’Tunji Ajibade(tunjioa@yahoo.com 08036683657)
The Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Sa’ad Abubakar III, made a public comment recently. It’s his opinion regarding what some have pronounced as persecution of Christians in Nigeria. The Sultan didn’t deny that people were killed across the country. His view was that it wasn’t because such people were Christians. This wasn’t the first time he said at public events that no non-Christian that he knew had deliberately set out to target and kill Christians. He meant there was no grand plan, as far as he knew, that involved conscious efforts to obliterate Christians in any part of Nigeria in spite of how some have interpreted the current security situation.
One response to his comment that caught my attention was reportedly from the Christian Association of Nigeria. My initial thought was to let the report pass as one of those exchanges trending on the matter. But something stood in my mind in the response from CAN. It goes thus: “It was painful reading in the media that the Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Sa’ad Abubakar III, said there was no case of Christian persecution in the country where Christians are being killed…It would have been better if the Sultan had remained quiet the way he did when those killings were taking place.” (The PUNCH. December 29, 2019). I take full note of “it would have been better if the Sultan had remained quiet.” We know this is a subtle way of telling someone to “shut up”. It’s never subtle in a culture where telling a person, “You must be crazy”, is taken as serious insult. I was baffled that veiled insult was in a statement issued by a faith-based organisation.
My interest in this is not about whose view is right and whose is wrong. We know outcomes of our security challenges have been interpreted in different ways depending on which side people argue for. What I’m concerned about is how any argument impacts our unity as a nation. It’s also about how we address one another without forgetting our manners even as we argue. It should concern any Nigerian that in the response to the view expressed by the head of a major faith in Nigeria, caution is thrown away and a dismissive tone with veiled insult is adopted. In a situation where all have become emotional over killings that have taken place, disagreements are allowed, but loss of civility in the banter by either of the two organisations that represent Christians and Muslims in Nigeria is out of the question. Such can further divide rather that unite. Meanwhile, maintaining peace and unity is one reason government recognises CAN and the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, of which the Sultan is the head.
Religious and ethnic matters shouldn’t lead to disunity. Any religious organisation has the right to speak regarding the well-being of its members, but once its leadership abandons civility in addressing the leadership of other religious bodies, it has set worshipers on all sides on the path to what we mustn’t wish for Nigeria. We mustn’t get to that point, and it’s the reason for my view here. Here I address two points. One is to ask why CAN allowed such a veiled insult to be in any response to the Sultan. The other is to place, as I had done in limited forms in the past, the issue in contention in its proper context. It’s obvious that defenders of different issues must have their own narrative. It’s one way to send clear message and push a line of argument. But when a line of argument leaves out other relevant factors that help place an issue in context, it’s a disservice to Nigerians who want to objectively make up their minds in the face of emotion-laden arguments and counter-arguments. My intervention also addresses this.
I return to the matter of the veiled insult in CAN’s press release. In case, anyone who claims to be a member sees nothing wrong in the tone of CAN’s letter, (and I know there are because some have applauded in the past actions and comments that some of us would consider unbecoming of servants of God), I shall present a scenario. Let’s assume that the person to whom the release of CAN’s statement to the press is attributed is the head of a church. He sits in the church office. A congregant sits opposite him and says, “Pastor, it would have been better if you had remained quiet in this dispute since you had nothing worthwhile to say.” I’m sure the pastor would take this as an insult to his person both as a leader and a servant of God. I’m also convinced that it would take a hardened rebel to have the courage to say this to his pastor. I ask, if a church leader wouldn’t take this lightly from a member, why should he, a member of CAN leadership, say the same thing to the leadership of the other religion? Why should an expressed view contrary to what another person has attract insults?
I want to believe this press release didn’t pass through the desk of the CAN president, Rev. Supo Ayokunle. Why? Apart from being a servant of God in the Baptist Church (and the head of the Nigerian Baptist Convention) whose members have utmost respect for traditional authority (Christian or Muslim) wherever they reside, he’s also a Yoruba man. He knows the Yoruba don’t address authority with recklessness. The Yoruba have lived under kings for centuries, so they have ingrained in them the value of respectfully addressing authority wherever they are. I see Yoruba in the North, as well as Baptist churches, and I know they have the most excellent of relationships with Emirs, or any other authority in their locality. This bitterness-filled and discourteous remark about the Sultan couldn’t have passed through Ayokunle’s desk. As a Yoruba man, and apart from what Christianity stands for, the least one expects of Ayokunle is to bring to bear on his administration the Yoruba value of never being disrespectful to a leader.
Why should highest civility be maintained in the exchanges between CAN and SCIA even when they disagree? One, Christians are protected by both the Sultan and Emirs in their domains. If the leadership of the Muslims also start to treat and address Christian leaders at the local levels with discourtesy, or they watch as a few miscreants maltreat Christians, we know it will lead to general chaos. The same thing applies if Christian leaders reciprocate any rude gestures. Two, these leaderships, both Muslims and Christians, play major roles in maintaining peace and keeping our peoples together. With them in any locality, the government feels its back is covered as it continues to carry out its duties. No matter what some have to say about the role of traditional and religious institutions, they help the nation in more than one way. In some localities, people take them more seriously than they do the government. The Sultan is one of such figures, and that is the institution someone in CAN says to publicly what he obviously says in his private conversations.
The other issue is the controversy over the persecution or otherwise of members of any religion. No doubt, Nigerians are killed in the current security challenges that confront the nation. Where the disagreement lies is when different segments of the population take stock and decide to assert that their members are being deliberately targeted. But in the heated exchanges, no person or organisation should discard civility. This reminds me of an event involving one of the denominations belonging to CAN; it helps place this in context. Pastor E.A. Adeboye’s church, The Redeemed Christian Church of God, issued two press statements not long ago. One was about a former RCCG pastor and Trade Ministry official who, in disobedience to the Presidency, issued an order on how long heads of faith groups could be in office. The second was the RCCG’s response to some protesters who said Adeboye was silent on issues affecting Christians. I recall that I had consciously searched for hints of rebuke, disrespect, insult, anger or bitterness in both press releases. There were only reverent words worthy of a faith-based organisation. But here’s CAN, the umbrella organisation, adopting irreverent tone.
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I opened this mail hoping to read something very interesting am not a linguistic student, but am sure ur third paragraph is seriously setting out to confuse and derail the readers.
More so, it would have been better to be silent on some issues than to speak and cause harm. How is this a way to tell someone to shut up, am sure you know what ure writing and uploading to the media for consumption am also sure u don’t think I had you have written will Foster peaceful resolutions?
Write without implying something what u think was said, say what was said and threat the treat… Which is the killing of innocent Nigerians whether Muslims or Christians.
Thank you