Between Religion, Politics And Social Justice

The contents of this piece are bound to elicit plethora of harsh reactions, especially from some holier-than-though ones among us; the highly religious, but less spiritual, fanatical adherents of the several religious bodies in Nigeria, most especially some know-it-all arrowheads of the two major religions – Christianity and Islam – and their largely ignorant disciples. Be that as it may, I would like to remind anybody reading this piece that it is better to please God than to massage the cathedral-like egos of mere mortals, by refraining from telling the truth as I see it.

In the following lines, I examine the complicity of religion in the traditional order of politics in Nigeria, which has created and sustained an unjust system of social relations where a minute fraction of the population continually lord’s it over the larger body politic – a refined form of Apartheid that has overseen the citizens of one of the naturally richest countries in the world, living like Serfs in the land of their fathers; of how religion has abdicated from its role as an agent of social justice, and has unwittingly become an accomplice in the systemic decapitation of the people by the cruel drivers of the Nigerian state. I will not bore you with stories about the evolution of the largely adversarial relationship that has existed between the members of the Nigerian ruling class and the masses since the lowering of the Union Jack and the hoisting of the Green-White-Green in 1960 – lots of literature already exist on this subject – but will proceed to state my candid views, without fear of contradiction, on how the ongoing messy state of affairs in our worship centers has helped sustain the war of attrition being waged by the haves against the have-nots.

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