By Cyriacus Nnaji
On Wednesday, October 11, 2023, Community Life Project (CLP) convened what it called Post-Election Stakeholders’ Forum on Religions Divisions in Electoral Politics in Nigeria.
The event which took place at Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos, focused on Religious Tolerance especially as it played out during the 2023 General elections, the reason was of course to find solutions to any negative issues in that election and to guard against future occurrence. Some of the Discussion points included what the various faith say about religious intolerance and relationship with other faiths; how well did members of these faiths, both clergy and faithful, live up to the teachings of their faiths in the way they conducted themselves in the elections, before and after. And finally what are the concrete actions the faith community can take to begin to heal the wounds inflicted on society.
Speaking to Journalists on what informed the gathering, the Convener and Executive Director, CLP, and ReclaimNaija grassroots movement, an advocate of Social Justice, Ngozi Iwere said that during the 2023 elections the nation experienced a lot of religious manipulation and division which interfered with the process of citizens exercising their Civic responsibilities and their mandates, and that had implications on the outcomes of the election at every level in the country, he the Forum “And so we feel that the society is deeply divided, a lot of wounds have been inflicted; post-election we still see people and the society smarting from those wounds. So we felt that it would be important we bring interfaith leaders across religious divide to begin to have conversations on how to heal those wounds because no society can make progress if it remains divided as we are now.”
Part of the solutions for religious intolerance, accoding to Iwere is adherence to the rule of law. “Adherence to the rule of Law is the requirement of every citizen of this country irrespective of your position, your status and your religion or political party. And religious leaders have a responsibility to ensure there is rule of law, ensure that their congregants obey the law of Nigeria, they are law abiding. They are not breaking any laws, they also have a responsibility to express their voice and hold government accountable, political officers accountable for their actions and to make sure that they too as office holders, that they uphold the rule of law, and that there is no impunity in society, they need to call out acts of impunity in the country and they have to themselves also along with all citizens be the watchdogs of all the three arms of government.”
On how she can take outcomes of the gathering to the corridors of power she said, ”My organization, Community Life Project has been engaging government on different aspects, apart from taking part in advocacy, working with other civil society organizations to call out government, we actually work with government departments, sit with them one on one. So definitely we are starting with those who have the primary responsibility, who are faith leaders but we are definitely going to engage with government. A lot was said today about the dynamics and the things going on in the country, and we thing government has been playing a role there, that is the platform we think we can engage government constructively and ensure that we transcend this issue of politicians manipulating religion and diversities to support their ambitions.”
Reverend Father Ramond Anoliefo, the Director of Justice Development and Peace Centre, Lagos who spoke on Catholic Christian perspective on Religious Tolerance said spoke on the dignity of human person “From the dignity of human person, as anyone created in the image and likeness of God is imbued with dignity and as such we all have to first of all recognize that, that we are all created in God’s image. We all have same dignity, and that is important because if we throw that away, you see we end up killing ourselves, exactly what we found out in the 2023 elections where it seems some persons consider themselves to be better off than others, but of course across the spectrum, across every religious denomination and Faith we all preached that, not only as Christians or as Catholics but of course, as Muslims. We all uphold the dignity and sanctity of human person and the human life. And basically that is it.
“Another aspect of it is the fact that religious tolerance is tied very much to freedom of thoughts and freedom of conscience, so as individuals, we recognize that we are all entitled to personal or individual religious preferences, every religious group must as a matter of urgency let their members have that at the back off their minds so that we do not have to go this route again.
Speaking on how love could be used to enhance tolerance, he said that one of the challenges of the 2023 election was obviously the exploitation of religious beliefs and religion as a whole. “I will say once again that religion was not the problem in the 2023 General Elections, it was exploited and that is it. So it cannot be the problem, the truth is that religion has really helped this country but when malicious, evil people or people with negative intentions want to exploit it, then they begin to touch those areas. But closely tied to it is the fact that a lot of us; there is a calculated attempt to keep us uneducated. When there is impoverishment in our educational system a lot of people are not enlightened as to where they stand, so they become tools in the hands of mischief makers, and that is where religion becomes a tool of exploitation, you don’t feed people but you tell them to vote for this particular person because this person is from your faith, and somebody who is not enlightened enough and probably doesn’t know his left from his right will almost always accept that and will be ready to go all out to harm anyone who is against that particular religion, so religion is not necessarily the problem but the exploitation of it.
“But of course there are other factors, terrible government policies, poverty in the land, so all these, as they say, whoever pays the piper obviously dictates the tune. You know sometimes when you dangle money, because there is a lot of money politics in Nigeria. So when the money comes around, you see religion takes a back seat and then money begins to speak. These are some of the issues that we have come here to discuss, and we are hoping we are going to leave here better off. We see clearly that we can relate with one another, understand our religious differences, emphasise what unites us, and probably de-emphasise what sets us apart, Father Anoliefo stated.
On what government can do he said, “We must agree that government has done something, Nigeria does not suffer from enabling laws, we suffer from implementation of these laws, who is going t enforce these laws, we have laws against hate speech, so what is happening to it. If there are persons we know that exploited our religious sentiment to their own detriment, what has happened to it? There must be sanctions, social sanctions. People should be held accountable for what they say and not just for what they do. So I think this is where the government comes in, and people must be willing and ready either to make these reports directly to government and people should be penalized for these things.”
Sharing Islamic Perspective on religious tolerance, Alhaji Temitope Abdulrasaq Orebiyi, Chief Imam, Ishagatedo Central Mosque, Lagos he said, “First of all, I want to advise my co-leaders, I mean Islamic leaders that we should adhere strictly to our core mandate, the core mandate being that we were appointed to call people to salvation, salvation lies in everything. That is more reason why we should not because of what we will not be able to use money to buy, that is dignity and honour, because election comes just in four years, so we should not because of that election forget our mission in the world.”
He also spoke on the weaponisation of religion by politicians during election “That is what we are here for, to proffer solutions to what really happen during the 2023 general elections, we must not because of money lose our conscience, because as I told you, money would go, the dignity will not be bought back with money. So that is why particularly the leaders we are fathers to all, in our congregation, we have so many party faithful, so should be careful and cautious, though we may have our personal candidates , we should not allow our passion, our love for that particular candidate to take us away from our real mission.”
Oluwo Solagbade Popoola, President, International Council of Ifa Religion, Worldwide, shedding light on African Traditional Religious Perspective on how to curtail religious intolerance especially during elections said, “I think education. Education is very essential. And we have to continuously have this kind of conference, and we also need to lay more emphasis on our similarities rather than thinking about differences, and then, all of us need to lower our air of arrogance. If you think that my religion is better than yours, salvation is at the footsteps of church, Mosque or temple, then nothing is going to happen, but if we all know that there is no one pass to the market place, there several parts, we are all advocating God, why should we be fighting?”
The event drew crowd from who is who in Nigeria were present; various affiliate organisations were adequately represented. Opening remarks was presented by Mr Soni Irabor, CLP Board Chairman; Goodwill message by Emmanuel Kuyole, Programme Officer, Natural Resources and Climate Change, Ford Foundation; while Very Rev. Kolade Fadahunsi, Director, Institute of Church and Society, Ibadan, also share Christian Perspective on the matter.
