God created the world and every
living and non-living thing for a purpose. God is love and He expects human
beings to be living together in love and peace. But unfortunately pride has
entered man and the result is lack of love, peace and unity in the world.
God in His wisdom has given man
absolute freedom to live on the earth and subdue as well as have dominion over
all other creatures. God’s intention is for the human beings to procreate and
multiply and populate the earth. God therefore has put in place every necessity
of life for man’s pleasure.
Man’s disobedience led God to
send many prophets to the world to warn them. Some of these prophets were even
killed by man because of the wickedness of man. Now there are several religions
in the world, but the dominant ones are Islam and Christianity. The religions
that are expected to bring peace to the world are rather becoming the
instrument of oppression, discordance, disunity and unwarranted crises leading
to killings of human beings who ironically are children of God.
In Nigeria for instance, there
has been wide dichotomy between the Muslims and Christians as both followers
always promote war of superiority. Frankly speaking, religious intolerance has
permeated the fabrics of the religious life to the extent that it has been
threatened the unity of the country for the last four decades.
Due to religious intolerance,
there have been several religious crises where people were killed in the name
of God. I wonder why God who is omnipotent needs ordinary helpless mortal human
beings to kill for Him. The
indescribable seed of discord between Muslims and Christians has assumed an
alarming proportion that there is no love-lost among the faithful of the two
world major religions. Aghast! It is not the will of God that people should be
living like cat and dog in the world God has mercifully given to man to
dominate and replenish.
What becomes the order of the day
now is Muslims and Christians accusing one another of blasphemy thereby suspiciously
keep one another at arm’s length. Like soldiers in the battle field looking for
the opportunity to kill an enemy soldier, the relationship between the faithful
among all the religions, more particularly Islam and Christianity has grown sour
and this has degenerated to the level where the relationship among the people
generally is shrouded with enmity all over the world.
For instance, in Nigeria the
issue of enshrining Shariah legal system into the Constitution in 1978, the
attempt of Nigeria to belong to Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in
1986 and the adoption of Shariah legal system by some States in the Northern
Nigeria at the beginning of the twenty –first century, and the intention to
introduce Islamic banking of Nigeria by the then Central Bank Governor, Mallam
Sanusi Lamido Sanusi in 2012 readily come to mind. These ideas were vehemently
opposed by Christians, alleging that Muslims were planning to Islamize Nigeria
or turn the country into an Islamic State.
Both Muslims and Christians in
Nigeria are guilty of religious intolerance resulting in unnecessary slanderous
statements which in most cases cause religious crisis that we sometimes
witness in our dear country.
In other to arrest religious
crises, some States, especially in the northern part of the country have made
laws banning public processions and sermons by religious organizations. In some
States in the north such as Kano, part of Kaduna, Sokoto, Zamfara and Borno
where Islam is a dominant religion, their school syllabuses only permit the
teaching of Islamic Religious Studies (IRS) in public schools, thereby denying
Christian children the right to study their Christian religion.
In majority of the States in
Southern Nigeria where Christianity is a dominant religion, almost all the
activities in schools are dominated by Christian norms such that there is more
attention to the Study of Christian Religious Studies (CRS) than it applies to Islamic
Religious Studies.
It is unfortunate to mention that
religious sentiment now dominates appointment into political offices both at
the State and federal levels. It is no longer news to hear those who profess to
speak or defend their religion accusing the President or Governor of unfairness
in the appointments of officers into the federal cabinet or State cabinet. It is
very unfortunate that these religious bigots do not consider merit and interest
of the State or nation.
I use this medium to preach to
the conscience of people to be religious tolerant. God is love and He wants
mankind irrespective of their religious affiliation to have love for one
another. People behind some religious crises that we witness in the world and
Nigeria in particular should know that there is no reward for the wicked. Indeed,
we need peace, love and unity.
Aminat Adesope is one of our Staff writers.
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