right thing. We need to begin a critical education from the cradle in the minds of our people to know that being religious is insufficient to build a decent society. Our people need to know that it is far more imperative that we strive to build a strong moral society for the betterment of all, rather than a corrupt society that only serves a few.

It is a shame that, as much as I believe this is the right way to build a society, the moral degeneration that pervades every aspect of life in Nigeria will make it difficult to achieve. Therefore, as we journey to our new Yoruba nation, it is far better to teach the coming generations that religion cannot be the sole basis for building a morally upright society. Particularly considering the damage that religion has done to the Nigerian state and several other African countries.

Yoruba people must realise that those who brought Islam and Christianity were never motivated by desiring to develop our minds, but rather to capture our hearts. We must now rediscover our purpose as a people and redefine our values based on respect for one another and our society. This stands in stark contrast to the selfishness of our hearts that brings nothing but deprivation, ridicule and shame both to ourselves and to our wider communities.

The truth is, as much good as Christianity and Islam have done for us in Nigeria, we have looked for loopholes in them to destroy our very own society. We must begin to examine for ourselves whether we truly are religious, following the commandments as laid down in the Bible and Qur’an, or whether we are using religion to justify doing our own selfish bidding. If the answer is the latter – which I believe it is for many – then maybe it is time to re-evaluate who really are Christians, Muslims or Traditionalist.

It may be that we can only truly call ourselves religious if we are among those who follow all the principles as laid down in these holy books. Amongst the entire population of Nigeria , they might not even be up to 5%. This is the very reason that we have an immoral society living in denial.

As we enter the new year, seeking also to enter our new nation, let us take time to truly inspect the content of our hearts and the motivation for following our chosen religion. Then let us examine the actions of our leaders, testing whether they measure up to the doctrines to which they claim to subscribe. When we find that they do not, we must take action to root out this disease and ensure that those we imbue with authority in the Yoruba nation are those with strong and sound morals, upright hearts and righteous character, whatever their religion.

Corruption can only take hold in our new nation if we permit it; so it is the duty of every one of us to ensure that we do not. Let us make this new year and new nation one of radical new foundations: foundations of upstanding morals and transparent honesty in all things.