By Kayode Ketefe
This writer has often heard it said by
some starry-eyed political theorists and religion enthusiasts that Nigeria is
not a secular state but a mulch-religious state. This view, which offends the
conventional interpretation of the constitution, seems to be gaining grounds
even among enlightened liberal thinkers who are not enmeshed in religious
biases.
The oft-peddled justification for this
latter-day rationalisation on our non-secularity is that the 1999 Constitution,
like others that preceded it, does not anywhere mention the word “secular”
whereas the said constitution provides for freedom of religion. The proponents
of the said construct would also point to religious apparatus by the
authorities like Pilgrims Welfare Boards as mainstreaming of religious tenets
by the officialdom.
The state does not only plan and
organise the pilgrimage to Mecca and Jerusalem but also subisidise the costs of
and even completely sponsors some pilgrims. The declaration of numerous public
holidays on religious holy days by the government has also been cited as a
formal recognition of religion in Nigeria. Furthermore, religious creeds are
taught in our schools from kindergarten to the tertiary institutions.
Is Nigeria then a non- secular
republic? I think the starting point is to analyse the provision of the 1999
Constitution which provides in its section 10, thus “Section “The Government of
the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State
Religion.”
What is the meaning of this? Adoption
of state religion translates into what I may call national spiritual
mainstreaming which is the formal and official integration of religious
philosophies and tenets into all national policies.
The Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary
defines the word “secular” as “not connected with spiritual and religious
matter” while “secularism” is defined as “belief that religion should not be
involved in the organisation of society, education etc” So a
secular state is one in which government does not put official imprimatur
on any religion but leave same to individual’s prerogative.
Religion is a way of life which has
stipulation on virtually every existentialist issue; it regulates human
conducts from birth to death. For example the name a person bears, the kind of
food he may eat or not eat, the kind of person he can marry and even the rites
that would be performed at his funeral are clearly spelt out by each religion.
Anybody that wants to see the
difference between a secular and a religious state should look at happenining
in some states in the North which adopted shari’ah jurisprudence where the
governments forbid people to drink beer, arrests people who laze about during
praying hours and slam stoning to death penalty on women who committed
adultery.
Compare that with what happens in other
parts of Nigeria where secularism reigns; people do what they like; you may
shun mosques and churches without any consequences while nobody controls what
you eat or wear. That is the secularism in action.
Can anybody point to any country in the
world that adopts state religion(s) where the peoples’ lives are not controlled
almost to the minutest detail? In Afghanistan during the Taliban regime, adult
male were mandated by law to grow beard or risk being arrested!
I want to submit that having a
multi-religious society and a secular state is not self-contradictory. As a
matter of fact, it is a nation that is blessed with diverse peoples,
multiple layers of identities and religious diversity that often embrace
secularity as state policy in order to entrenched neutrality rather than
exposing itself to explosive vagaries of religious multiplicity. That is
the reason the framers of our constitution made the nation grundnorm to be
secular.
I have one theoretical question to put
as an acid test to people who insist that our constitution is not secular.
Suppose the Federal Government refuses to declare a holiday of any religion as
a public holiday, is that actionable as a breach of constitution? Can the
aggrieved adherents go to court to seek an order of mandamus to compel the
federal government to make the declaration? No! That shows there is nothing in
our constitution that mandates the government to observe any religious rites.
What I have found out from my arguments
with some learned friends on this matter is that people often take “secularism”
to mean “irreligion” that is lack of religion or total absence of religion.
For example in the communist USSR, religion is officially prohibited,
that, of course, is a different thing entirely from secularism.
Nigeria’s constitution does not support
any religion neither does it espouse irreligion. To that extent it is secular.
Nigerian people are religious, that is sociological fact. But my position is
that this is a fact with no legal implication. The mere fact that
government recognises religions through its policies does not mean we are
legally multi-religious.
The government’s liberality may be
construed as deference to people’s constitutional right to freedom of religion;
it is an attempt to support the people whose security, welfare and happiness
are the primary purpose of government. So my submission is that the
Nigerian society is multi-religious but the grundnorm law on which the nation
rests is secular.
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